The Great Train Robbery was one of the earliest American narrative films released in 1903. It told the story of a group of outlaws who rob a train and are later caught by the sheriff. The film introduced important editing techniques such as parallel editing between different locations and crosscutting between scenes happening simultaneously. Workbench cutting was used to physically join shots together, as seen in a cut from an interior to exterior scene. The Great Train Robbery helped establish conventions for continuity editing that made films feel more realistic.

1. The Great Train
Robbery
By Onder Aslan

2. Introduction
The Great Train Robbery was a western film that was first shown in the US on
the 1st of December 1903(filmed in November that year). It is amongst the
earliest existing films in America cinema, in fact it was first film that presented a
narrative story which had a informative and organised structure as everything
was in place. The plot of the movie was about a group of cowboy outlaws who
hold up a train and rob the passengers and when are caught after are taken away
by the sheriff. This film was directed by Edwin S. Porter who’s fabulous work
which put this movie together got a lot of praise and credit. This movie is
around 10 minutes and has a total of 14 scenes.

3. Continuity/workbench Editing
• Continuity editing is a style of editing that requires the director to try to make the film reality as much like the audience's reality as possible. This means the film is
trying to recreate what the world around us is and trying to make it easier on the audience to comprehend and understand the action happening on screen.
Within this style of editing there are many terms or ways of implementing the style. These affects can be used independently of each other to create desired
affects.
• The Great Train Robbery not only was the first narrative film, it also introduced useful and efficient new (at the time) editing techniques which one of them was
parallel editing. For example, rather than staying on one set, Porter took his crew to many different locations, including Edison's New York studio, Essex
County Park in New Jersey, and along the Lackawanna railroad.
• Furthermore, unlike other film attempts which kept a stable (hand held) camera position, Porter included a scene in which he panned the camera to follow the
characters as they ran across a creek and into the trees to fetch their horses.
• However, the most innovative editing technique introduced in The Great Train Robbery was the inclusion of crosscutting (when the film cuts between two different
scenes that are happening at the same time).
• Work bench cutting is where film is physically cut where the cut in the film should be and it is joined on with more film to create the cut to another shot. This
technique was used before the invention of non-linear (Digital) editing. An example of work bench cutting being used was in 1903 Edwin Porters film “The
Great Train Robbery”. Within 3 minutes 58 seconds into the film you can see the film cut from an interior room to an exterior location. I know that the
workbench technique was used because it was a popular technique that was used extensively in early cinema. Another reason I know that workbench cutting
was used and not editing in camera was because the indoor location would have been shot on a set and it would’ve been expensive to transport the same camera
to an outdoor location rather than use a different one.