Cutting on Action / The Clean Frame

Today I Would like to discuss some basic shooting and editing techniques
“Cutting on action and the clean frame”

Here is a scene of a person coming into the frame sitting down then picking up a piece of paper, reading it, putting the paper down and exiting the frame.  So lets take a look at a master or wide shot of this scene.

Now we’re going to shoot the same scene over again in both a medium and a close up shot.

I point out to here that both the beginning and end of this shot had a clean frame—meaning we let the subject come in and exit the frame.
This technique gives us choices in the editing process, and also let’s us shorten or lengthen the shot.

“Cutting on action” is a standard editing technique that creates a smooth edit. Often barely noticed by the viewer. Watch how we use this with our three shots. Here is the first example.

That worked pretty well. Now here is another way we could cut it still using the movement.

I hope this has been helpful. For a more in depth look at this topic. Go www.barrycasson.com