Alright, I’m going to keep this pretty simple. The ideas here are enough to keep you growing for awhile as an editor. While these tips might be considered “subtle” or too esoteric for their own good, after you read this article you’ll start to notice them in many TV commercials, films, news packages, and more.
First, if you’ve stumbled across this post and don’t know anything about Dreamcity Cinema, let me briefly catch you up.
We are a video production company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We specialize in branded content, filmmaking, and literally anything related to post-production. With over a decade of experience, it’s our hope that these simple tips will give you an edge when editing your next video.
If you don’t want to spend the time doing so, please drop us a line. We’d be happy to help you out.
3. Use J-Cuts
Turn on the TV. Quick. Do it. If you watch something for more than five minutes, you’ll see a “J-cut.” What is it?
A “J-cut” is a way of more seamlessly cutting between two shots with audio attached to them.
Let’s say you have a shot of a tree. (Known as “B-roll!”) Then you want to cut to a shot of a man talking about the tree (Known as “A-roll!”) Typically, amateur editors will simply cut immediately to the A-roll, right as the subject begins talking.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this, however, it can come across as sudden and abrupt to the viewer. What seasoned-editors will typically do is play a few moments of audio from the A-roll BEFORE cutting away from the B-Roll. On your NLE (Premiere, Final Cut, Avid, etc) this will appear as a J-cut.
Psychologically, this allows the viewer to get a bit of a “warning” before we cut away from the shot of the tree. It hides the cut, in a sense. When making the video, you always want the editing to feel transparent. That is, you don’t want the audience thinking about the editing.
2. Cut in late, get out early
This one is pretty simple, but I see it often done incorrectly. The simple fact of the matter is that amateur editors tend to assume audiences need more time to see a shot of something than they actually do. Let’s say we’re watching an interview and a woman is talking about mowing the lawn.
Most newbie editors, if they decide to use B-roll, might cut to a shot showing the woman mowing a lawn. Here’s how it might look…
1. The woman steps into the shot.
2. She grabs the lawnmower.
3. She pushes it.
4. She then stops.
5. Steps away from the lawnmower.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but it is boring. The audience *gets it.* Trust me.
The *better* way to edit this footage would be to simply show cut into the b-roll late and cut out early. In other words, cut in to the shot as the woman is already pushing the lawnmower (step 3) then cut out of the shot before the woman stops (Step 4.)
“The simple fact of the matter is that amateur editors tend to assume audiences need more time to see a shot of something than they actually do.”
There is a tendency when you first start editing to want to try and show more rather than less. That’s a good instinct to have. You want to “Show” as a much as possible. What that should mean, however, is that you should aim for using variety in your b-roll. Not simply using longer b-roll. Instead of using all thirty seconds of the woman mowing her lawn (Starting at Step 1 and going to 5) the better way to do this is to use a variety of shots. A closeup of the grass. Her forehead as she wipes sweat off. The grass flying out of the chute. The nearby squirrel watching. This is what “showing” is actually about. More shots > Longer shots.
Let me give another example. Let’s say you’re cutting to a shot of a baseball playing batting a home run. Typically, an amateur editor might cut in to the shot before the ball is pitched. Then, once the batter hits the ball, they’ll show it leaving the frame, then they’ll cut to the ball going over the stands. The more interesting way to edit this would be to cut in to the shot as the ball is already moving into the frame, then cutting out of the shot BEFORE the ball completely exits.
It’s very subtle, but has a profound effect on your editing. If you are still having trouble grasping this concept, just think about it this way: the audience usually doesn’t need to see a b-roll shot as long as you think.
1. Manifest the “Kuleshov Effect”
This tip is more philosophical than practical. The Kuleshov Effect is a theory that notes how the human brain will attempt to connect two unrelated things when they are placed together in a series of motion images (film or video). Let’s say you turn on the TV and you see a horse kicking something.
A few hours later, you randomly find a movie where a guy gets punched in the face by a fist off-camera. Your brain won’t make any connection between the shot of the horse and the shot of the man getting punched in the face due to the long lapse of time between them.
Yet, if you were to edit both of these shots next to each other and play the video for an audience, the viewers will assume that the man getting punched is actually getting kicked in the face – or, at least, that this is the story you’re trying to tell. Even if the two shots are in a completely different location and the lighting looks different for both and the characters are completely different, the audience will derive meaning from these two shots.
By juxtaposing these images, the audience psychologically *wants* to find a connection.
How does this help you become a better editor? Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide. Personally, it allowed me to understand that audiences will create connections between unrelated shots that can actually work in favor of your video. How you juxtapose these shots says a lot about how your video will be seen by audiences.