Continuing Editing

Editing is the creative force of filmic reality...and foundation of film art. - V.I. Pudovkin,1915.

Continuity editing refers to arranging the sequence of shots to suggest a progression of events.

It is the predominant style of film & video in the post-production process of film-making. The purpose of such editing is to establish a logical coherence between shots.


Eg: 

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-8SQlKc9Os&feature=related (Boy Climbing Stairs)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=qoaw7iTPlZc (ROLO)

In film, continuity refers to consistency (Eg: Hair-style and clothes matches from shot to shot in a scene) whereas in editing, it refers to the sense of continuous, connected time and space within the video. Of course this sense of continuity in editing is illusionary.

Temporal (time) & Spatial (space) are two kinds of continuity editing.

Different techniques had been developed to show such an illusion, which included distance shots, camera angles, sound techniques, etc.

Techniques used for Temporal Continuity:

• Diegetic Sound: It can be explained by the sounds which have actually occurred in the story during the scene being viewed. It includes the off-screen sounds which comes from within the film-narrative world.
  
• Match on Action: A match on action is when some action occurring before the temporally questionable cut is picked up where the cut left it by the shot immediately following.
  
  Eg:
  A shot of someone tossing a ball can be edited to show two different views, while maintaining temporal continuity by being sure that the second shot shows the arm of the subject in the same stage of its motion as it was left when cutting from the first shot.
  
• Cross Cutting: It is a technique which conveys an undeniable spatial discontinuity.
  It can be achieved by cutting back and forth between shots of spatially unrelated places. In these cases, the viewer will understand clearly that the places are supposed to be separate and parallel. So in that sense, the viewer may not become particularly disoriented.
  
  Under the principle of spatial continuity editing, crosscutting is considered a technique of spatial discontinuity.
  
• Dissolve: A dissolve is a simultaneous overlapping transition from one shot to another that does not involve an instantaneous cut or change in brightness.
• Fade In / Fade Out: A Fade In is the gradual transition of an image to black whereas Fade Out is just the opposite.
  Both forms of transition (Fade & Dissolve) creates an ambiguous measure of temporal illusion that may constitute diagetic (narrative) days, months, years or even centuries.

Techniques used for Spatial Continuity:

• The 180^o Rule: It is a basic guideline that states that two elements in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.
  
  Eg:
  If  Orange Character is on the left & Blue Character is on the right, then Orange should be facing right at all times, even when Blue is off the edge of the frame, and Blue should always be facing left.
  Shifting to the other side of the characters on a cut, so that Blue is now on the left side and Orange is on the right, will disorient the viewer, and break the flow of the scene.
  
  If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.
• The 30^o Rule: The 30° rule is a basic film editing guideline that states the camera should move at least 30° between shots of the same subject occurring in succession. This change of perspective makes the shots different enough to avoid a jump cut. 
  
  Too much movement around the subject may violate the 180° rule.

• Establishing Shots: The camera shot of the scene to establish with the viewer not only the place but also the time of the scene.
  
  Eg: A skyline shot of London.
• Master Shots: A master shot establishes the relation of the characters with each other and their surroundings.
  
  Eg: A scene of a restaurant shot at night and characters shown sitting at a table.

To be continued...