16

Rites of Passage

► Transitions

Life and editing are a series of transitions. The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclites observed over 2,000 years ago, “You can’t step in the same river twice.” Everything changes, including the river and the person stepping into it. Great pleasures will eventually fall away and, fortunately, bad times will end as well. When you fall in love or fall out of love, when a new life begins or someone dies, when you marry or move or change jobs, you experience the effects of transition. How we move from one event to another has a significant effect on our mental and physical health. Film is a constant flow of transitions since it is the story of our lives, cut by cut.

In a transition the editor introduces a new idea, a change of place, or an alteration in time. A major aspect separating a well-made film from a clunky one rests in the transitional flow. At the micro level, a cut is the basic unit of transition. How an editor moves from one shot to another will affect the pace, rhythm, and, ultimately, the emotional experience of the scene. Cuts that do not call attention to themselves, that create logical meaning (as in Kuleshov’s experiment), that energize rather than stall, and that possess a seamless rhythm will fully engage the audience in the cinematic dream. Cuts that do not transition well are often jarring, taking the audience out of the moment and upsetting the flow.

Many of the techniques discussed in terms of continuity editing provide for smooth transitions. These include matching action, maintaining continuity, observing the 180-degree rule, and so on. But there are also transitions that occur at the macro level. This involves the movement from one scene to another. These may be as simple as the associative cut described in Horseplayer’s (1990) kissing scene (see Case Study p. 192) or as sophisticated as those in Up in the Air (2009; see section “Titles” below).

Finding the right moment to break from one scene and enter another requires skill and intuition. Will the move make sense? Will it occur at a point where the audience has received enough essential information and nothing more? Will it bring the audience with it or leave the audience behind? Will it glide smoothly into the next scene or will it bump? In a good conversation, the participants find a way to move gracefully from one idea to another, giving each concept its due without lingering on it excessively. They find appropriate ways to migrate to a new idea.

But how does an editor achieve a seamless scene transition?

The first step is in discovering the proper conclusion for a scene. Everyone has experienced a scene that goes on for too long. Though it may be cleverly written, beautifully shot, skillfully edited, the fact that it proceeds past its prime has a detrimental effect on the film.

What clues should the editor look for as to where to cut and what to cut? One important consideration rests with the story itself. Some scripts of very good films tend to be overwritten. They contain more dialogue and action than is necessary. And this shows up in the dailies. What helped clarify the story and characters for the reader—and allowed the script to be sold—does not necessarily work for the film. Knowing where to end a scene is crucial. Extra lines and too many reaction shots can wear down the scene’s vitality. Determine when the scene is over, and get out. This alone can aid the transition from one scene to the next.

In a script the transition may be accomplished simply by designating “CUT TO” at the end of a scene. That doesn’t guarantee that the transition, in the context of the motion picture, will occur as seamlessly.

Often near the end stage of the editing process the editor and director puzzle over whether to keep a certain line of dialogue, a character’s reaction, or a camera move. A clever dialogue line, a well-conceived performance, or a splendid shot can be hard to part with. Yet, in service of the larger film, sometimes it must be abandoned.

The reason that this becomes most apparent near the end of the editing process is because other issues have held priority up to this point. Initially, structuring each scene based on the script, dailies, and director’s intention matter most. Once this is achieved, the completed film becomes a new entity, revealing issues that previously did not exit.

Once the scene is the best it can be, the editor should find the appropriate transition device, whether it is a straight cut, a fade, or a dissolve (Figure 16.1). In earlier days of filmmaking, dissolves were frequently employed as transition devices. As one image faded out, an incoming image would fade in beneath it, signaling a change of time or place. Scripts of that era often noted “DISSOLVE TO” at the end of a scene.

The length of a dissolve—the amount of time it takes in seconds and frames to accomplish the transition—varies depending on the feeling the editor wants to achieve. Fast dissolves maintain an upbeat rhythm and signal the audience not to linger on the moment but to quickly move onto the next. Slow dissolves supply a more somber tone, gently moving us from one scene to another, as if contemplating the change, holding out until the last moment, as if unwilling to let go or, having made the decision to do so, easing the audience into it slowly.

