Then, in the middle of the other character’s response, it cuts to that second character. Here’s an example of a J-cut: A character says his line, and the other character starts to say his line-but the camera remains on the first character. The viewer is looking at clip B while still hearing audio from clip A. L-cut means you’re still hearing the audio from a shot but you’re seeing a new shot.It just means you’re looking at clip A while hearing the audio from clip B. It doesn’t mean you’re staring at a black screen.
J-cut means you hear the audio before you see the video that matches with that audio.The names of these cuts come from the shapes they make on the cutting timeline: An L-cut is when the video switches before the audio. A J-cut occurs when the audio from the next clip is heard before the video. L-Cut and J-CutĮditors also need to master L-cuts and J-cuts. The point here is that a character repeats an action in a variety of ways, and you choose to showcase them all, one after the other.
#JUMPCUT DEFINITION SERIES#
Maybe it’s a series of jokes or funny faces. You might use this same technique in a dialogue setting when a character is doing a repetitive dialogue delivery. It’s the same idea as the other jump cut, except the camera isn’t locked down. You record one long clip and then cut out the dead space. You set up your camera over his shoulder as he looks in a mirror and tries on 20 different outfits. Let’s say this same boy goes into a clothing store to find an outfit for the big night. Personally, I would still lock it down for seamless purposes, but it’s totally acceptable and even trendy to give it a fly-on-the-wall look. This is the exact same idea, with less need to lock the camera down. This trick gives the audience the impression that a lot of time has passed, but it only took you a small amount of time to do it.Īnother way to do a jump cut involves repetition over time. In the playback, it looks like the subject moves around doing all these different actions, but the shot never moves. You record all that in one long clip, make cut points in the parts you don’t want, and then condense the long clip down into its many parts. Then, have your subject run through a variety of actions and poses that are associated with waiting. One way to create this type of jump cut is to lock your camera down and never move it. This is an ideal time to use a jump cut.įIGURE 4.5 Books magically start to stack as the character works. You need to give the viewers the impression of time passing, without forcing them to sit there and watch him wait in real time. The point of your story is that the girl takes forever to come back-or maybe doesn’t come back at all. I’ll be right back.” The girl exits, and the camera fixates on the boy as he waits. Let’s start with the idea of passing time. In the stylistic format, a jump cut can mean one of two things: That’s something I tend to do quite a bit. However, at times you can use a jump cut for stylistic purposes.
You need to cover the cut with a B-roll shot or cut to a different angle of the speech to keep the visual fluidity. If a scene has someone giving a speech on a stage, you wouldn’t just cut to a later point in the speech in the same shot. In most cases, I don’t recommend jump cuts. The image on the right, however, comes from much later in the clip. The two shots in Figure 4.4 show what a jump cut looks like.įIGURE 4.4 In this example of a jump cut, the frames look similar because they’re from the same exact clip. Jump CutĪ jump cut cuts from a frame in a clip to a later frame in the same clip-or to a clip that looks very similar. Using a hard cut is entirely based on the context. In that case, a hard cut is useful because the audience knows instantly where they are and the story moves much faster. The exception to this recommendation is if you’ve established the jumping around in time in advance. I discuss the concept of time in Chapter 6. If you’re traveling to a different time in the story, a hard cut isn’t a good idea because it’s perceived to be the same time period. To make this work, you’ll obviously be depending on the audience members to transition themselves to that moment. If I want them to be in moment A, and then instantly be in moment B, I use a hard cut. I always weigh the use of a hard cut based on what I’m trying to achieve in the viewers’ response. The main advantage of hard cutting is that it gives the viewer zero time to process or question. Often a transition isn’t needed to make a smooth cut to another moment in your film. Usually, they are used when going from scene to scene. Hard cuts are quite commonly used, especially in television. FIGURE 4.3 In a hard cut, the most commonly used type of cut, you cut from clip A to clip B.
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