Edwin S Porter: Parallel Editing

In the early 1900s Edwin S Porter experimented with a 'new way of telling a story' by introducing parallel editing, the idea of showing 'meanwhile this is happening elsewhere'.  ("Simultaneous, not progressive"editing).

The following text is from earlycinema.com and tells of Porter's fascination with the work of Georges Melies and how he used a combination of actual footage and dramatised scenes to tell a story, for example in the films 'Life of an American Fireman' and The Great Train Robbery'.

From earlycinema.com:

Edwin S. Porter joined the Vitascope Marketing Company in 1895 where his experience with electrical engineering was called into use.

Whilst at Vitascope, Porter was central in the organisation of the first projected movie show in New York on the 23rd April 1896. He continued to use his engineering skills in the laboratory at Edison’s Manufacturing Company but left to become a freelance projectionist at the Eden Musee Theatre in 1898. 

Whilst working as a projectionist, one of Porter’s many duties included the illegal duplication of Méliès films. He would take apart one act reels and combine several of these into a fifteen minute programme.

In addition, he attempted to create his own camera and projector but his efforts were in vain and in 1900 he returned to Edison’s Company not in an engineering capacity but as a producer and director at Edison’s East 21st Street Skylight studio. 

A fan of the films of Georges Méliès, Porter tried to emulate the trick photography which Méliès had introduced to the world and had proved incredibly successful, in films such as 'The Finish of Bridget McKeen' (1901) and 'Jack and the Beanstalk' (1902). Porter was also one of the first directors to shoot at night in his 'Pan-American Exposition by Night'. 

Porter’s skill with editing and methods of projection were used to great effect in some of his earliest films. He combined documentary footage with his own footage in films like 'The Execution of Czoyosz' (which he made with actor and set painter George S. Fleming); in 'Life of an American Fireman' he adopted a documentary style of filmmaking .

'Life of an American Fireman' combined stock actuality footage of fires, firemen and fire engines with dramatised scenes which Porter shot, this juxtaposition added tension and release to the film making it truly dramatic in contemporary setting, unlike Méliès whose filmatic drama was derived from his films’ fantasy settings. 

Porter was convinced, from the audience reaction that he had discovered a new way of telling stories and developed his ideas the following year with the release of 'The Great Train Robbery', perhaps the most influential film of that decade. 

'The Great Train Robbery' benefited from a strong storyline, well composed, sophisticated camera work and an excellent climax, joined together by Porter’s excellent use of editing. 

Although it was not the first 'Western', 'The Great Train Robbery' was the first Epic Western, which boasted a cast of forty actors working to an actual script. 

During his time at Edison, he made many films for the company, in fact he was the mainstay of their film production for over five years. He left in 1909 and took senior production posts with a number of new independent companies. 

Six years later, In 1915 Porter returned to his firs enthusiasm - projectors and remained involved with projection for the rest of his working life. 

 The Great Train Robbery

 

This is part of an interesting article about The Great Train Robbery from archive.org which tells how the film's editing showed two separate lines of action.

http://archive.org/details/TheGreatTrainRobbery1903

The film used a number of innovative techniques, many of them for the first time, including parallel editing, minor camera movement, location shooting and less stage-bound camera placement. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique, showing two separate lines of action or events happening continuously at identical times but in different places. The film is intercut from the bandits beating up the telegraph operator (scene one) to the operator's daughter discovering her father (scene ten), to the operator's recruitment of a dance hall posse (scene eleven), to the bandits being pursued (scene twelve), and splitting up the booty and having a final shoot-out (scene thirteen). The film also employed the first pan shots (in scenes eight and nine), and the use of an ellipsis (in scene eleven). Rather than follow the telegraph operator to the dance, the film cut directly to the dance where the telegraph operator enters. It was also the first film in which gunshots forced someone to dance (in scene eleven) - an oft-repeated, cliched action in many westerns. And the spectacle of the fireman (replaced by a dummy with a jump cut in scene four) being thrown off the moving train was a first in screen history.

In the film's fourteen scenes, a narrative story with multiple plot lines was told - with elements that were copied repeatedly afterwards by future westerns - of a train holdup with six-shooters, a daring robbery accompanied by violence and death, a hastily-assembled posse's chase on horseback after the fleeing bandits, and the apprehension of the desperadoes after a showdown in the woods. The steam locomotive always provided a point of reference from different filming perspectives. The first cowboy star, Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson played several roles: a bandit, a wounded passenger, and a tenderfoot dancer.