CHAPTER 6 THE RELATION OF SHOT TO SHOT: EDITING
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CHAPTER 6
THE RELATION OF SHOT TO SHOT: EDITING
Chapter Outline
What Is Editing?
Dimensions of Film Editing
Graphic Relations Between Shot A and Shot B
Rhythmic Relations Between Shot A and Shot B
Spatial Relations Between Shot A and Shot B
Temporal Relations Between Shot A and Shot B
Continuity Editing
Spatial Continuity: The 180 System
Continuity Editing in The Maltese Falcon
Continuity Editing: Some Fine Points
Crosscutting
Temporal Continuity: Order, Frequency, and Duration
A Closer Look: Intensified Continuity
Alternatives to Continuity Editing
Graphic and Rhythmic Possibilities
Spatial and Temporal Discontinuity
Summary
Teaching “The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing”
The Purpose of the Chapter
Yet editing has an enormous impact on how we respond to films, and with a bit of
practice one can become aware of editing without losing any enjoyment in watching the
actions taking place on the screen. Chapter 6 aims to “freeze” the editing and to lay
CHAPTER 6 THE RELATION OF SHOT TO SHOT: EDITING
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shots out systematically on the page so that students may study the typical patterns and
possibilities of editing.
Lecturing On and Discussing Editing
Your students may find learning to watch for editing a bit frustrating at first. As with the
other film techniques, you can help by showing as many slides and clips as possible.
One valuable exercise is to show a clip, then go through it by showing slides of the
beginning and ending of each shot. Computer video software (such as Quicktime or
Realplayer) is a great way to put the end of one shot side by side with the beginning of
the shot that follows, since you can display multiple viewing windows at once. (Many
video programs can also play a film frame by frame, allowing you to highlight an edit.)
After focusing on the exact edit point, you could then show the same clip. Ideally this
should be done first in lecture, with you pointing out the various editing techniques used
in the clips. Then another clip could be shown during discussion (possibly from the main
film shown for the class that week); ask the students to describe the editing techniques
they see in the clip.
Assigning a Paper on Editing
One simple and useful assignment is to use video clips of a single scene and ask the
students to write up a shot breakdown, or découpage. The format for this could be
modeled on the brief shot lists given for The Birds early in Chapter 6. Have the students
number the shots and use the standard abbreviations (LS, MS, CU, and so on) for each.
They will not be able to give precise timings in number of frames, as we do, but you can
ask them to give rough timings in seconds. They should specify the camera angle and
any camera movement. They should also give brief descriptions of the action and
suggest functions the shot-changes serve.
students to do a written shot breakdown on their own, as described above.
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For a longer, more challenging paper, the same basic topic described in the section
on mise-en-scene in Chapter 4 could be assigned, but with the students directed to
write on one or more motifs of editing in a film.