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What Are The Rules of Video Editing?: 1) Don't Jump

The key rules of video editing are to avoid jump cuts, cut on motion between shots, and cut on similar elements. Additional rules include using wipes for transitions, matching settings, motion, and elements between shots from different times, using b-roll to minimize jarring cuts, changing camera angles by at least 45 degrees, and not crossing the axis of action. These rules can be broken by using b-roll or if purposely messing with the audience, such as during intense fight scenes.

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Jey Fei Zei
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320 views5 pages

What Are The Rules of Video Editing?: 1) Don't Jump

The key rules of video editing are to avoid jump cuts, cut on motion between shots, and cut on similar elements. Additional rules include using wipes for transitions, matching settings, motion, and elements between shots from different times, using b-roll to minimize jarring cuts, changing camera angles by at least 45 degrees, and not crossing the axis of action. These rules can be broken by using b-roll or if purposely messing with the audience, such as during intense fight scenes.

Uploaded by

Jey Fei Zei
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What Are the Rules of Video Editing?

There are many rules of video editing, but we’ve narrowed it down to the top 10
that every video editor should follow.

1) Don’t Jump
Jumping occurs when consecutive shots of one subject change point of view.
Beware if you are editing an interview, make sure to put in some b-roll in between
shots of the interviewee when you cut out some of their dialogue. Otherwise, the
video becomes very jarring for the audience.

2) Cut on Motion
This means that when changing from one shot to another, you as the editor should
always try to cut from motion in the first shot. This makes the scene much
smoother. Imagine the difference between cutting from a still train to an opening
train door as opposed to a moving train cutting to an opening train door. The latter
was much smoother.

3) Cut on Similar Elements


Cutting on motion and cutting on similar elements are great techniques for
changing shots or scenes. Cutting on similar elements refers to cutting from similar
looking objects or scenes between consecutive shots. For example, cutting from
flowers in a garden to flowers in someone’s hair, cutting from one blue sky to the
next, or cutting from a fan to helicopter blades. The focus of the shots doesn’t have
to be the same, simply they must look alike.

4) Wipe
Wipes occur when the frame fills up with one element such as a person walking in
front of the camera. Believe it or not, this can be a helpful transition between shots
because it is not a clashing change for the audience.

5) Match the Scene


A wonderful part of editing is that footage can be taken from separate times and
put together to make a congruent scene. In order to make this congruent scene, you
as the editor must match the scene’s setting, motion, and elements. To match the
setting, you could take footage from the park from a month ago and pair it with
footage taken the day before. To match motion, for example, if the subject was
running from the left of the frame to the right, then the subject should reenter the
frame on the left. To match the elements, imagine the footage from a month ago
was a man walking in the part with a briefcase and a suit. The footage from the day
before must have the man dressed in the same clothes with the same briefcase in
his hands.

6) B-Roll
Say you can’t match the scene or your footage is getting jumpy. That’s when
inputting b-roll is very helpful. Always try to place b-roll in between shots that
jump or don’t match the scene in order to minimize a jarring effect on the
audience. B-roll is also helpful when breaking up a long and nondynamic scene.

7) 45*
If your scene utilizes multiple camera angles, you should always try to use shots
that change the view on the subject by at least 45 degrees. This helps avoid a
jumping effect.

8) Stay on 1 Plane & 180* Rule


Draw a line where your subject is. Imagine that is the X axis on a coordinate plane.
You never want to cross that X axis because it would mess with the natural
perspective for the audience.
9) Change Focal Lengths
Changing the focal lengths of your shots is helpful when shooting the same subject
for extended periods of time: like at a wedding or an interview. If you have close
up shots and wide shots, you as the editor can avoid jump cuts and also put certain
shots out of order or shorten footage without it being noticeable.

10) Motivate your Shots


Make sure that every edit and every cut had a reason to be changed. You should
always have a reason for switching from camera angle or shot to another. In a
perfect world, that motivation will always be to enhance the production’s
storytelling ability.
When Can You BREAK the Rules of Video
Editing?
It’s not often that you should break these 10 rules of video editing, but here we will
discuss some opportunities to break them.
When you can break the rules of video editing 1-10:

1. Honestly, never break this rule of editing unless you want to make your
productions look amateur.
2. Only break if you have B-Roll
3. Only break if you have B-Roll
4. Only break if you have B-Roll
5. Only break if you have B-Roll
6. The B-Roll rule of video editing should never be broken because, in essence,
it is the rule that breaks the other rules. At its core, this rule is your last result
when you cannot fulfill the requirements of the other 9 rules.
7. Only break if you have B-Roll.
8. There are 2 times you can cross your X axis: 1) When using a moving shot
to cross the axis of action 2) You actually indicate on the screen that you are
crossing the axis of action and the shot is a reverse angle. This is commonly
done during sporting events.
9. Only break this rule of video editing if you have B-Roll
10.Occasionally, your motivation for transitioning shots will be based on an
inconvenience that happened during shooting such as someone walking in
front of the camera (which is helpful for wiping) or you bumped your
camera to make it shake.

As you can see, the major excuse to break the majority of these rules is to use B-
Roll, and even then, it is more of a last resort option. Also, B-Roll itself is a rule
that states almost nearly that you use this rule to break other rules when there is not
enough footage to make a scene congruent.
As you learned from the Common Video Vocabulary blog post, a B-Roll is
supplemental or alternative footage used to break up a scene. Breaking up the
footage can be helpful to make a scene more visually interesting as well as for
hiding discrepancies in the preceding and following clips.
Of course, you may also break the rules of video editing when you want to mess
with the members of your audience’s minds. For instance, jumping to different
shots is often used in fight scenes. Jumping makes the scenes look more intense,
fast paced, and dangerous. It also helps to hide the fake punches the actors throw at
each other.

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