Friday, December 16, 2005

A human filter

I feel like my head has become a filter for all the information that might possibly be relevant to my thesis. All the ideas I have had about continuity editing, the papers I have read, the studies I have performed are all filtering through my head and on to the page. If I achieve nothing with my thesis at least I can be proud or collating such a large reference list! This is the problem with performing cross-disciplinary research you have to be knowledgeable in multiple areas simultaneously. This requires a lot of reading and even more thinking. After I hand in my thesis (less than a month from now) I'm going to need to do something mind-numbing for a while. Maybe I'll get a job in data entry. I did this job for three summers during my undergraduate degree and it is incredible how little of your brain you need to use to do it well (no disrespect to the envelope stuffers out there).

My thesis is finally shaping up. I've got most of the sections written and the main theory is nearing its final form. For anybody who has witnessed/read any of the previous accounts of my research its final form might come as some what of a shock. By reading so many theories written in different areas I started to see the natural crossovers. I think my theory as it now stands can account for a lot of the techniques used in continuity editing. All that I hope is that my examiners also think so.

I'll wait until my thesis is finished before debuting my new theory. However, if you want to get a good insight into why continuity editing is acceptable to the human perceptual system take a look at these books. These editors know what's what:

Dmytryk, Edward (1986) On Filmmaking
Block, Bruce (2001) The Visual Story: Seeing structure of film, TV, and New Media
Murch, Walter (2001) In The Blink Of An Eye: a perspective on film editing
Pepperman, Richard (2004) The Eye is Quicker: film editing; making a good film better

Do you see a theme?

Quick Thesis Update:
Deadline = 9th January (Merry Christmas for me then)
Percentage written = 80% (and then I have to edit; Oh, the irony: the one part of writing I hate)