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Fixing Jump cuts
Posted by Jayreed27
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 06:16AM |
What's the subject? What kind of transition would suit? Also, what's the chances of getting some b roll? Stock footage? Photos? Drawings of cute animals?
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 09:16AM |
Cutaway of the hands? He could be waxing lyrical about his dearest beloved, then we cut to CU hands?
www.strypesinpost.com
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 09:29AM |
If it's something commercial and more informative than emotional, there's a pretty wide palette: Short dissolves, wipes, push slides.
But honestly, the least intrusive way is to jump cut. Especially if you have a lot of these lapses. Watch Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz. Forget "smooth" cuts. Viewers don't care; they're watching content. In fact, establish the jump cuts early and do it confidently and obviously, so that the style is apparent from the get-go. If you try to put a transition or something fancy over 12 lapses in one minute, the transitions will trample all over your content.
Also, there are times when you simply have to rein in your impatience and not cut out all the air in an interview. Balance it out. Don't cut to some irrelevant cutaway. That's way worse than a jump cut because it will confuse the viewer.
www.derekmok.com
But honestly, the least intrusive way is to jump cut. Especially if you have a lot of these lapses. Watch Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz. Forget "smooth" cuts. Viewers don't care; they're watching content. In fact, establish the jump cuts early and do it confidently and obviously, so that the style is apparent from the get-go. If you try to put a transition or something fancy over 12 lapses in one minute, the transitions will trample all over your content.
Also, there are times when you simply have to rein in your impatience and not cut out all the air in an interview. Balance it out. Don't cut to some irrelevant cutaway. That's way worse than a jump cut because it will confuse the viewer.
www.derekmok.com
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 10:04AM |
> Ah, another global edict. WRONG.
> Jump cuts aren't always right. And audiences do care.
You're misconstruing my point. I didn't say jump cuts always work. And I'm not talking about narrative; I'm talking about interviews.
Not every staccato cut is a jump cut. Young editors and producers obsess over the literal location of objects from one shot to another, like the position of the actor's arm when lifting a glass. That kind of "smoothness" is usually pointless, because the only people who notice are filmmakers. Producers, especially, think that all jump cuts are bad, and they move heaven and earth to avoid them. Sometimes the overreaching effort to avoid jump cuts results in even worse content...such as irrelevant B-roll, cheesy effects and bad overall structure and pacing. Inserting a shot of the interviewee's hands can look absolutely ridiculous. So who cares if the cut matches? The more important question is, as strypes pointed out: Why are we looking at his hands? And why is our POV sudden so close to a body part?
And that's not to say you can "pop" an actor from Point A to Point B from cut to cut, or completely ignore the fact that the subject is wearing glasses in the outgoing shot and not in the incoming shot.
The true flow isn't in 2D or 3D continuity. True flow is in the logical flow of the content and the rhythm. Popping an actor from place to place usually destroys viewer engagement because the film is artificially reaching in and meddling with the scene.
www.derekmok.com
> Jump cuts aren't always right. And audiences do care.
You're misconstruing my point. I didn't say jump cuts always work. And I'm not talking about narrative; I'm talking about interviews.
Not every staccato cut is a jump cut. Young editors and producers obsess over the literal location of objects from one shot to another, like the position of the actor's arm when lifting a glass. That kind of "smoothness" is usually pointless, because the only people who notice are filmmakers. Producers, especially, think that all jump cuts are bad, and they move heaven and earth to avoid them. Sometimes the overreaching effort to avoid jump cuts results in even worse content...such as irrelevant B-roll, cheesy effects and bad overall structure and pacing. Inserting a shot of the interviewee's hands can look absolutely ridiculous. So who cares if the cut matches? The more important question is, as strypes pointed out: Why are we looking at his hands? And why is our POV sudden so close to a body part?
And that's not to say you can "pop" an actor from Point A to Point B from cut to cut, or completely ignore the fact that the subject is wearing glasses in the outgoing shot and not in the incoming shot.
