Editing: City of God and Pan's Labyrinth

Breaking the rules of continuity editing - such as jump cuts, match-on-action (opening scene, Blacky in the club), 180 degree rules (pushing the pan seller), slow motion (Lil Ze's appearence )

montage - story of the apartment, L'il Ze groeing from kid to adult, Lil Ze taking over the favelas

frame cutting - in the attack shooting sequences

flashbacks

temporal frequency

graphic match or match cut - when the film's opening scene moves in flashback from the 1970s to the 1960s - shown with the graphic match of the older Rocket crouched, hands by his side as he stands between Lil Ze and his armed gang and the police behind him to a younger Rocket in the same stance playing goalkepper in the sepia-toned, less dangerous and violent 1960s...

Pace of editing - the pace of the editing varies in the film but it is incredibly quick in the opening scene as Lil Ze's gang chase the chicken through the favelas - highlights the frantic, enrgetic, chaotic and potentially violent nature of the favelas - instantly throwing the audience into the chaos of the environment. The opening scene comprises of short takes, crosscutting between food being prepared, musicisna playing, mjito's being made, and an escaped chicken being chased by a gang of youths with guns led by LIL Ze - there are short bursts of images alternating in distance (ECU, CU, MCU, MS) and angles (high, low, eye level) from the perspectives of both humans and chickens - the pace and the seemingly random incoherence and clashing of the shots (very far removed from the smooth, almost invisible continuity editing style that mainstream audiences are more familiar with), cut to the vibrant rhythms of Brazilaain music - all gives a sense of life in the favelas, full of energy and culture but also extremes of violence and danger. The director cross cuts to Rocket and Shaggy and, as if to emphasise the fifferences between Rocket and Lil Ze and his gang and as if to reinforce that Rocket is essentially an outsider to the violence and crime that is rife in the favelas, the director alters the pace of the editing, slowing it down dramtaically with the use of much longer takes (also, the camera work is calmer and smoother, a steady pan/tracking shot that isn't frantically handheld as the shots both before and after Rocket's appearance are. The crosscutting, then, with its variation in pace and style of camerawork, highlights the differences between Rocket and Little Ze (and their way of life) - almost presenting them as protagonist (Rocket's voiceover positions the audience with him and it is essentially his journey we witness - once we have unravelled all the interweaving stories and the non-linear presentation of story events in the plot - watching him come of age and make his way out of the favelas) and antagonist - alongside creating the expectation for the spectator that the two events/people will collide, creating some kind of conflict. Indeed, the two meet, though the audience do not appreciate the full significance of this meeting until we witness the scene again towards the climax of the film (temporal frequency). As the characters meet, the director films Lil Ze in slow motion (an editing technique which elongates screen duration so that it is longer than story duration), firstly to indicate his dominance and power and the threat that he poses to Rocket BUT also to show rocket's fear and realisation that he is in danger (the slow motion on Ze is almost like a POV from rocket's perspective). Finally, the pace of the editing slows to considerably longer takes as Ze's gang ather at one end of the road with the police at the other - and Rocket (and the chicken) caught in the middle. As Rocket's narration begins the camera circles around Rocket and the director dissolves to a graphic match of Rocket as a young boy.

The ‘restless’ style, characteristic of the film, announces itself from the start. It begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close ups - knife, hand, and stone – with a cut to black between each shot. Another photographic flash illuminates Rocket with his camera. He zooms out from behind a network of bars, which collapses down into his image. This is in fact a flash forward to the scene that will replay very near the end of the film, where we will see then that the reverse shot has denied us here, with Zé bribing the police after his gun battle with Ned and subsequent arrest. He has been introduced as a key player in the drama, but still only a fragment. The montage of conflicting shots and the collision of the fast paced editing now gives way to the spectacular circling shots which will morph Rocket from a young man to a boy, and the favela to its former days of low rise shacks and open spaces. The meeting between two of the principle characters initiates the story; the circular shot will provide the bridge between what they were and what they will become
The use of digital editing allowed Daniel Rezende to experiment and try out new ideas. He claims that many of the interpretations of the characters were created at the editing stage. Different results could be obtained with the same footage “all the scenes evolved from the actor’s improvisations, and of course each one was unique.”

Daniel Rezende editor “What we tried to do with the editing was attempt to use ‘effects’ whenever we thought that this could bring something extra to the sensation or emotion that we were aiming to evoke. If the situation is tense, and there’s no time to think, we speed it up and make it even tenser. If the character is going to be important later, then we freeze the face to commit it to memory. If both things happen at the same time then we split the screen, so as not to lose anything. In the third part of the film, we especially welcomed anything out of the ordinary for the editing style. If a ‘badly made’ cut could increase levels of discomfort in the viewer then we incorporated it.”