In the 1960s, with bold and innovative approaches to film editing, editors began to leave out dissolves. They discovered that in most cases audiences did not need a dissolve to ferry them from one place to another. Except in the case of significant time transitions, such as flashbacks or montages, dissolves fell out of fashion.

The fade out, where the entire scene descends into blackness and lingers there before brightening into the next scene, provides an even greater demarcation of space and time. The fade was a common transition effect in very early cinema. This effect was influenced by theater where, at the conclusion of an act, the stage plunged into darkness with a brief break before the next act began. This had a practical application for the stagehands, allowing them to redress the set under the cloak of darkness.

In television, a fade to black often signals the beginning of commercials. Either way, the appearance of black can have a stunning effect. For a moment the story’s onward advance will halt. All action ceases. This can be disconcerting—and suspenseful if handled properly—but if held for too long it can take the audience out of the movie.

Figure 16.1 The dissolve, as designed to provide an emotive time transition in Mannequin: On the Move (1991)

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

In the past, during the course of celluloid filmmaking, film editors had to imagine what the effect would look like. They designated the beginning and end positions with a grease pencil line drawn on the film. As remains the case today, it was necessary to calculate the handle (the latent side of a dissolve or wipe) to ensure there was enough material to make the effect. After the effect was designed, the mocked up filmstrip was delivered to a film laboratory that would produce the effect, since it could not be manufactured in the editing room. This process involved an optical printer. Optical printers re-photographed the image while adding the effect. Such effects, which were once costly to manufacture, now appear at literally the touch of a button. With the advent of the digital intermediate (DI), these effects no longer require expensive optical printing processes to finalize.

In Mannequin: On the Move (1991), a specific transition effect dominated many of the significant scene shifts—wipes. Wipes come in many patterns—clocks, swirls, sawtooths, edges, and so on. The edge of an exiting scene slices across the frame to reveal the incoming scene. In Mannequin: On the Move specially designed wipes added to the comical aspect of the film. For instance, the transition to the final stage show was introduced with an animated wipe reminiscent of a curtain parting to reveal the scene behind it. In a scene where Count Spretzel’s thugs get dumped into the back of a garbage truck, a splatter-shaped wipe transitioned to the next scene.

Probably the most famous application of wipes is in the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope (1977). Star Wars used this technique to reinforce its comic book, matinee-like style. One futuristic scene metamorphosed into another by way of old-school wipes. In Revenge of the Sith (2005), the wipes became even more sophisticated, taking advantage of the new digital realm.

For more dramatic and serious tales, a wipe may not be appropriate. In those cases something more basic and less obtrusive can signal a transition from one time period or location to another.

With the advent of digital postproduction, transition effects became easier to achieve and more varied, numbering in the hundreds. A brief glance at the Avid Effects Palette gives a long list of possible effects that can be used. The palette is stocked with numerous types of wipes, pushes, particle effects, blurs, dissolves, as well as fades, including dip-to-color effects. Dip-to-color allows the image to briefly fade to white, black, or any color of the rainbow before rising back into a new image.

This effect is often seen in trailers and commercials in order to jump action and story in a dynamic way. Often fast-paced in order to create excitement and communicate a lot of information in a small period of time, the trailer may use quick dips to black or white in order to entice the viewer toward more. As soon as the snippet of a scene appears on screen, it is already fading from view, pulling the viewer deeper and deeper into its web, wanting more.

In The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005), the filmmakers employed another type of transition effect, the push, to slide one image after another past the screen. This effect is sometimes used in trailers, as well.

Blacking Out

In practice, particularly in the case of feature films, fades can cause more harm than good. Nothing happens with in a fade. No image, and sometimes no sound. The film just lies there, immobile. It becomes a perfect opportunity for the audience’s mind to wander or to remember that popcorn they meant to buy when they walked in. Except when there is really no other way to tell the story, fades should be avoided, other than at the beginning and the end of the film, just as they appear, in a sense, at the beginning and end of life. Film doctors often earn their stature by such simple procedures as removing a collection of fades that another editor had left in or that the director had insisted upon. It’s amazing how the pace increases when you avoid blackouts and stick with the movie.

