The Kuleshov Effect

Clickbait title: This One Weird Trick Is The Reason Movies Even Work

There's something cathartic about drilling all the way down to the fundamentals. Not just the basic techniques, but the actual fundamentals, the bedrock of how something even functions in the first place, the reason why a series of edits can be used to tell a story rather than simply turning into abstract mush. It's also surprisingly challenging, like explaining what hands are.

Written and performed by Dan Olson

[Theyungcity]

3:01

Don't you see? The two soldiers trapped in the infinite expanse of snow. The giant cat monster omnipotent, inescapable, in the face of it all. And how it doubles back and informs the cold container which is so much like a prison; so sweet to those who manipulate it, so refreshing. 10/10 wept uncontrollably.

[tylerskiss]

This film is also a great example of the JJ Effect. That's when you take one film that is completely unrelated to another and very loosely link them, then you sit back and watch as the audience assigns meaning to all kinds of things that were never intentional.

[RedMeansRecording]

Just found your channel and even as someone who has been editing professionally for a while it's a joy to hear you talk about it.

[Fionor]

Even if you recreated Kuleshov's experiment mostly the way he did it, the effect itself works better if actor doesn't look directly to camera. As you probabaly know, that was mostly typical for early Soviet cimanatography with cuts to somewhat different place and symbolic action in purpose to deliver emotion. Today in modern cinema shot en face works almost the same but need more connected context.
What I'm trying to say (and sorry English is not my natural language) is that for demonstrational purposes it's better to follow actors line of sigh to see object he sees to create context. Direct en face shot is intimate and deliver it's own feeling - mostly like we're looking directly "into his soul" nad context is on different level (harder to deliver).

[AstraVex]

Human eyes SHOULD have a zoom-function!

[paulbulger]

Your film theory and criticism is literally the best that can be found on YouTube.

[marssj]

It's interesting how the brain will fill in the gaps between two images. Kind of like how the brain fills in the gap in animation or let's you think you are not seeing your nose. You are always seeing your nose.

[valsauramaa]

... I now understand everything that went wrong with a short film I helped make a while back.

So thanks for that.
But also goddammit I wish this had come out sooner.

[johnkinsey]

It's uncanny how watchable this channel is. If it was merely described to me (i.e., there's a dude standing in front of a gray screen talking for 10 to 20 minutes), I would think it sounded boring. But, the cut-shots, the tempo, in short, the editing, makes it not only easy, but enjoyable. Well done.

[houston-coley]

YES! YOU USED 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE! Dude, I can't tell you how much I adored that film and I love how you've mentioned it a few times. It deserves more attention - great editing, great sound design, great acting, great everything all around.

[nathanhall]

I find these videos some of the most rewatchable on YouTube. Hugely informative while still being entertaining. Thanks for the awesome content!

[cheezemonkeyeater]

You know, that bit where you're talking about the eyeline shot thing, that gives me so many interesting ideas on ways to fuck with that principle in really fun and surreal ways.

[anxez]

This just makes me appreciate the opening of Arrival even more.
Fuck. Just knowing that he abused the Kuleshov effect to bait and switch us hard is amazing.

[Mrinsecure]

I know you just want excuses to show off your cat, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

She's a ragdoll, right?

[hawkspeak]

Your ability to discuss complex technical ideas and make them entertaining has my utmost admiration and envy. Couple this with your skill in editing in, seamlessly, real world film samples and examples and illustrating these ideas is also a rare gift. Or I should say you have honed and perfected several very necessary and important crafts that most of us instructors are poor at, or neglect entirely. In this age of online education YOU should be the future. You should open a school for teaching teachers how to teach. We need more like you. I salute you sir. And always learn from you.

[AnthonyMcNeil]

Seriously, people are really worried about a like or dislike bar instead of actually listening to what he is saying, smh. Hopefully we will get another video about editing, it's really interesting when it's broken down like that. Great video.

[hednismbot]

In Russian, the word montage literally still means just editing in general. So the Academy award for editing ends up being an award for the best montage of the year :)

[afernandezafaf]

I have watched quite a few of these already because I just love the analysis of film when it's done as beautifully and intelligibly as you do it.

Thank you for these!

[lockepersonal]

In russian montage=editing, there is no other word for it.

[admanios]

The way you talk about editing here reminds me of how Scott McCloud talked about sequential imagery in his book Understanding Comics, especially with regards to linguistics, and how our minds are trained to see meaning and subject in letters and words. It occurred to me that Kuleshov's work makes editing literally into the "language" of film.

The way a film is constructed would be equivalent to spelling and grammar, so a poorly-edited film like Suicide Squad is like a statement written with poor spelling and grammar. The elements are there, but they've been assembled badly, and context and meaning is garbled. When you mentioned the concept of "closure", my mind immediately went back to Understanding Comics when McCloud discussed stylization and the universality of cartoon imagery. We more readily accept the world of things drawn in a simpler style because we can put ourselves into it.

All this is probably first-year stuff though...