The true flow isn't in 2D or 3D continuity. True flow is in the logical flow of the content and the rhythm. Popping an actor from place to place usually destroys viewer engagement because the film is artificially reaching in and meddling with the scene.
www.derekmok.com
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 01:41PM |
It's not a universal rule. Some jump cuts make the interviewee look like he has a rare nerve disease (the interviewee is largely still except for his moving head), but cutting to a totally irrelevant shot (eg. CU of flower pot) will look weird unless the interviewee is talking about flowers, pots or gardening. Same goes for cutting to a close up his hands if it doesn't call for it. Eg. If he is talking about a sad emotive subject, I may fade out/in if it marks the end of a phrase, or cut to Broll of related subject, or if it is mid sentence, keep the fumbles, or drop the line if there is no Broll in the world and the shot is totally unusable (subject breaks into loud laughter or camera suddenly drops in mid sentence and the shot is picked up mid sentence by another camera).
www.strypesinpost.com
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 01:55PM |
Request that b-roll be shot. Stuff relating to what the subject is talking about. Show the client/producer what it will look like without b-roll. It is VERY boring to watch people talk. No matter what they are saying or how interesting it is.
www.shanerosseditor.com
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www.shanerosseditor.com
Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 08:20PM |
I just recently saw "The Fog of War' which uses hard jump cuts sometimes several times in a single sentence. It drove me crazy for three quarters of the film, but by the end I accepted it as the norm and it worked, because the story was intact.
I also often have to cut one cam IVs done run and gun and screened quickly, and for these I mostly use a 6 frame dip to black between questions. If the person is twitchy and high energy though, I might use a flash frame instead.
If you shoot HD and deliver SD you can also reframe to a closer shot between questions , thereby creating your own artificial B cam.
But it does really depend on the content and the mood of the program. If it's a tech piece for kids, you could go quite whacky and get away with it, if it's memoirs of a sad life, it has to be a lot more subdued.
I also often have to cut one cam IVs done run and gun and screened quickly, and for these I mostly use a 6 frame dip to black between questions. If the person is twitchy and high energy though, I might use a flash frame instead.
If you shoot HD and deliver SD you can also reframe to a closer shot between questions , thereby creating your own artificial B cam.
But it does really depend on the content and the mood of the program. If it's a tech piece for kids, you could go quite whacky and get away with it, if it's memoirs of a sad life, it has to be a lot more subdued.
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 08:45PM |
My main point would be that some producers and directors, because of inexperience with editing, or some taboo in thinking (such as obsession with "smooth" cutting), automatically kick out some parts of our film language that can, in many instances, give us the most direct solutions to issues.
I personally hate jump cuts that pop in place. Especially in narrative films. But it's a part of film language. And to me, the real shame would be inserting a bunch of glossy visual garbage to hide a jump cut in the middle of a vérité film like American Dream. If the piece is The Making of The Mentalist, Season 3, sure, we can use the push slides and promo-style toys all we want.
Even with my general hatred of jump cuts, they worked very well in Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and The Last Waltz, but ruined the ending of Narc for me. Because even though Narc had a docudrama style, the jump cuts occurred at a moment of peak emotion and made the scene self-conscious, interrupting the actor's emotional journey and making it artificial rather than genuine.
Logical decisions are smooth. Illogical solutions will not be smooth, no matter how artificially "smooth" it looks to the eye. Especially in things like interviews where the ears are doing more than half the job, over the eyes.
www.derekmok.com
I personally hate jump cuts that pop in place. Especially in narrative films. But it's a part of film language. And to me, the real shame would be inserting a bunch of glossy visual garbage to hide a jump cut in the middle of a vérité film like American Dream. If the piece is The Making of The Mentalist, Season 3, sure, we can use the push slides and promo-style toys all we want.
Even with my general hatred of jump cuts, they worked very well in Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and The Last Waltz, but ruined the ending of Narc for me. Because even though Narc had a docudrama style, the jump cuts occurred at a moment of peak emotion and made the scene self-conscious, interrupting the actor's emotional journey and making it artificial rather than genuine.
Logical decisions are smooth. Illogical solutions will not be smooth, no matter how artificially "smooth" it looks to the eye. Especially in things like interviews where the ears are doing more than half the job, over the eyes.
www.derekmok.com
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Re: Fixing Jump cuts June 08, 2011 11:18PM |
Film flashes / burn leaders / blurred blooms (Composite Mode) always work on the edit in every project. Sometimes I'll even add 2 frames of a 1k tone & make it sound like an out take.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
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