Like the painter’s brush or writer’s pencil, editing can convey specific emotions and enhance storytelling. Video editors need to understand a variety of editing techniques to be able to choose the right ones for each project.
For example, using jump cuts can convey a feeling of panic to the audience. But using them too often may cause viewers to break their suspension of disbelief.
Cross-Cutting
A typical film editing technique, cross-cutting (or parallel editing), combines multiple scenes to give the impression that they are co-occurring. It can create tension by showing the audience that something dangerous is happening in one location while a character in another is unaware. Or, it can make a large-scale action sequence more intense by cutting between different parts of the same fight.
The best example is cross-cutting in Inception to show how actions in one layer of a dream can have consequences in another. This is a great way to viscerally demonstrate an idea that would be difficult to convey with words alone.
When using this editing style, you must ensure each scene you cut together feels like a complete moment. Otherwise, it may feel choppy and confusing to the audience. To avoid this, try to storyboard as much as possible during pre-production and plan your shots carefully.
Fade-In
While basic cuts are helpful, sometimes a filmmaker needs to do more. This is where artistic transitions help convey a mood, jump between storylines, spice up the narrative, or move backward or forward in time.
Fade-ins are a way of easing into the new imagery rather than simply cutting from one shot to another. They can also be used for audio, allowing the song to slowly fade in and out instead of just stopping suddenly.
This is an essential technique for any video editor like Vizard and can be used in many ways. The fading effect can add professionalism to any production, whether for an image or an audio track. You can use automation to alter the curve of your fade, and a bezier curve is often preferred for song fade-ins. You can also change your fade’s start and end points by dragging them to the desired position on the timeline.
J-Cut
The J cut is a variation of the L cut and helps to keep your cuts smooth and natural. It is a technique professional video editors use and works well with dialogue scenes.
It involves playing the audio from clip two over clip one before it cuts to the picture of clip 2. This is sometimes called an “audio lead” or an “audio advance.”
J and L cuts allow you to hide where your visual scratches occur, making your footage feel more natural as if there was no edit. It also allows you to add more interest to dialogue-heavy scenes and make the conversation more exciting or suspenseful.
This technique can also be used in montage sequences, where many short shots are edited to form one continuous scene. It can be particularly effective during monologues or voiceovers, giving the audience a sense of urgency and anticipation.
L-Cut
The L-cut is a film editing technique in which the audio and visual transition at different times. This can help soften the impact of a hard cut between clips, particularly for dialogue-heavy scenes.
L cuts are also excellent for creating montages or supporting a cliffhanger ending. This is because the continuing audio from the clip can draw the viewer into the next scene.
To create an L cut, place the video clip you want to transition into before the corresponding audio clip in your editor timeline. Then, leave the audio of clip one running into clip 2 when you want to change the visuals. This gives you an ‘L’ shape on your editing timeline and is where the name of this technique comes from. Try this technique on your next edit to see the results for yourself.
Montage
The montage technique is a great way to condense time and information without sacrificing dramatic impact. It’s also a valuable tool for conveying changes or developments in your story.
Montages are often used for comedic relief, but they can be just as powerful when they serve a more serious purpose. A great example of this uses a montage to show the lifespan of a relationship.
Lev Kuleshov and later Sergei Eisenstein developed a montage theory based on the idea that small fragments of information lacked meaning until strung together. This is similar to how we experience our daily lives, with snippets of imagery and sounds that don’t fully connect but still shape our worldview. Eisenstein believed that montage could manipulate emotions in a similar way to this. This led to the creation of different montage editing types, including metric, rhythmic, and tonal.
Cutting on Motion
Many different techniques can be used to convey movement in a video. Combining these can help you tell your story in the most effective, engaging, and creative way possible. The timing of a cut can make all the difference in creating the right impact for your audience.
Jump cuts are a technique where you switch between two shots of the same object or scene with the same camera angle. This helps the audience transition from one image to another without needing a visual transition.
Assemble editing is a technique that involves adding new footage into existing video clips to create a finished pin with a more cohesive and seamless narrative. This can include everything from cutting clips together to combining live footage of an event, such as a newscast or sporting event.
