Abel Gance

Abel Gance might be called the father of editing. He led the way in using new editing techniques, cutting quickly between scenes in ways that weren't being done at the time. He also did a lot of unique camera work, mounting camera's on people to get moving action close-ups. He put camera's into the action to get angles that couldn't be gotten in the traditional methods. He filmed in water to get the waves up close and he filmed with the camera mounted on a horse to get the close action shots of the soldiers riding them. He started as an actor and then got into writing scripts before getting into producing and directing.