5. Retro Scene Transition Wipes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72bJXrVko4 Inspired by Akira Kurosawa, George Lucas made good use of "wipes" in the Star Wars films. A wipe, of course, is a way of transitioning from one scene to another by "wiping" the new shot across the old one, usually by moving it from one side of the frame to the other or by using a special shape. When an audience sees a wipe these days, they know they're watching Star Wars, because hardly anyone else uses the technique now. Or if they do, it's to make a parody of Star Wars. The wipe is another means of evoking old fashioned serial adventures, just like the story-so-far crawl. It provides a distinctive feel to the films, helping each episode to look like part of a cohesive whole. And with Star Wars, looking slightly old-fashioned is no bad thing - the story does take place a long time ago, after all...
Mike Morgan
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Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
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