The basic unit of screen narratives is the shot, a single continuous image. In the editing process, shots are selected, reduced to the desired length and strung together in sequences; the soundtrack is completed and added, along with effects, titles etc. The editing process, then, lies at the heart of filmmaking: it assembles together all the constituent parts into a narrative, sets up questions, makes connections, develops motifs, presents arguments, generates meaning.
Through editing, the story is structured, given shape and divided into 'chapters'. And, though it takes place towards the end of the filmmaking process, editing could almost be said to come first: the overall editing style, as well as many of the minutiae of how individual sequences are to be shot and presented, will be conceived before the cameras roll - usually in storyboards. This is especially true for an animated film like The Sandman.
In The Sandman, these bits comprise approximately 13,800 frames, in 157 shots. Film is usually shot and screened at 24 frames per second (fps), while television and video run at 25 frames per second. The running time of The Sandman on DVD (c. 9'12") is shorter than in the cinema (c. 9'35"). The average shot length (on video) is 3.52 seconds; the longest shot is 23.68 seconds (shot 1); the shortest is only 8 frames, 0.32 seconds (shot 59). Editing and post-production work requires precision, and film and video is therefore time-coded, with minutes, seconds and frame numbers.
These preconceptions of the final product help determine, to varying degrees depending on the filmmaker, how a particular piece of action is to be shot, where the camera/s will go, how it will be lit and so on. A group of shots commonly used to draw the viewer into a sequence progresses from wide shot/s to closer ones. A scene might begin with a wide shot (WS) or long shot (LS) of the setting, then move through medium shot/s (MS) to close-ups (CU).In this way, the viewer is drawn swiftly through the setting for the action into the narrative. The action then develops through a mix of medium and close shots, peppered with occasional wide shots at appropriate moments.
The Sandman follows this pattern in this clip: Shot 3 (in the storyboard) shows the exterior of the house in which our hero lives, together with adjacent houses, so establishing the environment for the story (this 'establishing' function leads to the term 'establishing shot'). Though we see it only for a few seconds, our glimpse of the village exterior plays a crucial part in orienting our perceptions of the story, yet we do not see it again until the end of the film (in shot 143), and then only once and during an ultra fast zoom (lasting all of 18 frames, 3/4 of a second!). This economy of scene-setting (and storytelling in general) is typical of much contemporary screen fiction.
It is interesting to note how the Sandman's nest, shown to us in the film's mysterious opening shot, is only revealed to us as his home on the moon at the end of the film: it becomes an 'establishing shot' only in retrospect!