Editing involves organizing film footage and using techniques like continuity, non-continuity, cutting, and transitions to craft a coherent narrative for the audience. Some key techniques include shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, graphic match, jump cuts, cross cutting, action match, parallel editing, and cutaways. The editor aims to effectively communicate the story through these various editing strategies.
2. What is editing?
Editing is how a film maker puts together a piece of work by cutting/cuts/transitions
and special effects.
They do this in order to communicate a narrative to an audience.
The audience is a non-active participant who understand a narrative based off the
editing.
3. Continuity
Continuity- The process of cutting used to maintain continuous narrative action.
Benefits:
The narrative has structure
The shot sequences flow
Easier to watch the film
4. Non-Continuity
This is when shots are mismatched, this is done to disrupt the impression of time
and space.
This disturbs the illusion of reality in the film by cutting certain parts included.
An example used from this is flashbacks
5. Cutting
Shot/reverse shot - is a film technique where one character is shown looking at
another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first
character, because the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the
viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.
An example of shot/reverse shot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLkUHZ1qips
6. Eyeline match
An eyeline match is a film editing technique commonly associated with continuity
editing. Eyeline refers to the path of the looking eye and is similar to the
shot/reverse shot.
It is based on the audience wanting to view what the character on screen is
viewing, the camera starts on the character looking at something the audience
cannot see the camera then cuts to the object they are looking at.
An example of Eyeline match:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77KP_uWMrXI
7. Graphic match
The term graphic match is one of the many editing techniques used to continuously transition two successive shots.This
creates a cut between two shots that juxtapose their graphically similar images.
8. Jump cut
A jump cut is a cut in film editing where two shots of the same subject are taken
from camera positions that slightly vary.
This type of edit gives the effect of jumping forward in time.
Continuity editing uses a guideline called the “30 degree rule” to avoid jump cuts.
9. Cross cutting
Cross cutting is when you have completed a series of scenes and sequences and
you re order them to create a drama that goes forward and backward in time.
This is important as for example in films it can show a moment that happened in the
past, for example flashbacks.
We can also move the drama forward in time which can be broken up to enhance
tension or the narrative.
10. Action Match
Action match is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to
another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot.
It is important to remember that this is not a graphic match or match cut, it portrays
a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two seperate things.
An example of Action match:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv93covb53w
11. Parallel editing
Parallel editing involves cutting between two or more separate scenes that are
happening at the same time in the story.
This means that the different storylines unfold in parallel (at the same time but at
different locations)
An example of parallel editing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_I82117oAw
12. Cutaway
A cutaway is video scenes that cut away to relevant footage or images.
It is often is used in documentaries or in film when a vital piece of information is
needed to show the audience.
Usually the dialogue or voice will continue during the cutaway.
It is used to have variety in the visuals.
13. Transitions
In any piece of film, editors use different types of transitions to move from one clip
to another.
14. Types of transitions
-Dissolve: a gradual fade from one shot to the next is known as a dissolve.
-Fade-in
-Fade-out
-Wipe: a wipe is a very dated form of transition that is not often adopted in modern film making.
-Superimposition: is the placement of one thing over another typically so that both are still evident.
-Long Take
-Short take
-Slow motion
-Ellipsis: is a narrative device and the most basic idea in film editing. It concerns the omission of a section of the story that is either obvious enough for the public to fill in or concealed for a narrative purpose such as suspense or mystery.
-Expansion of time:when you expand time in a video you are making the duration of the sequence longer than real time.
-Post production: the editing stage, where material is manipulated using software and transformed into a finished media product.
-Visual effects