A Danish Journal of Film Studies 1 Editing in the depth of the surface A few basic principles of graphic editing

The history of film editing can be roughly divided into three major steps: From the single shot of the very first films- the only 'editing ' being the timing of the action to take place in the short time of approximately one minute between the beginning and the end of the take- to the 'photoplay ' where several single shots of this kind were joined together, some of them with texts in between. Secondly, the step towards different ways of establish-ing time and space, the so-called continuity principle, with the actual footage being shot discontinuously- in numerous pieces, from different angles and in varying scales. This principle evolved mainly in the United States in the first decade of this century, but soon wa