Wednesday, 16 November 2016

combining shots and sequences and creating pace


Combining shots and sequences


The editor’s primary responsibility is to cut selected shots together in such a way that the story told in the script and captured through image, sound and performance in production is preserved.
This achieved in all genres by establishing settings with wider shots, exploring character dynamics with medium coverage and emphasising key detail – a fuse, a grimace, a coordinate with closer coverage.

Broadly speaking, shots are combined into sequences in two ways:
Continuity editing aims to make cuts invisible in order to achieve seamless, fluid rendering of the story through successive shots and sequences drawing any attention to the editing itself;
Montage editing makes the editing process more conspicuous by juxtaposing less clearly related material, challenging viewers to make abstract connections between shots and sequences.
The choice of shots by the editor when combining shots and cuts is what helps to put meaning within the scene.

Creating pace
An editor can create pace in a scene by moving from:
Longer takes to shorter takes;
Increase or decrease pace
A few cuts in a given stretch of film time to many cuts in a given stretch of film time.

An editor might increase the pace in a scene to communicate:
Rising action
Diminishing time
Mounting tension
Heightening of stakes
The sequence starts with longer takes which are used to engage the audience and make them interested in the screen play which is taking place.
The takes begin to get shorter in length when the editor has done this to increase the action and the feel and the energy of the film and the editor does this by brining it more towards real time to build the excitement.
Towards the end of the scene a lot of cuts occur in a relatively short space of screen time.  The editor here uses a high number of cuts to take you back and forth from the action if there shot-reverse-shot takes to remind you that the action is occurring and there is conflict near the action and we are close to the point of climax in the film.


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