Principles of EditingBy James Qualey

History of EditingGeorge Melies:

This man invented the Jump Cut , the Fade In and Fade Out, Overlapping Dissolves and Stop Motion Photography.

Edwin S. Porter

This man invented the Temporal Overlap – Shots with overlapping action

D.W Griffith

Invented the Cut In, Continuity Editing (cutting that continues the same parameters of space and time), the 180-degree rule, Cross-Cutting (cutting between shots in a parallel action), Establishing shot, Reverse, Matching eye line and Cutting on Action.

Lev Kuleshov

Inventor of The Kuleshov Effect (the order of shots change the meaning) and montage.

Shot Styles

Jump Cut

A Jump Cut is one cut in which two shots of the same subject or subjects are taken from a camera in different positions. This has the effect of a jump forward in time.

Fade In and Out

A Fade In and Out is a smooth transition from one image to another.

The effect this has on consumers is that it softens the transitions, making the shots look cleaner.

Shot Styles

Cut In

For example cutting from a wide shot of a scene into a mid shot of a subject.

This has the effect of exchanging emotions between shots.

Stop Motion Photography

This is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object or persona appear to move on its own.

Georges Melies used stop motion animation once to produce moving title-card letters in one of his short films.

Shot Styles

Temporal Overlapping

An action is duplicated from one shot to another. This has the effect that shows the point of view from as many times shown in the movie.

Cutting on Action

This is were editors cut from one shot to another view that match’s the first shot’s action.

Shot Styles

Continuity Editing

Is where editing is used to smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process and to establish a logical coherence between shots.

The effect this has is to achieve continuity which helps with smooth transitions of time and space.

180-Degree Rule

Is the basic guideline regarding on screen spatial relationships between one character and others.

The effect this has is it allows the audience to follow the eye line between two characters and avoid confusing them.

Shot Styles

Inter/Cross-Cutting

This is where one shot for example a long shot is cut to a close up.

This gives the effect is building suspense

Establishing Shot

This is where the shot establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects.

This has the effect of giving the audience a specific time code.

Shot Styles

Matching Eye Line

This is where we see a character looking off into the distance (generally off screen) and then cuts to the subject that they were looking at.

Reverse

Is where we see one character is shown looking at one character (which is often off screen) and then the other character is shown looking back at the 1st character.

The effect this has it to help keep the film linearly and somewhat logical.