Use cutaways to increase tension in your scenes. You automatically raise the stakes when you shoot a harried woman with her arms full of groceries unlocking and closing the door to her house at twilight, then you follow up with a cutaway of a set of dangling keys she left behind, still in the keyhole. The audience will have no problem coming to the appropriate conclusions or assumptions.

Let's return to another passenger on our train. This one is staring out the window as the endless plains of the Midwest rush by. What is he thinking? Where is he going? This time, we cut away to a completely different scene, perhaps of the man and a young woman. Is the man on the train thinking about his daughter he left behind? Or is hoping to meet up with someone at the end of his destination? Again, the cutaway creates the tension and drives the audience without unnecessary storytelling dialog.

You want to break or link action in scenes? Use cutaways. Jump people around by moving them from place to place? Cutaways. Use them for suspense or excitement, to reveal information, to smoothly join one part of the speech in a dialogue with another, to fix screen direction mistakes, even to confuse the audience. As you can see, the list can go on forever.

Remember the documentary trick of a newspaper cutaway? Television news videographers are indeed notorious in the use of cutaways. They usually grab a cutaway here and there whenever they're shooting, just in case, which editors usually love. It is unfortunate, however, that many times those cutaways are limited to shots of hands, feet or other boring items that aren't pertinent to the story, but are necessary because the videographer didn't or couldn't supply enough cover shots. Be careful not to resort to cheap cutaways, which will make you look like the newcomer on the block. A cutaway shot whose sole purpose is to mask an overt mistake reminds the audience - or especially a trained eye - that something was fixed or removed. It is a delicate balance.

Choose cutaway shots that truly represent what the characters are feeling or thinking about or shots of objects - anything that serves the story, not just something you can use as a Band Aid to cover cuts. This is where the art of the cutaway truly lies. You could call this the art of momentarily distracting the audience. In the end, that's what a cutaway truly is: a momentary distraction to the audience to serve the story.

This article barely scratches the surface of what cutaways can do. We urge you to fully embrace cutaways, because they're wonderful editing tools. They allow greater flexibility in editing. Experiment with them and have fun.

Eric Ossohou is a director, cinematographer and editor. He also teaches cinematography and film production.