Edit Suite: The Power of the Cut

Despite a professional editor's tool kit of fades and flips and wipes and fly-ins, 99% of all shot transitions are plain old cuts. An editor uses cuts to decide which information is presented to the audience and to control the impact of the material on the viewer. We'll look at each of these functions and then wrap up with a bag of tricks for making scene transitions with cuts only, as an alternative to all those fades, flips, and fly-ins.

But first, the usual disclaimer: since cutting depends on having something to cut, the process really begins with directing; so we'll have to sneak out of the edit suite occasionally to spy on the action on the production floor.

Information Control
Cutting to a different shot is the quickest way to deliver new information to the viewer. Cutting to:

• A longer (wider) shot puts the action into a context and reveals things excluded from a closer view.
• A tighter shot reveals details that are not as clear in the broader view.
• Very tight shots (called inserts) display material (like the text of a letter, for instance) that would otherwise be invisible.
• A different angle (say, from front to profile) shows the scene from a new perspective while it adds to the illusion of depth.
• A cutaway introduces completely new materia…

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