Abstract Machine
Authors: Roque do Vale Filipe , Damásio Manuel 
Published: May 2022

The last three decades have been a time of changes in filmmaking. Film editing as a part of it it’s not immune to this set of transformations. The driving force is the digital revolution, but the level of changes comes in different dimensions. The filmmaking process brought a change in technology and equipment that impacted technical and creative procedures. The emergence of the internet, social networks, streaming platforms, altered the relationship between the spectator and the medium. Film language acquired the capacity to absorb styles originated in television and in other media and keeps evolving. Access to the tools is democratized. Any young adult can use a phone or a computer to edit video content that feeds social networks. The next step will be artificial intelligence and this whole transformative process is far from ending.
Throughout this evolutionary process, the montage theories have remained relatively stable because they are very robust, but the scale of contextual changes requires an update to this different technological and cultural setting. This paper aims to answer this question by proposing a conceptual framework for creative film editing.
The framework design is based on the theory of assemblage (Deleuze, Guattari; DeLanda), it identifies the two minimal essential elements of the process: filmic elements and relations. Filmic elements are concrete, relations are abstract. Editing is creating relations between filmic elements and shaping those relations to produce meaning and aesthetics.
In assemblage theory all assemblages share three characteristics, they all have concrete elements, an abstract machine, and agents. The abstract machine is a space of possibilities determined by the concrete elements in which all relations are possible. The editor is an agent acting on an abstract machine.
From this perspective, we can identify two processes of interaction between concrete elements and relations and they occur along different dimensions. One dimension defines the variable roles that an assemblage component may play, from a purely material role to a purely expressive role. These roles are variable and may occur in mixtures. The other dimension defines variable processes in which these components become involved and are referred to as processes of territorialization or deterritorialization.
These two specialized expressive media are viewed as the basis for a second synthetic process called coding. Coding supplies a second articulation, consolidating the effects of the first and stabilizing the identity of an assemblage. For coding methods, we use models from the theory of editing that define “rules” on how to connect shots together. Continuity editing, for instance, is a set of rules that can be viewed as a specific code.
This framework includes a model for grid analysis to grasp how the relations being crafted can affect the film experience from different perspectives, namely narrative, aesthetic, and discursive.
With this framework we provide a conceptual model to understand the film editing process from its most basic components, allowing the editor to have a clear understanding of how he can affect the cinematic experience, thus providing tools and methods for critical analysis.