Effects account for only one approach that editors use to create transitions. There exist many, more subtle techniques as well, such as shot size, sound, and contrast.

► Shot Size

If we are not going to rely on dissolves or other effects to generate scene-to-scene transitions, how do we accomplish this crucial task? Sound, movement, and images are basically what we have to work with. Using these, we can craft a majority of transitions.

Shot size is one of the most common and effective ways of transitioning from one scene to another. The choice of which image to end one scene on and the choice of which image to begin the next one on become a determining factor. The splice point is the demarcation line, the gap that the story needs to bridge. A scene could end in a close-up, a wide shot, a 2-shot, a tilt, or a myriad of other options. How will you determine the right shot for the moment?

The easiest and most common way to maintain rhythm and clarity is to make sure that the shot that opens the next scene is different enough from the one that ended the preceding scene. Except in the case of associative cuts, such as the kiss in Horseplayer, supplying contrast immediately clues the audience into the change that has occurred. If the previous scene ended on a wide shot of the African plain, why not begin the next scene with an extreme close-up of a strawberry plucked from a serving bowl? This was the case in Lost in Africa (1994). After revealing the vast expanse of Africa, the sight of a strawberry catches our attention. It is not a fruit that one usually associates with Africa. Further, it is bright red and in close-up, which is also a contrast to the last scene. We’re clearly somewhere else. But where are we? This transitional shot has prepared us to enter the next scene. The next shot reveals the answer—we’re at a safari picnic, set up on tables in an elegant manner with fresh fruit. This will prefigure the brutal change of events that is about to befall our characters as they are attacked and taken hostage by a band of elephant poachers, determined to hold them ransom for the return of one of their own. In cutting the scene, we had a lot of more obvious shots we could have opened the scene with, but beginning on the strawberry proved most successful. Therefore, vary the shots. If a scene ends in a wide shot, start the next one with a close-up, and vice versa.

Some transitions are more prodigious than others, cutting through large swaths of time and space. In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the tale of a motley crew of avengers out to save the universe, the editors made frequent use of image size to transition from one scene to another. One such move crosses from a grand wide shot of outer space to a full screen close-up of a cassette deck playing Peter Quill’s favorite mixtape (Figure 16.2). The contrast of sophisticated technology in the darkness of space juxtaposed with the well-lit image of an archaic cassette tape emphasizes the transition.

Noticeable differences in shot size and location help telegraph that one scene has ended and another has begun. The contrast in shot size is not, however, always necessary. In some cases it may be preferable to transition while using similar shot sizes. In that case something else needs to inform the audience. Movement and sound are significant elements that can supply a strong transition (as in the Case Study below).

Figure 16.2 A transition using contrasting images and shot sizes; outer space and a close-up of the tape deck in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Other dialogue pre-laps may occur when transitioning from an exterior establishing shot to an interior where the dialogue scene takes place. By hearing the dialogue begin before the cut to the speakers, the audience anticipates the transition and is therefore ready for the abrupt change of scene. This move also reinforces the fact that the speaker is in the same environment as we have established in the preceding shot.

► Contrast

Though it may seem counterintuitive, contrast supplies one of the more consistent paths to smooth transitions. The contrast of a wide shot with a close-up, a dark image with a bright one, a quiet moment with a rush of noise, confirms for the audience that a change has occurred.

A striking example of difference can be seen in Jarhead (2005). The film chronicles the horrors of the Gulf War, guiding the audience through the grueling long days and nights of conflict. In differentiating the seemingly endless struggle of Marine troops over the course of the engagement, the film jumps in time by using the contrast of brightly lit day scenes in the bleached surroundings of desert sand with the disturbing darkness of night. This occurs when the Iraqi troops, in an attempt to stall the Americans, ignited their oil derricks. The hellish scene is draped in the tarry blackness of vaporized oil and billowing smoke creates a false night where only pillars of fire illuminate the darkness. This stark contrast in color, brightness, and density allows the editor to transition seamlessly across hours and days in a simple cut.

