Shawndocee Grant
10/06/15
Short Essay
K. Juarez
Editing Techniques in “The Babadook”
“Lights. Camera. Action” the film is set in motion. Actors fulfill their talent in portraying their designated characters, but the behind-the-scene elements is what really brings the motion picture together. Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent used her calling wisely in creating the 2005 short film “The Babadook”. The story centers arounds two chilling points, the essence of the mind and the tricks it will play and a good ol’ scary haunted house tale. These components could not have been better achieved without the editing usage of distanciation. Film editing gravitates to two key purposes: (1) to conjure up emotions and thoughts through the edifice of structuring sight, (2) to extend from the boundaries of individual perception and its limitations. It’s quite magical when you think of it and most directors hope to gain that aspect. Distanciation or also known as the alienation effects. The art form is used to create a knowledgeable distance between the viewer and the performance in order to show the work’s various themes being brought out. Distanciation relies greatly on disjunctive editing. The car riding scenes with our main characters Amelia and Samuel were notorious for…show more content… This edit interferes with a certain action which can be intentional or unintentional. It keys in on the discontinuities within the shots. This was evident early on in the film of “The Babadook”. Just as little Samuel was nodding off he hears noises from his closet. The camera starts with a medium close-up of him, then it quickly jumps to a medium close-up of his closet, to quickly zoom to an extreme close-up of Samuels’s choice of weapon (a baseball), and once again to choppily jump back to the closet and then back to Samuel. This technique allures the audience while heightening the