Principles of video editing

Parallel editing

Parallel editing is the technique of cross-cutting two or more scenes that happen together but in different locations. In this clip above, the people with guns are storming a house, while the main character is getting ready to confront them. The scenes are happening in different places but at the same time. The scene appears to be in similar locations, but ends with the FBI running in and realising they are at the wrong house. The viewer was led to believe the house the FBI stormed was the characters house, until this scene. Tension is built up high at this point, until the house is discovered to be empty. From a simple scene of the FBI storming a random house, the use of parallel editing has implied that this house was the main characters, therefore making the scene much more exciting.


Montage
A montage is a sequence of shots cut together in a composition to create action. They are usually fast paced and are great for showing the audience what's happening fast. Take any Rocky training montage for example, instead of showing everything happening up until the end of the montage, scenes and scenes of lifting weights, running to places and working hard, they showed a simple few shots of Rocky doing his training. Time seems to pass much quicker, yet you get the feeling that Rocky has been training for a long time. The downside of montages is that they are not great for making you feel anything emotionally. The video below is a comedy montage - but if you listen to the lyrics, they make some accurate and important points. For example - "Show us the passage of time, that's when you need a montage".

Manipulating diagetic time and space
Manipulating time and space is very important for editing. If a movie follows chronological order without skipping any time between shots at all, then it does not manipulate time and space. If there is one shot of somebody mixing something, and with no pause at all then is adding an ingredient, a cut has been made that manipulates diagetic time and space.

Our video shows Valentin falling asleep, he goes into a dream and is no longer in the classroom. He is in a room waking up. Valentin has moved without following chronological order in the composition.

MTV style editing

In this video we use MTV style editing, or "Post-Classical Editing". The idea behind this is lots of shots used for style over substance. The camera position will be changing constantly and be confusing to the viewer to create action. Post classical editing was notably used in City of God to create a manic fast paced film. Camera shots vary a lot through this kind of editing. Camera pans are used, close ups and extreme close ups are used, but establishing shots are often not used to keep the audience in a panic.

MTV style editing became popular from the early 1980s MTV music videos, where shots lasted around 3 seconds. It has uses other than style, too. Take for example The Bourne Identity (2002) starring Matt Damon. The director faced the challenge of making Matt Damon's action shots look like he was very experienced in fighting - Bruce Lee kind of experienced. By using lots of close up shots containing fast paced action, the viewers are disoriented and are given so little information about what's going on, so Matt Damon looked very experienced.

Jump cuts

Jump cuts are just like your regular cut, the only difference being that jump cuts manipulate time, allowing a character to move from one position to another, without continuity. This has universal uses. It is often used in youtubers, for example Ray William Johnson. It can be used to make characters spontaneously disappear, or to speed up time. Jump cuts generally should be hidden, but are sometimes used for visual effect. Above is an example of the use of jump cuts for visual effect. Time is sped up for dramatic effect.

Continuity editing
Continuity editing is the most used form of editing. It relies on following certain rules in order to not confuse the audience. It allows shots to flow into each other, and helps the narrative to have structure. The rules are;

• Re/Establishing shots - A long shot or extreme long shot that shows the background of where the scene is going to take place. This is important, because without enough information on the scene, the audience is guessing what is around them and is therefore distracted.
• Shot/ reverse shot - Three shots alternating between characters in the form of original shot into opposite shot into the original shot again. This is typical during a conversation.
• 30 degree rule - The angle between two shots put together cannot be lower than 30 degrees. By being lower than this, the audience is again confused. This is similar to the 180 degree rule below.
• Match on action - Two shots of different framings showing the same action, cut together to make it seem to continue uninterrputed
• Eyeline match - If two shots of peoples eyes looking at each other are shown together, the characters must be facing opposite angles.

The last continuity rule that must be followed is below.

180 degree rule
The 180 degree rule is one of the most important rules not to break. Two camera shots must not be bigger than 180 degrees apart, or the audience will become confused, because it reverses the shot essentially, if character one was on the left and character two was on the right, breaking the 180 degree rule causes the characters to be on flipped sides of the screen. This rule should be avoided from breaking, but there are ways to break it without there being too much impact. For example, showing a shot on the 180 degree line before a shot that would break the rule fixes the problem. Another way to fix the problem is to pan over the line before having your shot.