Andrew Seagrave 12PJW
Continuity Editing in Film.
Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing and video
editing in the post-production process of filmmaking of narrative
films and television programs. The purpose of continuity editing is to
smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process and to
establish a logical coherence between shots.
In most films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity,
which emphasizes smooth transition of time and space. However,
some films incorporate cutting to continuity into a more complex
classical cutting technique, one which also tries to show
psychological continuity of shots. The montage technique relies on
symbolic association of ideas between shots rather than association
of simple physical action for its meaning.
Continuity editing can be divided into two categories: temporal
continuity and spatial continuity. Within each category, specific
techniques will work against a sense of continuity. In other words,
techniques can cause a passage to be continuous, giving the viewer a
concrete physical narration to follow, or discontinuous, causing
viewer disorientation, pondering, or even subliminal interpretation
or reaction, as in the montage style.
The important ways to preserve temporal continuity are avoiding the
ellipsis, using continuous diegetic sound, and utilizing the match on
action technique.
An ellipsis is an apparent break in natural time continuity as it is
implied in the film's story. The simplest way to maintain temporal
continuity is to shoot and use all action involved in the story's
supposed duration whether it be pertinent or not. It would also be
necessary to shoot the whole film in one take in order to keep from
having to edit together different shots, causing the viewer's temporal
disorientation. However in a story which is to occupy many hours,
days, or years, a viewer would have to spend too long watching the
film. So although in many cases the ellipsis would prove necessary,
elimination of it altogether would best preserve any film's temporal
continuity.
Diegetic sound is that which is to have actually occurred within the
story during the action being viewed. It is sound that comes from
within the narrative world of a film (including off-screen sound).
Continuous diegetic sound helps to smooth temporally questionable
Andrew Seagrave 12PJW
cuts by overlapping the shots. Here the logic is that if a sonic
occurrence within the action of the scene has no breaks in time, then
it would be impossible for the scene and its corresponding visuals to
be anything but temporally continuous.
cut on action technique can preserve temporal continuity where
there is a uniform, unrepeated physical motion or change within a
passage. A match on action is when some action occurring before the
temporally questionable cut is picked up where the cut left it by the
shot immediately following. For example, a shot of someone tossing a
ball can be edited to show two different views, while maintaining
temporal continuity by being sure that the second shot shows the
arm of the subject in the same stage of its motion as it was left when
cutting from the first shot.