EDITING CONCEPTS 
YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Definition & Characteristics of Continuity Editing
• Matched Action Cut 
• 30 degree rule
• ellipsis
• parallel action 
• Center of Attention and its importance for editing.
• Collision editing & Intellectual Montage (editing for association and ideas)
• Jump cuts 
• Developing a scene in LONG TAKE (how to make a long take dynamic)

A scene is a shot or a series of shots united by time and location. You start a new scene every time you change time or location.

Although, in general, a scene is composed of a series of shots, sometimes a scene can be made up of only one shot.
 

Telling the Story through  Cuts
* Editing for Continuity
* Editing for Ideas and Associations
* Jump Cuts
* Ellipsis - passage of time 
* Parallel Action

Telling the Story through Long Takes

Analytic Montage is the name given a series of shots edited together to help make a scene hold together. The central concept behind this type of editing is continuity. In other words, shots are edited together in order to create a sense of geographic, visual, and temporal continuity. Unity of space and time. Continuity - flow, seamlessly…Without seams, without seeing the cuts.

In a scene held together by analytic montage all your shots will help create the sense of unity of time and of space. 

While you may shoot your film in a variety of times and locations, it will all be unifiedthrough the editing. Through editing you create the illusion of unity. Editing ties together all the shots. 

If you thought ahead and planned well, then by the time you get to post production, you will have shot FOR editing, making your process of connecting shots more effective. 

SOME OF THE GOALS OF CONTINUITY EDITING ARE:

1. Create a Sence of "Real" Time and Space. As mentioned above: the illusion of Unity of time and space.

2. Reveal information on a "Need to Know Basis" by giving the audience a bit of information in each shot. Helping to tell the story by giving one piece of inrmation at a time. Note that the information you reveal is NOT always what the other characters in the scene or story know, it is what you as director want the audience to know.

3. Create a sense of identification, or point of view. Though this is created by the selection of shots as stated by the director, it is through the editing that the director can bring the audience to see the story through the point of view of one character or another. Also to let the audience get a sense of whose story the film is telling.

4. To tell a story without revealing that it is only a story. Hide the artifice, the seams.

WITH THESE GOALS IN MIND, you will be able to motivate your edit.
This means that you cannot just cut because you think the shot is too long or because you feel like it, you always have to have a reason for every cut to another shot. 

CUTS SHOULD ALWAYS BE MOTIVATED by directorial choices.
 

Important Concepts

· establishing shot. medium shot, close-up (reactions, emotional peaks)
· shot - reverse shot (in conversation, this is the most commonly used sequence)
· look - object looked at
· cutaways. inserts (their uses in editing)

matched action cuts - To make a smooth and effective matched action cut:

• let action happen on incoming shot. Look for anticipated movement.  
• maintain continuity of direction, rhythm, and momentum of movement.
• make sure there is significant change in shot size.
• make sure there is at least a 30 degree shift in camera position.

focus of attention - always be aware of where your viewer's focus of attention is within the frameIN BOTH SHOTS. Center of attention is most often: EYES, BRIGHT SPOTS, MOVEMENT. The focus of attention should be consistent between shots or work in a question-answer dynamic.

Editing can also be used to create meaning out of shots which may not have that meaning by themselves. By editing two shots together, you create a third concept. This is the type of editing most used in advertising.

• Intellectual Montage 
  Shot of people leaving their office building at 5:00 pm.
  CUT TO:
  Shot of cows being herded out of their pen
  ------> workers = oppressed  
Or...

• Metaphoric Montage 
  Shot of angry parent screaming at bad kid 
  CUT TO:
  Shot of volcano spewing lava.
  ----> anger is as wrathful as lava.


Or...

• Associational Montage 

You can use edits to show the passage of time.

Joey goes to bed turns out the light.
CUT TO:
Joey opens his eyes, it's morning time.

• Joining of two non-continuous shots. 
• These are cuts that defy the rules of continuity. 
• They are usually not motivated. 
• They show discontinuity, dis-unity, imbalance, instability. 
• They bring attention to the fact that this is a film - not a smooth mirror of reality. 
• They can be amusing…or jarring. 
• Jump Cuts were introduced by the French New Wave (Jean-Luc Godard, FrançoisTrouffaut) in the 1950s. It was revolutionary at that time, but is now very commonly used - especially in MTV videos. 
• It can still have very powerful effects 
• Jump cuts jolt us away from the smoothness of continuity editing. 

You can use edits to show the development of two or more significant parallel actions - two actions happening at the same time.

You might choose to let the action happen in front of the running camera...to create what's called a LONG TAKE.

Some directors claim that this is a way of filming that is more true to life, since in life there are no "cuts."

Sucessfully developing a scene in long takes involves a good deal of planning:

• Visual dynamics & variety. 
• Entrances & exits always change the dynamic of the scene. 
• Blocking/choreography of actors.
• Action that is Out of Frame 
• Camera Movement. 
• changes in soundscape or in lighting.
• The Reveal. Long takes usually have a pay-off, something that is revealed at the end of the take.