One important type of editing we talked about in class today was elliptical editing.  Elliptical editing makes it that an event’s duration on-screen is shorter than its duration in the story and in character development.  Many directors utilize elliptical editing simply to compress the length of a film, and to develop the story in as little time as possible.  An example of elliptical editing could be a man on a journey; he could be walking through different landscapes and weather conditions every time the shot dissolves, until he reaches his destination.

However, another way in which I believe elliptical editing can be used is to convey emotions.  For example, when we initially brought up the point of elliptical editing, I immediately thought of the Pixar movie “Up”.  In the movie, elliptical editing was used at the beginning of the film to summarize Elle and Carl’s relationship as it progressed from when they were young kids to them growing old together eventually leading to  Elle’s death.  The elliptical editing used not only to compress the length of their story, but I also believed that the director decided to include the elliptical editing to spark emotion among the audience and get the audience to sympathize and realize the loneliness Carl was going through at the time.