MARTIN NGUYEN

As editor it is my role and responsibility to toil through vast quantities of footage -envisioned by the director and crafted by the cinematographer and finding the correct sequence. The correct sequence might involve stopping and cutting footage into rapid montages such as in Vertov’s “Man with a movie camera” or arranging a continuous and logical narrative such as that of a Golden Age Hollywood film or a D.W. Griffith silent epic.

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For our film, the vision conceived by our director Matt is that of a pub’s transition against the tides of history and that through the progression of time, change is inevitable. As the Cambridge was once considered a ‘watering hole’, archival film footage and images will be edited in conjunction with dialogue of the interviewees to demonstrate the progression from past to present. In Eisenstein’s theory of montage editing it is essential to consider the theme of the piece. To encapsulate the sense of progression of the memory of a once violent pub (derived from interviews of individuals who were present at the time) to the modern chaotic entertainment venue that it is now, there will be a sense of escalation in the tempo of the editing e.g. the progressive reduction in shot length) to build to a climactic sequence. Consideration of meter editing; that is to follow the beat structures of an escalating soundtrack will help further inform the stylistic approach.