The Collision

Lev Kuleshov was a Russian director born on January 1st 1899. He was most famous for his editing technique which is known as the 'Kuleshov effect.' He wasn't the first to use such editing technique as ones such as 'crosscutting' had been used in Hollywood before him. He was the first one that used it in Soviet Russia.

When we began to compare the typically American, typically European, and typically Russian films, we noticed that they were distinctly different from one another in their construction. We noticed that in a particular sequence of a Russian film there were, say, ten to fifteen splices, ten to fifteen different set-ups. In the European film there might be twenty to thirty such set-ups, while in the American film there would be from eighty, sometimes upward to a hundred, separate shots. The American films took first place in eliciting reactions from the audience; European films took second; and the Russian films, third. We became particularly intrigued by this, but in the beginning we did not understand it. - Lev Kuleshov

In this quote Kuleshov states how the Russian films are a lot different from other Europeans ones and American ones. This is because of the way that they are set up to the shot is a lot differently and the process they go through is different.

The original work for the 'Kuleshov effect' 

The Kuleshov effect 

The effect is a documented part of film-making where by putting a film together, using three different situations but only using one reaction which is the same each time. The audience praised the acting for showing hunger, grief and lust not knowing that the reaction is the exact same each time. The reaction shots were to a dead women, a women on a recliner and a plate of soup; three entirely different situations. By using this editing technique it creates a meaning that the audience wouldn't have thought of before, which is a way of constructing the sentences. This way the audience doesn't realise that their reaction is in their own mind they just think it's down to the actors subtly not realising that they are being affected by the same reaction in the scene. The impact of Kuleshov's work was the audience not understanding that they are being manipulated and tricked as the emotion in the scene is heightened in a number of different ways even though the expression never changes.

All art is emotion, and that the task of the filmmaker is to use the tools of his medium to manipulate the audience’s emotional experience - Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock here states that it is all in the eye of the filmmaker the reason why the audience feels certain emotions is because it is the way the filmmaker plays them to believe or not believe something. Therefore tricking and playing with the audiences emotion. 

The expression never changes.

It is questionable whether the Kuleshov effect can actually control other people's feelings. As discussed by psychologists, people will bring their own opinions and emotions to what they see. The audiences will classify and mis-classify certain faces. This is because a neutral face can either look happy or sad with fear either about anger and confusion. 

The reactions weren't as diverse as Kuleshov thought they would have been with the audience realising that he was actually in love with the women and he didn't just lust over her. This is because at no times does the actor look bored with the audience as some audiences might need more context to understand the look that the actor is trying to give. The intense emotion that is a given shows no sign of being a negative emotion. Which makes the audience be able to give a more specific emotion once they are aware of the object. 

Documentaries take basically unrelated footage and juxtapose it in order to give the viewer the idea the filmmaker wants to convey. They take footage of birds snapping a twig. They take footage of a fawn raising his head. The two shots have nothing to do with each other. They were shot days or years, and miles, apart. And the filmmaker juxtaposes the images to give the viewer the idea of great alertness. The shots have nothing to do with each other. They are not a record of what the protagonist did. They are not a record of how the deer reacted to the bird. They’re basically uninflected images. But they give the viewer the idea of alertness to danger when they are juxtaposed. That’s good filmmaking. - On Directing Film by David Mamet 

Again like Hitchcock said, David Mamet says how the film maker does certain things in order to tell the story in the way that they want it to.

One of the most famous examples of the Kuleshov effect

 is in the video 'Hitchcock Loves Bikini's'

I think that this editing technique is a really clever one to use which in a way makes the audience think deeply about what they are watching, this is important because then the audience feels as though they are part of the storyline and the actor makes them feel involved. It's also exploiting the audience because they are making them believe that they must act a certain way when they react to the scene. Although this effect worked very well to start with in today's society it's harder to trick the audience now because they know the techniques well and how to deal with it. While during the late 1920's the Kuleshov effect become very popular with directors such as Sergei Eisenstein,Vsevolod Pudovkin and Dziga Vertov which featured in films such as  The Battleship Potemkin, October, Mother and The End of St. Petersburg.

Evalution of our Kuleshov Effect

In our film the shots we filmed were of money failing from air, a girl getting punched and a conversation between three of the actors pointing and laughing at the camera. We had an idea for each of the shots that they would have different perceptions. In the money shot we thought that the idea that the audience get would be that they would either think that they were going to steal the money because they desperately needed it or because it was their money. In the punching shot it was the idea that she did something wrong or that she person is a bully. Finally in the gossip shot they were laughing at the actor or the actor just wanted to know what they were laughing at. 

My edit of our view for the 'Kuleshov effect' 

The audience reaction to the actor was that in the first shot that the actor was going to steal the money because there was money there that could have just been grabbed. In the second shot the audience reaction was that she was emotionless because she just stood there and made me no reaction while someone was getting punched. In the final shot the audience reaction was that she was too scared to do anything and they saw her as a wimp. In each of these shots she is being perceived as a completely different person even though it's the same shot each time. This is down to the editing of how I made the actor come across in each of the different scenarios. 

http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/alfred_hitchcock_on_the_essential_filmmakers_tool_the_great_kuleshov_effect.html - 6th November

http://filmmakeriq.com/2011/04/hitchcock-and-kuleshov-effect/  - 6th November

http://io9.com/5960035/can-the-kuleshov-effect-really-control-your-perception-of-other-peoples-feelings - 6th November

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0474487/bio - 6th November

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KuleshovEffect - 6th November

http://kubrickfilms.tripod.com/id21.html - 6th November