Occasionally, black and white footage is interspersed with color to give a sense of distinct time and place, as in Made in Heaven (1987), where the main character’s life on earth in the 1940s plays out in black and white while his life in heaven—he died while saving a drowning family—plays out in vibrant color at some points and de-saturated color in others.

Through digital color grading the photographic image can be manipulated in a wide range of ways to give a sense of time, place, and tonal feeling. The stark, slightly overexposed but vibrant high-contrast color in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008) and the dark, lower contrast images in her next film, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), are examples of this kind of image manipulation.

Digitally, editors and colorists can now introduce other distinct looks to give a sense of temporal or geographic passages. Grain can be enhanced, color de-saturated, contrast and brightness increased or diminished. Also, rather than using a dissolve to signal time’s passage, the editor can digitally throw the scene out of focus and then rack it back into focus as the next scene begins. Glows can be introduced, allowing image highlights to bloom into soft halos of light and then recede again. With digital manipulation, the choices are limited only by the appropriateness of the effect and editor’s imagination.

► Titles

The title tool, another device in the editor’s digital toolbox, allows the editor to apply titles to identify time periods and locales, also aiding in the transition from one place to another. During the era of photochemical filmmaking, titling was an expensive and time-consuming process. Today, with digital, it takes only minutes.

Moonlight (2017) uses three title cards—notice the Rule of Three—set against black to transition across the years of the main character’s life. Each card displays a different name he is known by—Little, Black, and Chiron. In the first he is an innocent and mistreated little boy, then a conflicted young man unjustly sent to prison, and finally an imposing ex-con who eventually retrieves the love he experienced as a young man.

In some cases title transitions become quite stylized, launching a motif that recurs throughout the film, such as the high-altitude city views with title cards that announced Ryan Bingham’s next destination in Up in the Air. The atmospheric angles reinforced the film’s “up in the air” theme, and the airy titles—simple outlined fonts through which the background scene can be glimpsed—further enhanced the unattached theme. Even the peppy main titles set to quick-tempo music and containing similar views across America from above helped establish this motif.

Bridging devices can also serve to transition the viewer from one scene to another. A popular one consists of time-lapse footage, sometimes moving across seasons, sometimes moving from day to night or vice versa. Instead of a dissolve or other effect, the special image—separate from the normal motion footage of the main movie—gives a sense of location change or time passing. In the classic film Some Like It Hot (1959) whip pans transition us from the romantic interludes between Joe (Tony Curtis)/Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) and Daphne (Jack Lemon disguised as a woman)/Osgood (Joe E. Brown), and back again. Often shots work in a manner to open up what might otherwise be claustrophobic or redundant locations. While this approach has worked well in theatrical films, the world of TV has introduced a wide variety of experimental and innovative designs. One early example comes from the cable television show Californication (2007–2014) where accelerated images of California landmarks—and specifically Los Angeles—bridged the show’s familiar and circumscribed locations. Venice Beach, Griffith Observatory, the Santa Monica Pier and Ferris Wheel, freeways, and other sites expanded and enriched the locales where the action took place. In this series, images were enhanced through visual effects such as light leaks, film grain, flutter, flares, and so on, further differentiating them and adding interest.

► The Flashback

Up to this point we have been considering transitions that move the audience’s perception from scene to scene or shot to shot within the same or near contiguous time space. In other cases the story will move across wide ranges of time, glimpsing backward into a character’s childhood or other formative experience. These flashbacks are a common form of transition. In many cases an effect, such as a dissolve or a blur, will carry the viewer back in time. If a character’s thought motivates the transition, the dissolve often springboards off of a close-up of the character’s face into the next scene. In this way the audience has the sense that they are inside the character’s head, sensing his or her thoughts. As film audiences have become savvier in terms of cinematic conventions, editors have taken greater liberties in determining these time shifts.

