motivation to cut

[Jim Nelson]

Hi,

 

What does it mean: the cuts have to be motivated?

 

 

Thanks

[Peter Moretti]

That there is a reason for doing one.

[Justin Hayward]

Someone looks at something and you cut to what they’re looking at. Or if someone talks off screen and you cut to the person talking. Imagine yourself in the room. What, why, and when would you look at something?

[David Mullen ASC]

What does it mean: the cuts have to be motivated?

 

As opposed to random meaningless cuts? What do you think "motivated" means?

[Andres Pardo aka Gral Treegan]

the motivated cut refers to a cut that have a motive, could be because an actor looks in one direction and you cut to a shot showing this set up.

 

or could refer to a cut that is motivated by and emotion or reaction that will need a cut to increase or decrease drama. this way of cutting is opposed to cut in action or mathematical cuts. could me motivated by music times.

 

all this refers to Emotional versus Physical continuity

 

i recomend you to red thw following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editing

 

bests!

Gral. Treegan

[Peter Moretti]

I should mention that there are times when cuts are not motivated in the purest sense--depending on how you look at it.

 

Take for instance a shot that you want to remove some of the middle of. Perhaps it's just too long, or maybe the section has a continuity problem. Now you'll have a cut that's motivated by pacing concerns or for technical reasons, but not so much from something more profound. You could look at it that there are cuts that move the story or the scene forward, and these are motivated cuts to me. There are also cuts that are made to keep the story from going off track but don't add anything new. And there are cuts made for purely technical reasons, e.g. a modern car is seen in a period piece, an actor moves out of frame or focus.

 

So how do you handle these "un-motivated" cuts? Let me give you a scene. It's of a guy in the jungle in Vietnam. He's freaking out and it's very compelling to watch. But the light is low, the lens is wide and he moves out of focus for part of the take. There is a segment that's just too out of focus, but on the whole this is the best take. What do you do?

 

B-roll is to film editors what room tone is to dialogue editors (well room tone is probably more important). But for unscripted material, b-roll is crucial for the editor.

 

So back to our example, what do you do?

 

How about replacing the out of focus segment in the middle with a quick shot of an animal in the jungle? A deer: contrasting placidness. A snake: more creepiness. A small bug going about his business: life continues unaware. Whatever you think works best.

 

Now it may work well. Even better than if you hadn't done it and the actor's material was in and in-focus. So the cut will look "motivated" and can be justified from an artistic point of view. But in truth, the cut was only made b/c the actor was out of focus.

[Del Collens]

It's of a guy in the jungle in Vietnam. He's freaking out and it's very compelling to watch. But the light is low, the lens is wide and he moves out of focus for part of the take. There is a segment that's just too out of focus, but on the whole this is the best take. What do you do?

 

You stay with the emotion of the scene. However, if a crew member walked through the shot...

Continuity is not important if you're engaged, nor is the technical aspect of the shot unless it breaks the 4th wall unintentionally or is vital to the scene.

Cut-aways are to save the scene or actors when there is a major problem.

Inserts are to help with the geography of the space in the scene.

Neither are considered motivated cuts.

 

Motivated cuts, or when a director refers to it as a motivated cut (as editors usually cut from their gut), is when action or dialog in a scene refers to something of importance.

 

Easiest scene to understand this in is: The Maltese Falcon. A scene where Bogart is sitting at his desk and his secretary answers the phone, we're on her, she mentions bits of information unknown to her but Bogart knows exactly who it is. At the moment she mentions the 'give away line', we cut to Bogart's reaction to her words.

That is motivated, otherwise known as a reason to cut.

 

Big problem with a lot of editing I've seen and somewhat detest is the quicker cuts that serve no purpose other than to jar and confuse the viewer. The first rule in editing is NEVER CONFUSE THE VIEWER.

This can be especially hard when dealing with amateur handheld so be careful.