Editing techniques

An establishing shot
This is to get a sense of setting usually at the beginning of a film. However with a complex story with time gaps or travelling then there would be more establishing shots. For example in a western they might get an extreme long shot of the desert before there are any characters in the shot.

Eye-line match
This is where you would have a long shot of a room, a close up shot of a face and then a shot then a shot of what he is looking at. This makes sense of everything that's going on and gives you insight into what he is looking at. This would be used to create tension with different shots and the fact that you cant see everything at the same time.

Match on action
This is bringing a number of shots together. The key here is action, lots of action. Lets take someone firing a gun in a western. You would create match on action by having medium shot of him moving his hand towards a gun, then a close up of his hand grabbing the gun and an extreme close up of him flicking the safety off. Also you could disperse close up shots of his eyes while he is doing this. All of this is the same action yet still with many shots to create action.

Cross cutting
This can create tension and excitement according to the genre of the film. Here you would have two or more scenes that are cutting between each other to create suspense. A great example of this is in Inception where the editor is cutting between all of the different dream worlds that all rely on each other to fall into place. The cutting between each of them creates suspense in that you're not sure is everything is going to fall into place.

Elliptical editing
This is where you cut out all of the uninteresting parts and condensing the parts down. For example if the character was going on a trans-atlantic flight then he would show shots of the character getting on the plain; then a shot of something happening on the plain; maybe a long shot of the plain flying and landing; then him getting of the plain. This is because we do not need to see the whole journey. That would be ridiculous.

Montage editing
An example of montage editing in Hollywood is shown in the film Rocky when you see the montage of him training. This is a clever way of showing progression in a character. In this case you see improvements in Stalone's character through training and his strength increasing. This is shown effectively without taking too long. Another type of montage editing, which is more seen in foreign films, takes a lot of scenes that individually would not have so much meaning and power. However when put together as a montage they very powerfully tell a story.

Shot reverse Shot
You would have an established shot to set the scene and then two shots that would be repeated. For example with a conversation between two characters you have the camera on one character and then on the other camera to see his reaction and then reply. However this could be more effective just to see the facial expression response of the characters. This would happen in very much dialogue based films.

Straight cut
This is most common, just simply one shot to another; a character walks in the door (medium shot); then a straight cut to a character sat on the table.

Jump cut
This is where you interrupt an action in the middle of a shot. This can be used to show deep meaning with a character in that they could be unsettled and unease.

Dissolve
Going from one shot to another you can dissolve into the next scene which can be used to show a passing of time or place.

Graphic Match cut
This is where you have two scenes merged together that both have similar shapes involved. For example in psycho where you see the blood going down the plug hole then the woman's eye. This creates a significance between films.