Manchester by the Sea (2016), the story of Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), a depressed janitor with anger issues, whose brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies and leaves him in charge of his son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), utilizes subtle transitions. In designing the flashbacks that give insight into Joe and Lee’s past, the film’s editor and director abandoned the usual and apparent flashback devices—dissolves, fades, color changes, dips to white, etc. Instead the flashbacks, and the subsequent return to present time, occur with a straight cut. They jump back and forth in time seemingly without preparation or differentiation.

In the hospital scene, Lee learns that he has arrived too late and his brother has already died. He takes the elevator down to view the body. While he is in the elevator the scene cuts to the brother alive in his hospital room hearing his prognosis of degenerative heart disease. Then, in another straight cut, the scene shifts back to the elevator and Lee (Figure 16.3). He exits to the morgue to view the body.

Figure 16.3Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Photos courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions

Though the transitions arrive with seemingly no warning, the fact that the brother is revealed in dialogue as dead in one scene and then seen alive in the next signals to the audience that this is an earlier time. There are many other such transitions throughout the film: Lee signs for his deceased brother’s belongings cuts to Lee and Joe and Patrick fishing on their boat; Patrick asks Lee if they should call his mother (Joe’s ex-wife) cuts to a flashback of her lying drunk and naked on the couch when Joe and Patrick arrive home; and so on.

On the surface it may appear that the filmmakers have supplied no transitions. In fact, contrasting elements serve to infer the transition—Joe alive/Joe not alive; Lee’s face scarred from a fight/Lee’s face normal; a mention of the aunt/seeing the aunt. These all contain an element that clues in the audience to the time shift, no matter how subtly.

Some transitions achieve their flow and clarity based on affinity, such as in the case study from 7Seconds (2017). Others benefit from contrast and difference.

► Sound

In some cases sound works best to aid a transition. When the previous scene ends with a subdued tone, maybe a kiss, a gentle breeze, or a sigh, start the next scene with a car horn, an explosion, or a slap. Interestingly, in well-written stories, the scenes often tend to alternate in a way that allows for contrasting sounds and images. Anything that catches the audience’s attention, whether a sound or action, can distract from a previous shot and help bridge a difficult transition. It’s like a magician’s sleight-of-hand trick where a motion he makes with one hand distracts the viewer from the object he’s obscuring with the other hand. From our hunter-gatherer beginnings, humans are hardwired to follow movement over stillness, sounds over silence. Being aware of this will help an editor cure many issues.

The Pre-Lap

Another way that sound helps bridge a difficult cut is through the use of overlaps, or more concisely, pre-laps. In The Graduate (1967), following the intensity of the attempted seduction by Mrs. Robinson, Ben approaches his car while Mr. and Mrs. Robinson linger in the doorway. To fill the silence between them and transition to the next scene, the editor, Sam O’Steen, placed Ben’s father’s voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please, uh, for this afternoon’s feature attraction,” pre-lapping the cut to the brightly lit daytime scene of the father at the family pool, where Ben will later be revealed in his scuba suit. The early entrance of dialogue coupled with the cut from night to day, wide shot to close-up, creates a smooth transition.

Another case is the montage. Montages have the effect of transporting the viewer beyond the immediate scene. Through a series of divergent shots, montages may recap what has transpired before, or they might reinforce a current point, as in a documentary. When the montage ends, departing from it can be as awkward as awakening a sleeper from a dream. In many cases a dissolve or even a straight cut will suffice, but in other cases introducing incoming audio ahead of the next scene’s video can aid in a smooth return to the story’s present reality.

Look at the classic David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia (1962). After Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) has spent days crossing the desert with his young companion he appears exhausted, sun burnt, and dust covered. Emerging from the vast silence of the desert, he is near the end of his endurance. But Lawrence finds a deserted shack, hears the rickety wooden door clattering windblown on its hinges. He and the boy dismount from their camel and wander toward the abandoned dwelling. At that point a discordant sound is heard—the distant blast of an air horn. The unexpected sound catches our attention and primes us for what is to come. As Lawrence glances across the sand toward the sound, accompanied by the rising music, he sees one of the greatest shots in cinema—a gigantic freighter ship sailing across the desert sand. Or so it appears. In fact, as the next cut reveals, Lawrence has arrived at the Suez Canal and the view of the ship beyond the desert’s sand dunes gives this stunning but false connection (Figure 16.4). The editor helps take the audience to this potentially jarring image through the use of sound to create anticipation.

