Editing: Motivation (page 2)

While we're on a tangent, here's a little trick pertaining to the motivated edit where the 'edit' never happens. You could call this the motivated un-edit. This trick is the low-budget solution to big-budget effects. Something happens out of the frame, but we never cut to it. For example, a car speeds to the edge of a cliff, and the driver jumps out. A group of bystanders turns to watch the vehicle shoot off the cliff, all following with their eyes and looks of surprise. In unison, their heads follow laterally until 'the car' leaps off the edge. They then run to the edge themselves and stare down to where the car would have crashed at the base of the cliff. We hear the impact and explosion. An orange flash illuminates the faces of the observers as they flinch, which seals the deal. This could also be someone planting a bomb and running away. The audience hears the explosion detonate as a gust of wind and an orange flash hit the bomber's back as he or she flees. The high-budget hard-to-produce explosion scene never takes place, yet the motivated shots imply that they did, and the viewer watching the movie understands the story just the same.

There you have four examples of the motivated edit. If you want your videos to look like the works of the pros, watch their examples, and learn the conventions they have been following for the last one hundred-plus years of filmmaking. The motivated edit is one of the smoothest cuts you can use, but you most likely have to plan on it in your pre-production and make sure you shoot it properly. So study your dialog, look over your script and draw it into your storyboards. Your audience will appreciate your filmmaking skills.

Contributing editor Morgan Paar is a nomadic producer, shooter and editor currently teaching high school video production.

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