Task 5 - Understanding Montage Theory

Within the editing industry there are many techniques that may be used, including a montage. A montage is like I said one of many techniques used that is demonstrated by selecting, editing and piecing together separate clips that join together to make a whole. The shots are juxtaposed in a fast-pace fashion that portrays a compressed version of events which conveys a lot of footage/information in a short period of time.

The French Montage - within the French film industry; due to "montage" being a French word, its literal meaning is assembly, therefore within French film the term identifies the process of editing quite simply.

Hollywood Style Montage - within Hollywood cinema the montage technique is used to condense a long sequence into a short one. An example of this would be the legendary Rocky training montage. Hollywood film makers may choose to include a montage for the sole reason of saving time and being able to portray many events in short period.

Soviet Montage - within the Soviet cinema a montage is often used to reveal a hidden meaning of a shot. Soviet film makers used juxtaposing shots to create a new meaning that didn't exist within any of the shots alone.
                This idea came from a young soviet film maker called Lev Kuleshov that did an experiment in 1920 when he took a head shot and was able to portray the image for various meanings. Shown in the image below:

Another example of a Soviet montage would be 'Modern Times'  and 'Strike'

'Modern Times' is an example of Soviet cinema. As we know, sheep follow each other and that is the clip. That clip is then juxtaposed with humans all moving within one direction with gives off the impression that humans are like sheep because they just follow each other.

'Strike' is a movie that was made by Sergei Eisenstein which show two unrelated scenes. One being a butcher working in a slaughter house and the other one with striking workers being pursued by Russian troops. This is an example of soviet cinema because both of the shots juxtapose each other to create a hidden meaning. That meaning being that the troops are linked somehow to the slaughter house because they're all running out to their death.