Edit for Effect

Jim Stinson
November 1998

A single set of shots can yield many different feelings, depending on how you mix and match them. We'll show you how to achieve different editing effects. Better yet, we'll help you show yourself, with a hand's-on 20-second video project that you can shoot in under an hour, and edit in 100,000 different ways.

Yes, literally 100,000! This is true if: you shoot our 10-line script from five different camera angles, and edit the raw footage by switching angles for each new line of dialogue. If you do this, that's 10 to the fifth power, or 100,000 possible combinations

That's only hypothetical, but there are dozens of practical shot combinations, each producing a different effect on the viewer. To get you started, we'll show you just four of them.

Look at the script in the sidebar on page XX. This is a scene in which character X parts company from character Y. In our storyboard X is a woman, and Y is a man. The scene takes place in a coffee shop.

However, you don't need to have these elements to shoot the script. The story could take place anywhere: in a kitchen, a living room or an office. Any two actors will do, because age, gender and ethnicity don't matter. The characters illustrated in our storyboard are probably breaking up a romance, but your characters could be business partners, roommates, or kids collaborating on a science project.

The lines of dialogue in the script are short, because amateur actors often dislike memorizing a script. For this reason, you may want to provide a cue card for each actor: a felt marker on cardboard is fine. To use cue cards, prop each actor's card as near as possible to the other actor (so that the reader seems to be looking at the other actor), but out of the camera frame. Once you've recruited two actors, you can prep the entire shoot in 20 minutes (well, 30 if you print slowly).

Though you'll be shooting in your own locale with your own actors, we'll continue with adult female X and adult male Y.

Start with the full shot to establish the locale and the characters. Begin by shooting all 10 lines of the script from this position. If your location allows, try to get a true full shot, showing most or all of both characters.

Next, get a medium (waist to head) or loose closeup (head and shoulders) shot of X. Be sure to move your camera around to obtain a three-quarter angle. Don't just zoom in from the full shot camera position, because a smooth edit requires a change in both image size and camera location. Have both characters play the entire scene, though you'll shoot only X. Having someone to react to will help your actors keep the scene flowing smoothly.

Now get the tight closeup of X. If you can't move the camera still farther to the side, vary the shot by changing the camera's height --say, from a neutral height to a low angle. Shoot the entire scene again.

The remaining setups repeat the scene twice while shooting Actor Y: first in medium shot or loose closeup and then in tight closeup. And that's a wrap: if prepping and shooting each setup takes ten minutes, you'll be done in under an hour and ready to edit.

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