Fiction Adaptation - Montages

A montage is used to inform the audience rather than move them. In filmmaking, montages contain contrasting images and film in a single composition through juxtaposition in order to create new meaning. They can be used to both shorten and lengthen time, depending on what the montage is meant to convey.

Montage Editing

Continuity editing requires its relations to be fairly tightly defined. In order to move away from the standards of continuity editing, these relations can be played with and used to create many other possibilities. It may be the case now that we are so used to the formal standards of continuity editing, that the rules have to be broken in mainstream cinema for the audience to remain active viewers.



Graphic

Graphic relations are to do with editing and mise-en-scene. The whole look of objects in the frame tells us something about them, due to cues such as colour and size. If there is, due to editing, more than one frame, we can compare and contrast different objects in different frames.

For instance, a playoff can be achieved if two characters are in separate frames, wearing very spartan, grey or very lavish, colourful clothes. We can then be informed about such influences as lifestyle, income, class, level of self-confidence, and so on. Of course, this does not merely apply to human objects. The background can indicate as much graphic relation as the foreground and its inhabitants.

Spatial

The amount of space occupied in the frame by certain objects in certain frames. One cluttered frame, full of people, which then cuts to a sparse frame containing one person can indicate isolation or claustrophobia, depending on the point of view and which frame is 'favoured'. Consider also the angle of the camera. Or better say -- the changes in camera angles.

Temporal

The relations of objects and narrative in time. Editing is the most important method of controlling the allocation of time in film. As graphic relations are also to do with mise-en-scene, temporal relations share themselves with another part of film - in this case, narrative. Entities in the film are allocated time according to the following mechanisms:

1. Order
2. Frequency
3. Duration
4. Rhythm