The Editing Skill Every Editor Needs To Know

Understanding what makes good pacing is not an easy subject to jump into. However, by understanding the reasons for extending/shortening a cut can help identify the optimal pacing for your video.

Let's get started...

Your shots could have a variety of different complexities. Here are some way to classify if your shot is complex or not.

Contrast

This is simply the increased difference between dark and light colours. Meaning that the greater the contrast in a visual component, the more the visual intensity of the picture increases.

This means doesn’t necessarily mean it is harder to identify, however it is important to realise that too many of these highly contrasted elements or highly affinity elements on screen at the same time mean that it will all blend together. This leads to the viewer taking longer processing these shots.

Elements

The more visual elements on-screen, the longer it takes the viewer to process before they can understand the picture. This why in many movies they pull something into focus on others out of it. They achieve two things by doing this:

1. Less visual elements to track

2. Added depth to the image

Many times we can pair cuts with another element in the editing.

• Music

• Actions (movement)

• Commentary

Timing our cuts to these must be done strategically to achieve a specific outcome.

When it comes to pairing cuts to music, it could be done in montages, time-lapses, intro segments.

With actions having a cut timed with a clap, leg movement, camera movement adds a smooth rhythm to the video.

The most basic of cuts can be done with commentary, simply cutting when a sentence is over, or we need to move onto a different piece of content mid-speech to visually represent ideas.

Simply put, your cuts can directly have an effect on the emotions of the viewer.

Depending on the context in your scenes, pairing different length cuts can emphasise fast action, slow paced tense shots. Experimenting with different shot lengths for different moods will develop different outcomes.

Adding an extra few seconds after a joke creates a momentary pause where the viewer has time to process. Leaving long uninterrupted shots in a tense moment creates tension as a decision needs to be made.

Taking into account every scene’s mood and emotion allows you to highlight each in the pacing of the video.