Power of Editing

Taking a step back from the Rodney King case’s verdict, and the social circumstances surrounding the event itself, it becomes far too clear that even something as visceral as video can be distorted and interpreted to have completely alternative meanings. The amazing thing is that the Rodney King footage was un-edited, and was clearly not faked in anyway shape or form. The way the defense used this footage to their advantage through framing, really opened my eyes how editing, even in this crude form, can drastically influence public opinion. Goodwin made reference to this referring to coding schemas, “The power of coding schemes to control perception in this fashion was central to the defense strategy”(616). It was through the framing of the footage that imbued the defense with ability to slant the video to the defense’s favor. If this is the possible and accomplished through such minor editing, then imagine the amount of impact that editing has on a narrative based documentary such as Fahrenheit 911 (Michael Moore). A director can toy with any bit of footage to get across their desired message. Since we can assume that a Michael Moore film is never objective, exactly how much of it can we trust? I believe this points out a flaw in the very definition of documentaries. If we see them as works of realism or believe that they are in the search of objective truth, then we are mistaken. Through the very act of editing, the realism is automatically eradicated. The process of editing requires a vision or direction to be accomplished, so obviously a completely objective documentary is almost impossible. All the editing is deliberate, and all messages have been formed through this editing.

This same falseness applies to reality television, since the 3rd wall rule is never broken, we can really never know what is going on behind the scenes, or to what extent the behind the scenes work affects the protagonists of the show. Additionally, reality television has to compress days, weeks or even years into an entertaining timeframe, so editing has an even greater role to play in this genre, and is almost assuredly how these shows come across as entertaining. There is almost no limit to the amount of tinkering they can do, or what stories they chose to highlight. This editing can seriously affect how the individuals are seen, and can be miles away from even approaching a realistic portrayal. These factors all converge to create a hyper-real fabrication of reality. To see this in action, the wonder of youtube brings you the genius of the BBC. The Brits really like to take the piss on reality TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI