FREE Film School – Assignment 2: Completed Action
There’s some common tasks assigned to students when they attend film school. Last week I looked at the “photo story”. But once you have learned some of the basics of shot composition and editing, your next assignment is often about “match cuts” and “completed action”.
Shooting film is often somewhat stressful due to the need to acquire everything you need in a set time. On the other hand, editing can be rather more relaxed and enjoyable (depending on your deadline). Putting your shots together using an editing program can be a lot of fun, as it’s the first time you see if those shots connect together.
Editing is where the “movie magic” comes to fruition. This is when you finally discover if your shooting plan worked. Do those cuts match?
Match Cuts
In film or video parlance, a “match cut” is a cut from one shot to another where the action matches. The action has to follow smoothly from one cut to the next and match the motion (tempo, pace, angle etc).
Let’s look at an example:
- FULL SHOT of a pirate swinging a cutlass down onto the head of a sailor-zombie.
- Match cut to:
- CLOSE UP as the cutlass blade sinks into the skull of the sailor-zombie.
Now, it’s not enough that we simply go from a wider shot to a closer shot. The speed of the swing has to feel the same in both shots. In addition, the timing has to match so that it feels as if the swing is all one motion.
Also, the angle the blade hits the skull has to make sense. In other words, if in the full shot we see the pirate attack the sailor-zombie from behind, it will jar if we cut to a close up of the blade hitting the skull as if attacked from the side.
When you cut shots together to match in this way, it creates a smoother flow from one shot to the next. This is known as “continuity editing”.
Completed Action
In the example above, the shot of the blade hitting the sailor-zombie’s head completes the action shown in the full shot of the pirate swinging his cutlass.
Jump Cuts
A match cut is in contrast to what is known as a “jump cut”. When using a jump cut, the editor deliberately mismatches the action.
One famous example of the use of jump cuts is in the film Breathless (1960, À bout de souffle). The film was legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s breakthrough picture and also a major event establishing the French New wave as an important movement. One of the elements that impressed critics was the use of jump cuts.
Godard himself says he used them out of economic necessity. Simply because he couldn’t afford to shoot extra angles for many scenes. So, instead, he made cuts between different places in the same shot/angle. The jump cut in this film thus shortens the length of the shot, but also jolts us forward in time in a way which is noticeable and rough (as opposed to smooth).
Jump cuts are still used in this way, today. For example, in the first season of Stranger Things I noticed a single angle shortened in time by using a series of jump cuts. Again, this saved the filmmakers time and money by removing the need to set up a second angle (or more).
Practice how shots connect
So, in this assignment take a simple activity and film it from different angles. Then, boot up your editing program and cut the shots together to match and complete actions.
This activity doesn’t have to be anything exciting like a pirate fighting a sailor-zombie, which might be more difficult to set up. But you can choose anything like cooking an omelette to cleaning the car.
It will help if you have a subject who is willing to perform the action so you can film it from different angles. You might need them to repeat actions over and over, while you perfect the shot or get the same action from different angles.
Examples:
- FULL SHOT of the chef getting some eggs from the fridge.
- MEDIUM of the stove as the chef walks into shot carrying the eggs. Chef takes one egg and breaks it into the pan.
- CLOSE UP of chef hitting egg against the side of the pan and breaking it into the pan.
- and so on…
This might seem simple, but it turns out to be quite a tricky craft to get right. Make sure you cut the medium to close up shot sequence so the it feels like one motion as the egg is hit against the pan.
Cut on movement
Sometimes it helps to make a smoother cut if you cut on the movement in the shot. For example, in the sequence above you could have the medium shot and cut after he breaks the eggs to a close up of the eggs in the pan. However, if you cut on the movement of the chef’s hand as he breaks the egg, you might find this helps to disguise the cut even more.
In the example of the pirate swinging his cutlass, you might decide to cut after the blade has already hit the sailor-zombie’s skull. But if instead you cut on the movement of the blade, you’ll probably find the moment is smoother and has more impact for the audience.
Playing around with the moment you cut from one angle to the next you will discover subtle changes in the edit position (even just a frame or 2) will make a big difference to the feeling of the edit, overall.
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