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Editing Techniques

Once you have a first rough cut, it’s time for the real editing to begin.

There’s a saying that if you notice the editing, the film was poorly edited. Traditional Hollywood feature film editors strive for seamless edits—edits that don’t call attention to themselves and that flow naturally with the action, dialogue, and tone of the scene. The key to creating seamless edits is to make sure each edit is motivated. A motivated edit is cued by a line of dialogue, a look or gesture from one of the actors, a sound effect, a music cue, or some other element in the film.

The opposite of a seamless edit is the jump cut. Jump cuts not only lack motivation, but also break up the basic continuity and linear progression of time. It used to be that jump cuts were to be avoided at all costs. Nowadays, even studio films feature carefully placed jump cuts to jar the viewer, add energy, or create a special effect. In American Beauty, jump cuts were used to accentuate the dream sequences, while the rest of the movie was edited seamlessly.

The following are different editing techniques you can use to smooth over a rough edit. All of them will work better if they are motivated in some way.

Cutaways and Reaction Shots

The easiest way to smooth a rough edit is to cover it up with another shot. It’s almost like putting a Band-Aid over the cut. Cutaways are shots of other things in the scene, outside of the main area of action and dialogue: a fly on the wall, a hand moving to the handle of a gun, a foot tapping on the floor.

Reactions are shots of people reacting to the dialogue and action of the scene: a passerby looking on as the main characters yell at each other, a crowd cheering at a baseball game, a woman ducking as a gunshot rings out. Used properly, they not only cover rough edits, but also enhance the story.

Conversely, there’s nothing worse than a random cutaway. In a scene showing a holdup in a bar, a cutaway to one of the bar patrons reacting when the robber pulls out the gun works well, while a cutaway to a static shot of a picture on the wall or a glass on the bar is unintentionally humorous. However, a cutaway to the glass right before the gunman puts a bullet through it can work well. In other words, using a cutaway or reaction shot in the proper context can be powerful and effective; using one that appears random will disrupt the dramatic intensity of a scene.

Avoid Overcutting

Too many unmotivated cutaways can result in the scene looking “cutty.” Fast-cutting, as in El Mariachi, is not the same as overcutting.

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Matching Action

If your scene involves movement, you might need to match action across an edit. Cutting from a wide shot of a man reaching for his gun to a close-up of the gun, from a hand turning a doorknob to the door opening, and from a shot of a man leading a woman dancing the tango to the reverse shot of her as she is dipped, are all examples of edits that need matching action.

Often, if you edit two action shots together as they play out in real-time the cut won’t work, especially if you are cutting from a wide shot to a close-up, or vice versa. Because the movement across the screen is small in a wide shot and big in a close-up (see Figure 14.12), you might need to show more of the action in the wide shot than in the close-up. Matching action becomes second nature after a while, but it might require some playing around to get the hang of it.

Figure 14.12

The movement across the screen is small in a wide shot (top) and big in a close-up (bottom).

Matching Screen Position

In a well-composed shot, it’s pretty easy to figure out where the viewer’s eye will be directed. In a close-up, the eye will be directed at the face of the actor; in an action shot, it will follow the line of movement; and if there are no people in the shot, it will be directed at the biggest, most colorful or dynamic thing in the frame. Once you determine where the screen position of the viewer’s eye is on your outgoing shot, you can pick a similar screen position on your incoming shot (see Figure 14.13). This is especially helpful when you’re trying to match action. You can also intentionally jar and disorient the viewer by mismatching the screen position (see Figure 14.14).

Overlapping Edits

A common way to refine a dialogue scene is to use overlapping edits, also called split edits or L-cuts. If you cut from one actor to the other at the start of each line of dialogue, the scene can start to feel like a Ping-Pong match. Overlapping edits help break up this rhythm by extending or shortening the picture while leaving the dialogue the same, allowing you to see the reaction of one character as another talks. Trim mode and rolling edits are useful editing tools for creating overlapping edits.

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Figure 14.13

These two images of the mailman have matching screen positions.

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Figure 14.14

These two images do not have matching screen positions.

Matching Emotion and Tone

It’s pretty obvious that you need to match emotion and tone in terms of the actors’ performances when you cut from one shot to another. What’s a little less obvious is that emotion and tone are carried in other things besides performance—the amount of camera movement in a shot, the amount of movement of the actors in the shot, the composition of the shot (wide, tight, etc.), the lighting and overall look of the shot, and the energy of the background elements. If your scene consists of an argument between two characters, it may work well to start out using wide shots and then get tighter and tighter as the scene heats up. However, cutting to a wide shot during the most intense part of the scene will most likely deflate the energy.

Pauses and Pull-Ups

Adding a few seconds of silence can intensify a moment. If one scene shows a man saying “I love you” to a woman, a well-placed pause can completely change the tone of the scene. Putting the pause before he speaks will imply hesitation; put the pause before she answers, and you’ll have suspense.