This the first part of ‘film editing and movie editing’ by ‘Michael Robert Johnson’.
First and foremost, ORGANISE YOUR MATERIAL. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how much difference it can make. You will become familiar with the material much quicker if you have it separated into different bins as opposed to everything in one huge bin.
Mark up your script accurately. Draw a line down through the portion of the script covered by each different slate; it’s also handy to make notes on which take contains the best bit for each slate.
Once you have done the first assembly, FORGET ABOUT THE SCRIPT. When the film is assembled from beginning to end, the script is now irrelevant – the end product is constructed from the shot material, not the written material. Don’t attempt to crowbar pieces of business into scenes just because the script dictates it – if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and it needs to come out.
The cardinal rule for editing is MAKE IT INVISIBLE.
Unless the style is particularly tricksy, the audience should never be aware of your cutting points.
THIS IS THE BASIS OF ALL GOOD EDITING.
Most editing – particularly action editing – is done on some sort of movement, which helps to disguise the cut. When a character turns to leave the room, for example, you can use the turn of the head to cut from one angle to the other.
But don’t feel bound by what seems to be the obvious movement. It is the motion itself that carries the eye across the edit, and quite often – if you are having trouble getting out of one shot and into the next – the slightest amount of movement in the same part of the frame will make the edit work.
Also, do not leave “dead frames” when you have action entering or leaving.
If a person is entering/leaving frame, always try to cut on the first/last frame of movement; even one extra “dead” frame can make the action seem stilted. An edit is working when it feels like a smooth curve as opposed to a jagged corner.
The exception to this rule is if you need a character to cross a certain amount of time or space off-screen, in which case you hold an extended amount of “dead” frames to make the point.
[Further to this, try to learn importance of the single frame. That may seem obvious if you’ve done a little bit of editing already, but if you’re just starting out, that single frame – that tiny one 24th of a second – can often be the difference between a cut looking horribly jagged and a cut looking totally seamless. Experiment.]
Learn the principle of the “mean sight-line”
At any given moment, there is a point on the screen at which the majority of the audience will be looking; most often it is in an actor’s eyes, but movement is also a key draw. This is very useful if you want to direct the audience to a particular area of the screen ahead of the cut, so their eyes are in the right place for information coming in on the other side of the edit.
By the same token, if you are cutting into an image where the audience will have to adjust their eye across the screen to the next area of interest, allow them the time to reposition. Bad editing often doesn’t take this into consideration, and by the time the audience has worked out where they should be looking, they have missed what they should be looking at.