Continuity Editing

Definition This is a style of editing that requres the director to try to make the film reality as much like the audience's reality as possible. This means the film is trying to recreate what the world around us is and trying to make it easier on the audience to comprehend and understand the action happening on screen. Within this style of editing there are many terms or ways of implementing the style. These affects can be used independently of each other to create desired affects. Eyeline Match This employs the audience’s ability to assume things. This series of shots usually shows someone looking at something and then what exactly they are looking at. In this way the auience can see exactly what the character is seeing and what the director wants them to see. http://vimeo.com/25660023 The above clip is a prime example of the eyeline match. This clip is from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). In this film Jimmy Stewart’s character is confined to his wheelchair and must resort to spying on his neighbors through the rear window of his apartment in order to entertain himself. This opening scene shows multiple examples of eyeline matches. We see Stewart staring at what looks like straight out his window and are then cut to a view of a woman dancing around her apartment. This eyeline match occurs multiple times. We also see an eyeline match to a helicopter flying in the sky, a woman who appears to live below the level of Stewart’s apartment, a man playing a piano, an arguing couple, a woman with a birdcage and a woman reading a magazine in a chair. Stewart’s character looks out the window and then we are cut to a view of what he is seeing as he looks over his neighbors. Match on Action In order for this series of shots to make sense, the director must manipulate the camera as if the film reality he/she is creating exists when not in view of the camera. This means, for example, that if a character happens to walk off screen in one shot, he must walk onto another screen in another shot. All this says to the audience is that when one shot ends another will pick up where the other left off making the reality of the film fluid and continuous. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4kiXh8YOzk&feature=player_embedded The above clip from Victor Flemings The Wizard of Oz (1939) is an example of match on action. Miss Gulch is seen riding her bicycle, moving to the right, for the majority of the short clip. At the cut we can see Miss Gulch still riding her bicycle coming in the direction towards the viewer. The speed at which she is riding does not change, which adds to the continuity and flow of the one shot to the next. These shots could have been recorded a year apart but the match on action editing technique creates a flow to the viewer making the connection between both shots seamless. We know that while the camera cut to a different angle of view the entirety of the clip shown is meant to be taken as a single action (riding the bicycle) happening at the same point in time. Establishing Shot This is a basic shot that is used a lot. This shot is usually wide angled showing the setting in which a scene is taking place. It helps the audience maintain a sense of where the action of the film is taking place and places a smaller part of the film as a whole inside of a specific place. Establishing Shot: The Shining http://www.viddler.com/v/8b692bea This example comes from the very beginning of Stanley Kubrik's The Shining. It clearly focuses on the Overlook Hotel, the main setting for the majority of the movie. Most aspects of this shot stress the importance of the setting, helping to make this establishing shot stick the importance of the setting in our mind: the high point of view, the tracking from far to nearer the hotel, honing in directly on what will be the setting. After a title card, the shot following this is of the interior of the hotel, only recognizable to the audience as such because of it's chronological order from exterior to interior shots leading to the logical inference that they are the same place. POV (Point of View) Shot This shot can be associated with the eyeline match but is a little different. This shot tries to place the camera as a character, making the audience have physical mass inside of the film realityRear Window http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gNgYo85PW4&feature=player_embedded One film celebrated for the use of Point of View shots is Hitchcock's Vertigo. Not only does this film exemplify the idea of POV shots placing the audience in the action of the film, but it also places the audience in the position of the main character, an effect referred to as "leading actor POV" (Wikipedia). Often this effect is employed to help the audience empathize with the main character, or to restrict their view strictly to that of the characters. In this example, we only see through the binoculars what the Jimmy Stewart character is seeing, focusing our attention on the very precise details that he is focusing on, as well as blocking our view of any action occuring behind Stewart. This effect can be employed in thriller movies when the director wishes to spook the audience and the character simultaneously, by restricting the frame to that of the character's view. Axis of Action This rule is somewhat complicated but makes sense if you know what you are looking for. On the contrary you probably think this is the most simple logical thing to do when filming a conversation but it is actually a filming style itself. Take for example two people facing each other having a conversation. The scene cuts between each of these characters seeing both halves of the conversation between two separate shots with only the single actor in each frame. You want one actor facing left on the screen and one actor facing right. This creates the illusion that they are looking at each other and not simply off the screen. If both characters are facing left then they look as if they are facing the same direction, not each other, and therefore would make for an odd looking conversation. Parallel Editing Cross-cutting, sometimes called parallel editing, is an editing technique which Jacques Aumont describes as one which, “creates the impression of simultaneity between two series.” (5.p168) More information on this technique can be found on the parallel editing page. Diegetic Sound- Used to Assist Continuity Editing Diegetic sound is often associated with continuity editing. Diegetic sound can assist a film’s flow and allow the continuity of a scene to remain stable- which is a goal of continuity editing. Diegetic sound is sound that is actually created within the world of the film (2). When edits are being made and cuts are seen in a particular scene in a film which included diegetic sound, the uninterrupted continuation of the diegetic sound helps the viewer piece together the events taking place before them. If the song or sound you are hearing is played straight through with no jumps or pauses, while the action taking place is seen through a series of shots, it makes logical sense that the action occurring takes place together with no breaks in time (2). http://www.viddler.com/v/ef77b2f8 .

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