I myself quite enjoy complete sentences despite June's distaste for them but it seems like a good description of a clip montage: Words and letters but not complete sentences. I love the look and feel of clip montages but I've always had a different idea of how I would do them. Specifically, whenever I listen to music I envision what could accompany said music movie-wise. So when I set out to do mine, which I've just recently completed, I knew I wanted to take just one piece of music, and using no ambient sounds from the films themselves, edit together clips building a rhythm according to the natural rhythm of the music.
I had another goal in mind as well. I did not want to move through film history chronologically, working from a hundred plus years back and moving forward or going in reverse, and I did not want to break it down into sections according to genre. What I wanted to do, and did, was take advantage of the language of film, the words and letters, and the fact that so many films, whether consciously or not, use the same shots, the same angles, the same movements when telling their story. And so the montage exploits these similarities and puts them to the rhythm of 
the music. I had a great time making it and want to make another one this very second but am currently working on an original film that I hope to complete by the end of summer or early fall.
I was also not shy about using the same movie multiple times. This clip is not about entertaining the audience at the Oscars (although I certainly hope it is entertaining - I think it is) or using as many different clips from different sources as I can (although I did use quite a lot). The point is taking advantage of the language of film and if one movie contains four scenes that work perfectly towards this goal then I use all four. It also means that the most famous shots from a movie are not necessarily the ones I used, if they didn't fit the rhythm. Of course, sometimes shots become famous because they are so familiar to us at first glance. They're familiar because they have employed the familiar words and letters of film to great effect and some of those familiar scenes are used here as well...
... which leads me to ...
The Wilhelm Scream.
Anyone familiar with movies probably knows about the "Wilhelm Scream." If not you can read about it here. If you don't want to read about it the extreme shorthand version is this: A scream from the movie Distant Drums (1951) was recorded and used again in The Charge at 
Feather River (1953) in which the scream comes from Private Wilhelm. Sound Editor (sound designer) for Star Wars, Ben Burtt, named it the "Wilhelm Scream," used it in Star Wars and as a nod to each other, Sound Editors have been using it in movies ever since. The Wikipedia article linked above has a long list of all the movies in which the "Wilhelm Scream" has been used.
So anyway, I thought about what the "Wilhelm Scream" of clip montages might be. There are certainly clips used again and again ("I'm as mad as hell" from Network, the bicycle silhouetted against the moon in E.T., the shot of Clark Gable at the bottom of the staircase looking up at Scarlett in Gone With the Wind) but I wanted the nominee to be one that includes a scream, obviously. And whether it's a favorite movie or not doesn't matter, just the ubiquity of it. The one I came upon and nominate to be the Wilhelm Scream of clip montages is the Popeye Scream. The beauty of the Popeye Scream (aside from the fact that it's already been used in almost every damn clip montage ever made) is that it can be used in clip montages that have sound from the movies themselves or in ones like mine where the music is all you hear because the shot itself only shows the scream, but provides no audio. "What is the Popeye Scream?" you ask. It's the ubiquitous clip of Popeye Doyle screaming as the woman with the carriage comes out of nowhere, and screams herself, in The French Connection. So it's even 
got a bonus scream. Future clip montagers could only use a twentieth of a second from the clip if they choose, a quick shot of his bulging eyes for instance, to give a wink and nudge to other clip montagers who also use the Popeye Scream.
So the Popeye Scream is included and the music provides the perfect home for it. Outside of that their are a few other "famous" shots but mainly they are lesser known shots that work with the rhythm of the piece. The clips used come almost entirely from my DVD collection but a few were quick Netflix rentals when I would realize at the last minute that I didn't have the film on hand that I needed to reference.
It's title is simply Frames of Reference, alluding to the fact that the scenes, the frames of film used, reference each other throughout. The music is by Oliver Nelson, a favorite jazz composer of mine. And it will all make sense on Thursday, at noon, Eastern Daylight Savings Time. I hope you will show up and enjoy the movie.
