Quiz 8

Question 1

editing

Answer 1

The process by which the editor combines and coordinates individual shots into a cinematic whole; the basic creative force of cinema.

Question 2

cutting

Answer 2

In the process of pre-digital editing, the use of scissors to cut shots out of a roll of film before splicing them together with glue to form a continuous whole.

Question 3

Splicing

Answer 3

In pre-digital editing, the act of gluing or taping together shots together to form a continuous whole.

Question 4

Flashback

Answer 4

A device for presenting or reawakening the memory of the camera, a character, the audience – or all three – in which the action cuts from the narrative present to a past event, which may or may not have already appeared in the movie either directly or through inference.

Question 5

Flash-forward

Answer 5

A device for presenting the anticipation of the camera, a character, the audience – or all three – in which the action cuts from the narrative present to a future time, one in which, for example, the omniscient camera reveals directly or a character imagines, from his or her point of view, what is going to happen.

Question 6

Ellipis

Answer 6

In filmmaking, generally an omission of time – the time that separates one shot from another – to create dramatic or comedic impact.

Question 7

Montage

Answer 7

1. In France, the word for editing, from the verb monter, “to assemble or put together.”
2. In the former Soviet Union in the1920s, the various forms of editing that expressed ideas developed by theorists and filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein.
3. In Hollywood, beginning in the 1930s, a sequence of shots, often with superimpositions and optical effects, showing a condensed series of events.

Question 8

Duration

Answer 8

A quantity of time. In any movie, we can identify three specific kinds of duration: story duration (the time that the entire narrative arc – whether explicitly presented on-screen or not – is implied to have taken), plot duration (the time that the events explicitly shown on-screen are implied to have taken), and screen duration (the actual time that has elapsed to present the movie’s plot, i.e., the movie’s running time).

Question 9

Content curve

Answer 9

In terms of cinematic duration, the point at which we have absorbed all we need to know in a particular shot and are ready for seeing the next shot.

Question 10

Continuity editing

Answer 10

A style of editing (now dominant throughout the world) that seeks to achieve logic, smoothness, sequential flow, and the temporal and spatial orientation of viewers to what they see on the screen. Continuity editing ensures the flow from shot to shot; creates a rhythm based on the relationship between cinematic space and cinematic time; creates filmic unity (beginning, middle, and end); and establishes and resolves a problem. In short, continuity editing tells a story as clearly and coherently as possible.

Question 11

Discontinuity editing

Answer 11

A style of editing – less widely used than continuity editing, often but not exclusively in experimental films – that joins shots A and B in ways that upset the viewer’s expectations and cause momentary disorientation or confusion. The juxtaposition of shots in films edited for discontinuity can often seem abrupt and unmotivated, but the meanings that arise from such discordant editing often transcend the meanings of the individual shots that have been joined together.

Question 12

Coverage

Answer 12

The use of a variety of shots of a scene – taken from multiple angles, distances, and perspectives – to provide the director and editor a greater choice of editing options during postproduction.

Question 13

Master shot

Answer 13

Also known as a cover shot. A shot that covers the action of a scene in one continuous take. Master shots are usually composed as long shots so that all of the characters in the scene are on-screen during the action of the scene. Editors rely on the master shot to provide coverage so that, if other shots of the scene’s action (medium shots, close ups, etc.) fail to provide useable footage of certain portions of the scripted scene, the director won’t need to reshoot the scene.

Question 14

Screen direction

Answer 14

The direction of a figure’s or object’s movement on the screen

Question 15

180-degree rule or 180-degree system

Answer 15

The fundamental means by which filmmakers maintain consistent screen direction, orienting the viewer and ensuring a sense of the cinematic space in which the action occurs. The system depends on three factors working together in any scene: (1) the action in a scene must move along a hypothetical line that keeps the action on a single side of the camera; (2) the camera must shoot consistently on one side of that line; and (3) everyone on the production set – particularly the director, cinematographer, editor, and actors – must understand and adhere to this system.

Question 16

Axis of action

Answer 16

An imaginary line connecting two figures in a scene that defines the 180-degree space within which the camera can record shots of those figures.

Question 17

Reverse-angle shot

Answer 17

A shot in which the angle of shooting is opposite to that of the preceding shot.

Question 18

Match cut

Answer 18

A cut that preserves continuity between two shots. Several kinds of match cuts exist, including the eye-line match cut, the graphic match cut, and the match-on-action cut.

Question 19

Match-on-action cut

Answer 19

Also called cutting on action. A match cut that shows us the continuation of a character’s or object’s motion through space without actually showing us the entire action. This is a fairly routine editorial technique for economizing a movie’s presentation of movement.

Question 20

Graphic match cut

Answer 20

A match cut in which the similarity between shots A and B is in the shape and form of the figures pictured in each shot. The shape, color, or texture of the two figures matches across the edit, providing continuity.

Question 21

Eye-line match cut

Answer 21

An editing transition that shows us what a particular character is looking at. The cut joins two shots: [1], the character’s face, with his/her eyes clearly visible, then [2], whatever the character was looking at. When the second shot is of another character looking back at the character in the first shot, the resulting reciprocal eye-line match cut, and the cuts that follow, establish the two characters’ proximity and interaction, even if only one character is visible on-screen at any one time.

Question 22

Parallel editing

Answer 22

Also called crosscutting and intercutting, although the three terms have slightly different meanings. The intercutting of two or more lines of action that occur simultaneously, a very familiar convention in chase or rescue sequences.

Question 23

Intercutting

Answer 23

Editing technique that juxtaposes two or more distinct actions to create the effect of a single scene.

Question 24

Point-of-view editing

Answer 24

The process of editing different shots together in such a way that the resulting sequence makes us aware of the perspective or POV of a particular character or group of characters. Most frequently, it starts with an objective shot of a character looking toward something outside of the frame and then cuts to a shot of the object, person, or action that the character is supposed to be looking at.

Question 25

Jump cut

Answer 25

The removal of a portion of a film, resulting in an instantaneous advance in the action – a sudden, perhaps illogical, often disorienting ellipsis between two shots.

Question 26

Fade-in/fade-out

Answer 26

Transitional devices in which a shot fades in from a black field on black-and-white film or from a color field on color film, or fades out to a black field (or a color field).

Question 27

Dissolve

Answer 27

Also known as lap dissolve. A transitional device in which shot B, superimposed, gradually appears over shot A and begins to replace it at midpoint in the transition. Dissolves usually indicate the passing of time.

Question 28

Wipe

Answer 28

A transitional device between shots in which shot B wipes across shot A, either vertically or horizontally, to replace it. Although (or because) the device reminds us of early eras in filmmaking, directors continue to use it.

Question 29

Iris shot or iris-in/iris-out

Answer 29

Optical wipe effect in which the wipe line is a circle; named after the iris of a camera. The iris-in begins with a small circle, which expands to a partial or full image; the iris-out begins with a large circle, which contracts to a smaller circle or total blackness.

Question 30

Freeze-frame

Answer 30

Also known as stop-frame or hold-frame. A still image within a movie, created by repetitive printing in the laboratory of the same frame so that it can be seen without movement for whatever length of time the filmmaker desires.

Question 31

Split screen

Answer 31

A method, created either in the camera or during the editing process, of telling two stories at the same time by dividing the screen into different parts. Unlike parallel editing, which cuts back and forth between shots for contrast, the split screen can tell multiple stories within the same frame