Cutting - Text 1
In film editing, “cutting” means to remove a piece of film. But this definition becomes more complex once one takes into account the technical aspects of this action and considers whether the cut was made to negative or positive film stock, and when and where it was made – in the laboratory before finalising the print, or in the projection booth at the moment the film was shown. Each involves quite different tools and actions, used by agents equally varied (camera operators, persons in charge of the assembly, projectionists, etc.). In this context, “cutting” can no longer be seen as a simple action, but rather as a techneme.
Most early cinematic pictures did not require the film stock to be cut; generally speaking, the picture was projected the way it was recorded. But cutting the film made it possible very early on to solve problems which could arise while a picture was being shot, particularly because of a momentary interruption (planned or unplanned) in the cranking of the camera. In these cases, the film did not stop making its way through the camera immediately, such that several defective images (under-exposed or foggy) were recorded. It may thus have been necessary to cut these images out of the negative and then to join the separated pieces of this negative back together. On the positive print, this operation left a mark, a border at the top of the image, even though the positive had no material join.