The continuity system of editing The history of cinema is a history of narrative space, making visual or pictorial space tell a story. Continuity editing’s objective: to define and link shots within scenes and sequences in order to maximize each shot’s dramatic impact and direct audience attention to significant parts of the action.

Industrial premises 1. The audience should not perform any labour of attention. 2. The audience’s memory of dramatic space must be reinforced through constant repetition. 3. The audience’s attention will wander from ‘unbroken’ space.

Aesthetic premises 1. The linking of actions should be linear and consecutive. 2. The passage from one shot to the next should be perceived as continuous. Transitions between shots should be invisible. 3. Each change in shot should be motivated; the viewer will see all and only all that s/he needs to know. 4. Narration should be unrestricted, the camera omniscient. The viewer’s look will be directed to the best vantage point by the most efficient means. 5. The viewer is to be given perceptual ‘freedom’ and mobility. 6. The viewer as voyeur or ‘invisible guest’. The invisibility of shot changes are analogous to the viewer’s own ‘invisibility’.

Paradox and purpose The paradox of continuity: in order to maintain a sense of invisible flow of action, the narrative must be strategically cut up. The purpose of continuity: to control the potentially disunifying force of editing through a) strategies of composition and framing, and b) setting up patterns of audience expectation concerning manipulations of film space.

The two basic rules of continuity 1. The shot scale/angle rule: when moving to a new shot, change the scale, the angle, or both. 2. The 30 degree rule: when moving to new shot, the camera angle should shift at least 30 degrees (but no more than 180 degrees).

Analytic breakdown (scale and angle) I

Analytic breakdown (scale and angle) II

Mise-en-scène and continuity l graphic patterns are kept as similar as possible from shot to shot l figures are placed in the frame in a balanced and symmetrical fashion l lighting remains constant and consistent overall l dramatic action occupies the center of the screen l shot scale determines shot length

The axis of action or 180 degree line a) ensures consistency of backgrounds b) ensures consistent screen direction c) preserves the audience perspective of the invisible ‘fourth wall’

The four types of match cut 1. graphic matches 2. matching angles 3. eyeline matches 4. matches on action

Shot / reverse shot Matching eyelines + matching angles = shot/reverse shot

Match on action

Cheat cut