Movies in the 1890s were not as detailed or filled with eye-popping special effects. Short stories would be a better way of
describing movies back then. When it was time for me to edit Edwin S. Porter's 1903 short film titled "Life of An American
Fireman," the task was far more confusing than I thought. I would view this film as an "actualities" film which is a movie that
shows an actual event and from the looks of this film, it looked real to me. The easy part was just arranging the scenes from start
to finish, and I knew what the film was about because I had seen it earlier on the telling stories on film site. What confused me
the most was how the film was made. It shows only two scenes, one from inside the house and one from outside the burning
house. The Film shows the same acts from both points of views, making an idiot think that the firefighter saved two women, two
babies and then put out the fire. In reality, one after another, it shows the saving the lady scene from the inside then from the
outside. This type of filming technique is called "temporal overlap" which is described as showing the same scene twice from
different perspectives. The temporal overlap in the Fireman movie confused me on how I wanted the film to look after the edit. I
could have switched scenes going back and forth showing the whole process from inside and out, or stick to the original which
showed the rescue from inside then showed the same scene from outside. I decided to switch scenes to make it look more
realistic then just boring the audience with the same scene twice. Instead I showed the outdoor scene of the lady yelling for help
first then displayed the view from the inside showing the lady by the window yelling for help. I then, continued showing the
firemen from inside the house, then showed the same action from the outdoor view. This type of method looks more like movies
made today. Movies made in the 1890s remind of the types of films Quentin Tarentino made like Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown
which contains many scenes with temporal overlap.
I believe that the more natural way to telling a story is not by using "temporal overlap" but by "parallel editing" in which
simultaneous scenes of action are "intercut" to produce a unified narrative. With "parallel editing" the viewer is given more details
on what is happening around the situation, and not just on one scene. In order to tell a story more true to life, I think that "temporal
overlap" would definitely ruin the story because in reality no person can can be looking at the same thing from two views at the
exact same time. Using one camera to follow the person around would probably be the best bet. One movie called " The Blair
Witch Project" used this exact technique, and since that type of filming was never used except for homemade videos, The movie
was a smash hit and earned a huge amount of profit. Obviously the filming looked very cheap but the storyline of the movie itself
made it interesting and left many viewers scared afterwards.
Movies that are put out these days are mainly about drugs, sex, money, violence, comedy etc... Many people view movies as a
bad thing in our society since there are many young kids who view tv and movies a source of education. For this very reason
movies are given ratings and I believe as long as employees at the movie theaters keep young kids under 17 years of age out of
R-rated movies, then movies should not be viewed as a bad thing. I personally love movies, because they are so entertaining,
considering there are many genres to choose from especially between action, comedy, and horror. For the more realistic view,
one may choose to see a film that is based on a true story, and that would be as real as it gets.