How do you know when to cut?
Here's my take on cutting:
1. To see something when moving the camera closer is either impossible or you want to avoid too much motion. Like when two actors speak, you dont want to keep panning back and forth til the audience throws up. Unless the characters are in rapid fire discussion and the constant back n forth motion enhances the drama or comedy of their dialogue.
2. Maybe the character looks at something and has an instant connection with it, so you cut, rather than pushing close to it. Pushing close may be desired if you want to suggest a slow realization with the object you're pushing to.
3. Of course, changing from one far away location to another. This includes cross-cutting different events that are meant to be happening simultaneously.
4. Montage. When you want suggest a certain idea through the sum of the objects you cut to and from.
5. Moving the camera from one object to another reveals the proximity of those two objects. Maybe you dont want the audience to know that these things are in such close proximity, for whatever reason due to plot.
6. Cutting from object or character to another suggests an immediate relationship between the two. Moving the camera may take too long and create unnecessary distractions.
7. Cutting from one period of time to another. Condensing time.
Of course you can combine the two, cutting to something and moving at the same time. Maybe that'll be a different thread.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh please God no. Not the montage, anything but the montage!Originally posted by Tasty Fish Lips:
4. Montage. When you want suggest a certain idea through the sum of the objects you cut to and from.
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Baywatch has a lot to answer for.
Rhythm. Revelation. Resolution.
In-scene, cut on an action, no matter how small.
Film is a visual medium. Lingering on a shot gives it heightened significance.
If you don't have or don't need an establishing shot then J- and L- cuts can work to your advantage (where the audio from scenes overlaps).
Cutting between two objects emulates a human's natural blinking between looking at two objects.
Never make a cut unless you really need it.
And finally ... fuck continuity.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sorry, but to me that as a general question is unanswerable. Sure there are general editing rules, but each project is different and adhering to a set of general rules would be restrictive and impractical, so ultimately pointless. Knowing when to cut has a million different answers...How do you know when to cut?
A useful editing rule; director/ editor should be different people.
true... only you can decide when to cut...
-A cut should always progress your scene forwards, (not sideways back or upside down) -
-miker says
"cut on an action, no matter how small"
I think Id add - cut on the *end* of an action - and start on the beginning of the next -- such as a person sitting down - dont cut as they sit down - (unless thats an effect you are after....which you can say about anything since its up to you - subjective..)
To be honest my philosophy is about as basic as Cut before the take becomes unusuable.
oh and Cut out the crap.
Here's a short piece from a brilliant and highly recommended book called 'On-Film-making' by Alexander Mackendrick.
Every cut in action is always something of a disorientating shock for the audience. This is sometimes forgotten by the filmmaker who thinks that all cuts in action must be smooth. The way to make a cut seem smooth is to make the jump of the mind's eye one that the audience wants to make. Simply, the cut to an image is accepted when it supplies to the viewer the satisfaction of some curiosity stimulated by the previous image, or when the shock of the cut is a surprise presentation of something that is interesting and stimulating, even if unexpected.
When should the director make a cut in the action? Answer: when the audience wants to see something it cannot yet see. As such, the motivation for every cut should always be built into the preceding angle. There should automatically be within every shot something that creates in the audience a desire to move at the right moment, along with the audience, to the next angle. This is what the film editor looks for: a motive for a move within space and time.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ February 14, 2005 09:03 AM: Message edited by: Justin M. ]</font>
The whole cutting on the action thing is probably the first basic guidline (which like everybody else I agree with) of editing. It can pretty much apply to every cut you make.
It's a mechanic of cutting, not a reason to cut.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Which is why I said "Here's my take on cutting" [img]smile.gif[/img]Sorry, but to me that as a general question is unanswerable. Sure there are general editing rules, but each project is different and adhering to a set of general rules would be restrictive and impractical, so ultimately pointless. Knowing when to cut has a million different answers...
After a while, people become familiar with their tools and when and how to use them. The list I made is what I've noticed about myself. But it doesnt mean that every film I make will be predictable in terms of its cuts.
my take:
I'm in accordance with a lot of what's been said...
Cut when it's too slow. A single shot can be very useful, but it can also kill the pace dead.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't see it like that. The cut can create its own motion, and much quicker than moving the camera. The amount of multiple fast cuts I've seen that can leave me far more breathless than one moving shot...Originally posted by Tasty Fish Lips:
1. To see something when...you want to avoid too much motion.
Then there's the 30 degree angle maxim: If you make a cut between 2 shots where the angle is less than 30, it's disjointed and draws attention to itself.
I don't really have any rules, I tend to follow my instinct, and so far that hasn't given my any problems.
I principally use cuts to try to dsguise the fact that despite 8 or 9 takes, the actors never seem to manage to get all their lines out in one go, and I'm going to have to use elements from a number of different takes.
p.s. I'm not starting on actors. Whenever I have a small part to fulfil in front of the camera (e.g. 'man walking down street') I tend to go to pieces.
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