Another take on these questions:

Working out  the meaning of a set of shots is scarcely a matter of code or 
convention and much more a matter of  inference.  (In langauge too (in 
understanding a series of sentences) code has little role to play.) This 
about the logic of film isn't it?

Editing conventions are little more than rules for easing a viewers 
inferences, or clarity or smoothness or non repetition, etc. IE stylistic 
and (as Dan noted) readily flouted. They are not arbitrary social code like 
say lexicon or natural code like syntax.

Quick and glib applications to Catalin's examples:

> - off-screen sound, which makes the audience "imagine"
> the source

This is inference

> - use of close-ups to make the audience "imagine" the
> whole (Gestalt principle of "closure'), especially
> when establishing spaces

Inference again

> - the omission of key narrative plot points, so that
> the audience "fills in the gaps" (like in Ozu's 'Tokyo
> Story')

Inference too

> - open endings that make the audience "construct" the
> possibility of an imaginary ending (like in 'Picnic at
> Hanging Rock')

In completeness. Lack of premisses

> - dialogue sequences, in which the reverse shot is
> omitted

Minor flouting of pedantic editing rule.

> - character reactions showing the back of the
> character, not the face

Inference but perhaps with lack of premisses. (Can work better than Hanging 
Rock's big mystery)

> - camera pans that start with an off-beat element, and
> then pan to the actual on-beat element

Plot exposition against expectation (ie initial inferences)

> - seeing the effect of a certain plot-point-element,
> without seeing the actual element (eg in 'Jurassic
> Park' when the dinosaur approaches the car, but all we
> see is the water ripples in a glass caused by the
> vibrations)

Inference of identity (Causation as an identifier of events). Relations of 
time, cause and identity (the narrative relations) all have to be inferred.

A couple more points.

>The conscious or  unconscious question:

All of this inference is pretty much unconscious seat of the pants stuff. If 
an inference is conscious we think about it as an inference. So there are 
cases of doing that. In aesthetic judgement someone says 'I like the way we 
learn how the hitmen come to be wearing shorts in PULP FICTION' or "I don't 
think the LIVES OF OTHERS supplies a reason for the Stasi guy coming good.'

>Sound off camera.

Inference again. Watching Bresson's L'ARGENT recently I noticed I wanted to 
look off camera a couple of times when my attention was drawn to a door 
sound and (I think)a car sound. But Bresson sets a fast pace and we were 
whisked off to something new while I paused to meditate on my consciousness 
of  my desire.

Ross 

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