Intuition in creative film editing practice: using phenomenology to explain editing as an embodied experience

ABSTRACT

Intuition has long been associated with creativity in editing but not easily explained when it comes to unravelling the editor's creative process. An editor's physiological and cognitive response to the film material they work with plays a significant role in developing a rhythmic storytelling technique and style that is ‘right’ for the film. Creative film editing practice is a major focus of my research and the inspiration in developing the education resource, The Art of Editing: Australian Screen Editors Discuss Creativity in Editing (2015). As much as I draw on interviews from this resource, I will further investigate the source of the editor's intuitive process in reference to phenomenological film theory, specifically the work of Vivian Sobchack and Jennifer Barker, who explore the embodiment of film. Both Sobchack and Barker argue the ‘body of the spectator’ and the ‘body of the film’ as reciprocal to the ‘existential act of viewing’. As such, a phenomenological film theory that moves beyond the confines of critical film studies to one that embraces the ‘act of viewing’ resonates with the editor's intuitive process as the ‘first audience of the film’ which has a direct impact in shaping the audience's embodied experience of a film.

KEYWORDS:

• Film editing
• intuition
• phenomenology
• Vivian Sobchack
• Jennifer Barker

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Dr Jillian Holt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Film and Animation at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. As a professional screen editor now academic, her area of expertise in teaching and research is postproduction and editing. Dr Holt completed a PhD in 2015 which she undertook as Practice-based Research. The outcome of her doctoral studies titled, The Art of Editing: Creative Practice and Pedagogy, includes the production of an artefact / educational teaching resource that leads to new insights into creative editing practice.

Notes

1 Merleau-Ponty's essay, The Film and the New Psychology (1945), was reprinted in Sense and Non-sense (1964) and re-published in the book The robot in the garden (2000, 332–345).