Continuity

Task 5-

Continuity editing is the most popular form of editing, developed by early european and american directors such as D.W.Griffiths. Continuity editing is a classic editing style that ensures everything in the films are perfect, In continuity editing techniques that are used are 180 degree rule, match on action, shot, shot reverse and eye-line match. Continuity editing is also the sense of something being realistic and the feeling as though time is moving forward, this does not mean that they cannot use flashbacks or flash forwards as long as it seems to be progressing in a realistic way.

180 degree rule:

The 180 degree rule is when any two things in the same scene must always have the left/right relationship to each other this means that the camera should not cross the line of 180 degrees when filming a scene. A filmmaker may use the 180 degree rule as they may need to take the camera to a different position but would like the actors to be in the same places they originally would have been in.

Match on action:

Match on action is is linking two shots together, this is when the audience would see a character start and action in one shot and the camera would move to a different angle where the audience would see the character finish the action in the second shot. This ensures that the action appears to be one continuous movement when in fact it is two, to make the movement look more natural. A filmmaker would use this to change the position of a camera to show a person and then show what that person is doing.

Shot, reverse shot:

Shot, reverse shot is when again two shots are linked together, this is when the first shot reveals a character and another shot then reveals the other character. This connects two characters and makes the audience realise they are interacting with each other. A filmmaker may use this to link two people together and would use this to make the two separate shots look like one shot.

Eye-line match:

Eye-line match is a shot that link two shots together, it is when a character is in a shot looking off screen and in the second shot shows what the character is looking at. This allows the audience to experience an event in a film as a character would be experiencing. A filmmaker would use a eye-line shot to link a character with what they are looking at this would ensure there emotion is matched with what they are looking at.

If a film maker did not use these techniques then they would not be able to link up shots with each other and this would mean that the audience would not understand what was going on throughout the due course of the film.



Our film incorporates a number of these different techniques a it uses them to link the film together entirely. We used a eye-line shot to show the actress in a first shot and in the second shot what she was looking at, this was used in the beginning of the short film and linked the two different shots together. We used a match on action to show the other actress in the film and this linked two shots together where by the actress began to walk into the room and in the second shot continued this motion, the actress was told to stop when she was out of the shot and start the next shot from where the last shot finished.  In the film we used a shot, reverse shot to show the two actresses and this linked them both together so the audience would know that those two people were linked in some way, but we did not give all of the information away about what was going on throughout the video.