FILM EDITING TECHNIQUES

1. Editing Techniques

2. 1. Editor’s Cut - (Assembly edit or rough cut)
1. Director’s Cut – a collaboration between
director and editor, when the 1st cut moulded
to fit the director’s vision. The fewer shots
filmed the less options an editor has. A
technique adopted by Hitchcock to retain
control of his vision.
1. Final Cut – Production company/movie
studio often want to have an input.
Stages of Editing

3. The Kuleshov Effect
An experiment carried out in 1929 to indicate the usefulness and
effectiveness of film editing.
Kuleshov
believed this,
along with
montage, had
to be the basis
of cinema as
an independent
art form.[

4. This is the ‘classic Hollywood’ style of editing that
ensures temporal and spatial continuity.
Emotional V Physical continuity – Emotional
continuity is always given priority over
technicalities, keeping the emotional rhythm of a
film.
Continuity Editing

5. 1. Emotion – is it true to the emotion of the
moment? eg. Blink Theory.
2. Story – does the cut advance the story?
3. Rhythm – does the cut occur at a moment
that is rhythmically interesting and ‘right’?
Deciding where to cut
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch

6. 4. Eye-trace – does the cut respect the audiences focus
of interest within the frame?
5. Planarity (Two-dimensional plane of the screen) --
- does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
6. Three dimensional plane of the screen – is the cut
true to the physical / spatial relationships within the
world of the story?

7. 180 degree rule

8. Wipe
Film Transitions
Dissolve
L cut (split edit)
Fade in/out

9. A jump cut
Two sequential shots of the same subject taken from camera
positions that vary only slightly, or by removing the middle of
one continuous shot which create the effect of the subject
jumping. Considered a violation of classic ‘invisible’ continuity
editing.
Avoid this by using the 30 degree rule.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KUVwKp6MDI
A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) Jean-Luc Godard, 1960

10. An axial cut
A type of jump cut where the camera moves closer to, or
further away from the subject (along an invisible line).
Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) Tom Tykwer, 1998

11. A match cut
An object in the first shot is matched with an object of
similar size and shape in the second shot. eg. The
opening scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick,1968)

12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR49jU4Ika4
Fast cutting
Can be used to imply
energy or chaos.
Eg. Requiem for a Dream
(Aronofsky, 2000)
Cross-cutting
Used to establish action occurring at the same time in
two different locations. A device often used to build
tension or mislead an audience.
Slow cutting
Using shots of long duration.

13. Fast paced editing in conversation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOWvdITcYhs
Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

14. Match on action
A cut which splices two different views of the same
action together making it seem to continue uninterrupted.
eg. Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000)

15. Overlapping editing
Cuts that repeat part or all of an action, expanding its
viewing time. Eg. Mission Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000).

16. Screen Direction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bjA-4no1ZY
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951)

17. Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLEE2UL_N7Q
Odessa Steps: Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)

18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcQgQHR78Q
The Cutting Edge – The Magic of
Movie Editing