Child's Play; Editing
The 1988 horror 'Child's Play', most commonly known for the killer toy 'Chucky' has an opening scene to do with a detective and a criminal in a gun fight in an empty street that ends in a toy store. The scene involves the criminal using black magic to put his soul out of his dying body and into that of a doll. There is a lot of different shots in this scene, as well as what we we mainly be looking at; the techniques of editing. This is how the film-making process decides to show the narrative with sound and images, as there are different techniques used.
The most common type of editing used in films is Linear Narrative. This is where the story is shown chronologically, in the correct order of events that is easy to follow. A film that does not follow this example is the film 'Momento' which is edited for the events to happen backwards from the end to the start. Child's Play uses the commonly used Linear Narrative so it can tell it's story without confusing the audience and making them think and piece the film together with continuity that they cannot understand or nit-pick it.
There are credits within the opening scene of this film, most noticeably the shot with the dolls in the toy store all stacked up and then the title 'Child's Play' appears next to it as the scene continues, not stopping for the title for it to any visual effects like something from 'Scream' or 'Ash vs Evil Dead'. With this editing, the movie viewers don't have to wait for the title to go by, they are constantly engaged with the onscreen images of what is happening between this tense shootout between a criminal and detective instead of having the scene jump cut to a title that wouldn't have the same impact and ruin the tension of the scene that they are watching that clearly explains the origin of the killer doll.
The most common type of editing used in films is Linear Narrative. This is where the story is shown chronologically, in the correct order of events that is easy to follow. A film that does not follow this example is the film 'Momento' which is edited for the events to happen backwards from the end to the start. Child's Play uses the commonly used Linear Narrative so it can tell it's story without confusing the audience and making them think and piece the film together with continuity that they cannot understand or nit-pick it.
There are credits within the opening scene of this film, most noticeably the shot with the dolls in the toy store all stacked up and then the title 'Child's Play' appears next to it as the scene continues, not stopping for the title for it to any visual effects like something from 'Scream' or 'Ash vs Evil Dead'. With this editing, the movie viewers don't have to wait for the title to go by, they are constantly engaged with the onscreen images of what is happening between this tense shootout between a criminal and detective instead of having the scene jump cut to a title that wouldn't have the same impact and ruin the tension of the scene that they are watching that clearly explains the origin of the killer doll.
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