Verbal command
To signal the end of media capture, this command is issued primarily by the director, to cast and crew. (It is very unusual for others to yell "cut" without an exceptional reason; mistakes are reshot during the same take, if possible.) In contrast, a "roll" command signals the beginning of shooting.
In between these commands and the actual footage to be captured, various marking elements (the slate), preparatory actions (extras, effects, or other costly elements), and the director's "Action!" command are also recorded. These are edited out to effect a seamless presentation.
Proper cut
In practice, the cut does not break the suspension of disbelief necessary to keep an audience engaged to a narrative or program. The cut represents a continuous transition in setting and time—in turn, the dissolve and wipe respectively identify changes in time and setting. In many cases, cuts are also used in place of dissolves or wipes for minor changes, or to edit away insignificant details to maintain pace. Usage of the cut in this manner conforms to the goals of continuity editing, which deemphasizes the presence of the film crew.
Cuts serve as transitions between camera angles, such a wide establishing shot and a medium shot. Footage of a moving character may be captured from multiple angles rather than a tracking shot, either for aesthetic reasons or to lessen the risk of damaging a camera while in motion.
Cuts are often used in sections of dialogue so that the director may employ close-ups without unnecessary (and visually disturbing) movement of the camera. Such cuts usually follow the 180-degree rule, where the camera angles are kept on the same side of an imaginary border drawn between the subjects.
On a broadcast television multiple-camera setup, cuts are performed at the vision mixer by the technical director by simply selecting a different source. On single camera or film setups, cuts are performed by the editor using either a linear or non-linear editing system. Film may still be cut and spliced, but today's editing systems have made such "destructive" edits unnecessary. Instead, edit points identify where the system duplicates source footage onto the master reel.
In film and video, a cutaway is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually followed by a cut back to the first shot. A cutaway scene is the interruption of a scene with the insertion of another scene, generally unrelated or only peripherally related to the original scene. The interruption is usually quick, and is usually, although not always, ended by a return to the original scene. The effect is of commentary to the original scene, frequently comic in nature.
Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology.
The film industry is built upon many technologies and techniques, drawing upon photography, stagecraft, music, and many other disciplines. Following is an index of specific terminology applicable thereto.
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.
A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which a single continuous sequential shot of a subject is broken into two parts, with a piece of footage being removed in order to render the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positions of the subject in the remaining pieces of footage of the sequence should vary only slightly in order to achieve the effect. It is a manipulation of temporal space using the duration of a single shot, and fracturing the duration to move the audience ahead. This kind of cut abruptly communicates the passing of time as opposed to the more seamless dissolve heavily used in films predating Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, which made extensive use of jump cuts and popularized the technique during the 1960s. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical continuity editing, which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by de-emphasizing editing, but are sometimes nonetheless used for creative purposes. Jump cuts tend to draw attention to the constructed nature of the film. More than one jump cut is sometimes used in a single sequence.
In film and television production, B-roll, B roll, B-reel or B reel is supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot. The term A-roll, referring to main footage, has fallen out of use.
A film transition is a technique used in the post-production process of film editing and video editing by which scenes or shots are combined. Most commonly this is through a normal cut to the next shot. Most films will also include selective use of other transitions, usually to convey a tone or mood, suggest the passage of time, or separate parts of the story. These other transitions may include dissolves, L cuts, fades, match cuts, and wipes.
Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and often in the same place. In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the simultaneity of these two actions but this is not always the case. Cross-cutting can also be used for characters in a film with the same goals but different ways of achieving them.
In filmmaking, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. The rule states that the camera should be kept on one side of an imaginary axis between two characters, so that the first character is always frame right of the second character. Moving the camera over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as shooting in the round.
Continuity editing is the process, in film and video creation, of combining more-or-less related shots, or different components cut from a single shot, into a sequence to direct the viewer's attention to a pre-existing consistency of story across both time and physical location. Often used in feature films, continuity editing, or "cutting to continuity", can be contrasted with approaches such as montage, with which the editor aims to generate, in the mind of the viewer, new associations among the various shots that can then be of entirely different subjects, or at least of subjects less closely related than would be required for the continuity approach. When discussed in reference to classical Hollywood cinema, it may also be referred to as classical continuity.
In the post-production process of film editing and video editing, a dissolve is a type of film transition in which one sequence fades over another. The terms fade-out and fade-in are used to describe a transition to and from a blank image. This is in contrast to a cut, where there is no such transition. A dissolve overlaps two shots for the duration of the effect, usually at the end of one scene and the beginning of the next, but may be used in montage sequences also. Generally, but not always, the use of a dissolve is held to indicate that a period of time has passed between the two scenes. Also, it may indicate a change of location or the start of a flashback.
This article contains a list of cinematic techniques that are divided into categories and briefly described.
The 30-degree rule is a basic film editing guideline that states the camera should move at least 30 degrees relative to the subject between successive shots of the same subject. If the camera moves less than 30 degrees, the transition between shots can look like a jump cut—which could jar the audience and take them out of the story. The audience might focus on the film technique rather than the narrative itself.
Camera coverage, or coverage, is the amount and kind of footage shot used to capture a scene in filmmaking and video production. The film editor uses coverage in post-production to assemble the final cut.
In film, a match cut is a cut from one shot to another where the composition of the two shots are matched by the action or subject and subject matter. For example, in a duel a shot can go from a long shot on both contestants via a cut to a medium closeup shot of one of the duellists. The cut matches the two shots and is consistent with the logic of the action. This is a standard practice in film-making, to produce a seamless reality-effect.
In filmmaking, a pick-up is a small, relatively minor shot filmed or recorded after the fact to augment footage already shot. When entire scenes are redone, it is referred to as a re-shoot or additional photography.
Ellipsis is the narrative device of omitting a portion of the sequence of events, allowing the reader to fill in the narrative gaps. Aside from its literary use, the ellipsis has a counterpart in film production. It is there to suggest an action by simply showing what happens before and after what is observed. The vast majority of films use ellipses to clear actions that add nothing to the narrative. Beyond these "convenience" ellipses, ellipses are also used to advance the story.
Articles related to the field of motion pictures include:
This glossary of motion picture terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to motion pictures, filmmaking, cinematography, and the film industry in general.
