Film editing tips

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The very best directors have a comprehensive understanding of film editing. They plan and direct shots in such a way that they can be cut together smoothly and coherently. Ambitious filmmakers would therefore be well advised to study the art and science of editing (I strongly recommend “Grammar of the Film Language” by Daniel Arijon.)

You should generally cut on action, especially if you are cutting from a wide shot of a subject to a tighter shot of the same subject on the same visual axis. Cutting on action means that you cut from one shot to another just as an action is performed, such as an actor taking his hat off. When you join the shots, you use the first part of the motion in the wide shot and the second part of the motion in the tighter shot (you have to experiment to find out exactly where to cut for the smoothest results – it depends on the shots).

If you do not cut on action and the two shots are along the same visual axis, the result is a jump cut. Jump cuts are jarring and disconcerting, and pretty much unacceptable, unless that is the effect you want for narrative reasons. Steven Spielberg sometimes uses jump cuts to punctuate the drama of a scene, and he always uses the technique masterfully. An example is the scene in which Carl Hanratty sees Frank Abagnale’s photo in the school yearbook in “Catch me if you can.” Another example is the gas station scene in “Duel.”

Jump cuts can also be used to compress time (Spielberg used this technique in “Schindler’s List,” in the scene in which Schindler is choosing his future secretary while his new office is being painted), but again, it is a very specific look and the director must plan the scene very deliberately to make it work.

There will not be a jump cut if you:

a)  cut on action, or

b)  cut from one angle to another angle that is rotationally at least 20 degrees away from the first one, or

c)  cut to another shot and then back to the first shot, or a shot of something else.

The middle shot in (c) is known as a cutaway. You should shoot plenty of cutaways, especially for interviews and documentaries, where you are not able to direct things precisely and need more insurance shots for post-production. Cutaways can be a shot of the interviewer nodding, or a shot of a glass of water; anything that you can cut to. Cutaways are also known as B-roll shots.

More on jump cuts: bear in mind that they don’t only happen when cutting along a visual axis without action; if you cut from one shot to another shot that is perpendicular to it and in which the subject is framed in exactly the same way, that’s a jump cut – perhaps an even more irritating one than when you cut from a wide shot to a close-up with no action. For example, if you cut from a frontal medium shot to a medium shot that is framed from the actor’s side, that’s a jump cut, even though there is an angular difference of more than 20 degrees between the two shots (see [b] above). Avoid it like the plague unless you are seeking a specific effect and are sure of how the audience will perceive it, which is not always easy to predict.

Remember that jump cuts are perfectly acceptable in music videos. The human brain seems not to find jump cuts disconcerting in music videos, which is pretty interesting.

You should also bear in mind that it takes approximately 2 film frames (1/12^th of a second) for the human gaze to switch from one side of the screen to the other. You should allow for this when cutting your project.

When editing sound and picture, you should stagger the cuts. This means NOT aligning the video and audio cuts – they should be separated by at least a second. If the cuts are aligned, the change in background noise when you cut from one sound clip to the other will be simultaneous with the visual cut; this breaks the illusion of continuity and will make your project look amateurish.

Shooting a variety of angles and editing them together smoothly enhances the cinematic illusion, an effect known as “superior continuity.”

The big implication here is that you must take all of these editing issues into account when you produce your shot list. A director’s weaknesses become painfully obvious when the time comes to cut the movie together smoothly.