Figure 16.4 The ship on the Suez Canal (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962)

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Sound is a traditional and common approach to introducing a new element into a scene. In westerns, when horses would arrive, the sound of their hooves often introduced the audience to their subsequent arrival. In this instance characters might be engaged in conversation, hear the hooves off-camera, and look toward them. At that point the horses were revealed. Today, that approach can hinder a scene’s pace and rhythm. In many cases, a more dramatic impact is achieved by first cutting to the horses, then back to the characters who turn to see them.

“Back to One”

Documentaries are a constant challenge in terms of transitions. Unlike fictional narrative that is usually covered in multiple angles with the same dialogue and action, documentaries rely on a series of one-of-a-kind shots. This highlights the difference between continuity editing and dynamic editing. Animal takedowns are one of the most prized and hard to get images for documentary filmmakers. In the celluloid era, a cinematographer had to be quick to turn on the camera at just the right moment, due to the unpredictable nature of the shot. Otherwise he or she would consume an immense amount of film while waiting for the event to occur. With the advent of digital video this has become easier. But not repeatable.

Imagine the chagrin of a lion and gazelle if the director missed the shot and could require retakes or another angle! Without the advantage of multiple angles in spontaneous, unscripted events the editor must find other means to stitch the story together. The on-camera interview and voiceover narration, combined with music, help build smooth transitions without relying on continuity techniques. After introducing the interview subject the editor creates an L- or J-cut (overlap) allowing the subject’s speech to continue over B-roll images that illustrate his or her points.

Narration

Documentary narration is a way to convey a great deal of information in a shorter period of time than it would take to portray the same information in a scene or where portraying it would be tedious. In this way it acts as a bridge to carry the audience from one narrative location to another. When trying to determine whether to use narration, first edit the scene without the narration, imbuing it with as much information as possible. Then take a look and see if there is any vital information still missing. If there is, consider adding some voiceover or ADR (automated dialogue replacement). If not, consider leaving out the narration.

Voiceover has a place in fictional narrative as well. In sequences that are structured with discontinuous images, a voiceover narration can add meaning and smooth out the edges. The disadvantages of voiceover occur as with any expository device in fiction—it tells rather than shows. A good approach to voiceover is to initially cut the scene or sequence without it, and then review the edit to determine if voiceover would make the scene more engaging or comprehensible.

Look at American Beauty (1999), the story of a middle-aged family man, who pursues an affair with his teenage daughter’s best friend Angela (Mena Suvari; Figure 16.5). To depict the boring, psychically dead existence that drives the main character toward his later decisions, the filmmakers found a way to establish his tedious life in a way that was anything but boring. Narrated from the privileged point of view of the hereafter, a montage illustrates the man's dreary existence, cutting from one brief example to another. The narrative’s seamless flow is maintained by the clever narration.

Figure 16.5American Beauty (1999)

Photo courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures

Some scene changes can appear more abrupt than others. Perhaps a completely new idea is introduced, or a shift in feeling. In some of these cases it helps to overlap the incoming dialogue or sound effects. While still on the image of the current scene, we hear the dialogue that begins the next scene. Similarly, a sound, such as a phone ring, begins on the tail of the outgoing scene and transitions us to the incoming scene. It prepares us for what is to come. Conversely, sometimes it helps to start with a sharp declaration, a prominent sound occurring directly on the cut. This sudden audio shift grabs our attention and pulls us into the scene. A car horn occurring on the first frame of a new scene arrives like a firm statement, drawing the audience’s attention into the scene. This is especially effective following a quiet, low-key scene. Filmmakers are always coming up with new and inventive ways to transition from one shot to another, from one scene to another. By keeping in mind the concepts of affinity and contrast, an editor can build seamless transitions, incorporating shot size, associative meaning, color, brightness, movement, and a host of other images and sounds.

► Notes