Workshop 6 - Continuity Editing

"Run Gloria Run"

Continuity Editing

A constructed scene where everything flows in a consistent, orderly, smooth and sequential manner.

Editing involves selecting and sequencing those parts of an event that contributes most effectively to its clarification and intensification. Continuity concentrates on the structuring of on- and off-screen space and on establishing and maintaining the viewer’s mental map. 

Creating a Mental Map

A mental map helps the viewer make sense of where things are, where they are going, or where they are supposed to be in on- and off- screen space.

Continuity editing relies upon matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot.

Continuity clarifies the event.

Types of Continuity Editing

• Graphic Continuity 
• Rhythmic Continuity
• Spacial Continuity 
• Temporal Continuity

Graphic Continuity 

Graphic Continuity is when two successive shots are joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (e.g colour, shape,etc). Graphic matches can be used to make metaphorical associations.

Rhythmic Continuity

Rhythm in film and a video is the perceived rate and regularity of sounds, series of shots and movements within the shots. Rhythmic factors include beat (or pulse), accent (or stress) and tempo (or pace). Rhythmic editing occurs when the editor adjusts the length of the shots in relation to each other to control their overall duration on screen to create accent, beat and tempo. 

Spacial Continuity

When the filmmaker connects any two points in space through similarity, difference or development or even divide the whole space into component parts to make up the scene. Spatial relations are reinforced by the use of techniques such as: 

• 180o Rule 
• The eyeliner match
• Shot Reverse Shot 
• Match on action 
• Motion vector continuity 
• The cheat cut

180 degrees rule/ axis of action/line of action 

When two characters (or other elements) are in the same scene, they should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.

Shifting to the other side of the characters on a cut, so that person B is now on the left side and person A is on the right, will disorient the viewer, and break the flow of the scene.

Eyeline Match

If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right.

A cut obeying the axis of action principle or 180o rule, in which the first shot shows a person looking in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees.

Eyeline matches can be a very persuasive tool to construct space in a film, real or imagined.

Shot reverse shot

Shot reverse shot is a film technique wherein one character is shown looking (often off-screen) at another character, and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character. 

Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer subconsciously assumes that they're looking at each other (i.e. the 180 degree rule). 

Shot reverse shot

Shot reverse shot is also often combined with creative geography to create the sense that two characters are facing each other, when in fact they're being filmed in completely different locations or at completely different times.

Match to action/cutting to movement 

A cut which splices two different views of the same moment in the movement, making it seems to continue uninterrupted.

A match on action adds variety and dynamism to a scene, since it conveys two movements: the one that actually takes place on screen, and an implied one by the viewer, since her/ his position is shifted.

Match vector or Cutting on movement 

A motion vector is created by an object actually moving in a specific direction or an object that is perceived as moving on the screen.

When breaking down a sequence of shots depicting a continuous action there are usually five questions faced by the editor: What is visually interesting? What part of a shot is necessary to advance the ‘story’? How long can the sequence last? Has the activity been adequately covered on camera? Is there a sufficient variety of shots to serve the above requirements?

The Cheat Cut

When the camera is set up for a second shot at a different angle it is possible to move things around a little to improve the new composition, the difference in perspective and angle of the two shots hides the fact that things are not exactly in the same place.

Temporal Continuity 

Means of constructing the story in terms of time: order, duration, and frequency: 

• The order of the presentation of events - these can be manipulated in order to reveal different story elements and play with the viewer (e.g. Memento).
• The manipulation of duration of events in the story can create ellipsis. Elliptical editing presents action in such a way that it consumes less time on screen than in the actual story.
• By presenting the same events a number of times (frequency) in the story to build up tension but adding elements to move the story closer to the climax.

Elliptical Continuity

• The shortening of plot duration achieved by omitting intervals of story duration.
• Elliptical editing is creating shot transitions that omit parts of an event, causing an ellipsis in plot and story duration.
• Elliptical editing can be achieved with a great deal of dissolves and jump cuts in order to both shorten the time and suggest a character's emotional states. Elliptical editing need not be confined to a same place and time.

Jump Cut

• An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. 
• Basically, two similar shots cut together with a jump in continuity, camera position or time.
• Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant.
• Jump Cuts were featured historically widely in avant-garde and radical filmmaking, or more commonly in music videos, video art or alternative filmmaking, like Lars Von Trier's Dogma films.