Film editing is a powerful tool as it’s a medium that can engage the viewer both mentally and emotionally. As you build your edit, the viewer unconsciously associates relationship and meaning between juxtaposed shots. Each individual shot, by itself, gives some type of story information to the audience. However, they create a larger meaning once assembled into a sequence. This phenomenon is known as The Kuleshov Effect in the film theory world.
The Kuleshov Experiment
Russian filmmaker and theorist, Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970), is a major contributor to Soviet Cinema in the 1920s and contributor to film theory. In his early days, he started as a newsreel cameraman during the Russian Revolution. Upon the conclusion of the revolution, he later taught at the Moscow Film School. There he attracted intellectual discourse that would become the genesis of Soviet Montage Theory. For Kuleshov, editing was the essence of Cinema. This would lead him to conduct his famous experiment that further expanded on this concept.
In the Kuleshov experiment, he edited three different series of shots using the same shot of a neutral faced actor combined with a different secondary shot within each series. In the first series there is a bowl of soup, the second a child in a coffin, and the third a reposed woman in a chaise. Later, he showed each series to a separate audience and asked the audience what they perceived in the actor’s performance.
This resulted in three distinct interpretations from the audience. In the first series with the soup, the audience perceives the actor’s expression to convey hunger. When seeing the combination with the child in the coffin, they see sadness in his face. And when combined with the reclined woman, they interpret desire in his look.
The actor’s shot is exactly the same in each series. However, the audience perceives a different emotion in his performance when combined with a different shot.
What was the central discovery of Lev Kuleshov’s experiment?
What it surmises is that two shots don’t have to be related to one another. However, through the act of editing we infer an implied relationship. This collision of images results in a new idea for the viewer. In conclusion, the editor has the control to manipulate the audience’s emotions through the act of editing.
Kuleshov Effect as Smoke and Mirrors
Film is not shot in chronological order. However, becomes the job of the filmmaker to create the illusion of continuum. A major goal of any edit is to get the audience to not be conscious of the inherent discontinuous nature of film. Misdirecting the audience’s attention by engaging their minds is one way this is achieved. At the core of The Kuleshov Effect, you make the viewer an active participant in the creation of the film’s meaning. When you engage the audience’s heart and mind the physical act of editing often goes unnoticed.
Applying the Kuleshov Effect to your Filmmaking
The Kuleshov Effect remains alive and well in modern video content from cinema, television, to entertaining social media content. How can you better prepare to employ the concepts learned from the Kuleshov Experiment into your own work?
Frame it up!
The Close-Up Shot can intimately capture the talent’s performance emphasizing subtle changes in their eyes and face. These subtleties can speak louder than words alone.
In building your edit, the close-up can pair with a Point of View Shot. This type of shot implies the perspective seen through a character’s eyes. Furthermore they help to clarify what a character thinks or feels about what they saw.
To bring the edit full circle, grab a Reaction Shot. This shows the talent reacting to someone or something that has occurred.
Edit to Emphasize Emotion and Reactions
With those previously discussed shots you captured, think creatively how you can use them to build the emotion of the scene. We see a character, what they are looking at, and how they feel.
Should we be calling it The Kuleshov Effect?
Filmmaker and scholar, Dr. Karen Pearlman, proposes the film community to reevaluate using the term The Kuleshov Effect and rebranding it The Editors Effect. Before Kuleshov conducted his experiment, this editing phenomenon was already used by editors. It just did not have as a specific name. Often, those early editors were women as it traditionally was considered the job of a woman.
In effect, frequently crediting Kuleshov with this filmmaking concept, we may be further repressing women’s historical contributions to cinema in a world where their contributions are frequently underrepresented and egregiously overwritten.
Learn How to Build Emotion In Your Edit
Learning how to take this idea into your editing can take practice. What shot coverage you use at a specific moments can enhance the emotion of a scene. In EditMentor’s Advanced Film Editing Workshop with Stephen Mark, ACE, users will explore this concept. In this workshop you’ll learn to identify key story moments, build intrigue, and create empathetic characters. You can bet the magic of the Kuleshov Effect comes into action as you practice editing techniques with Stephen Mark!
