Subject Name: Television Programming & Production

Department of Media & Communication Studies

Created By: Ms. Sanyogita Phogat

Jagannath International Management School

Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 110070
(Affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi)
Recognized u/s 2(f) by UGC & Accredited with ‘A’ Grade by NAAC
Participant of UNGC & UNPRME, New York
ISO 9001:2015 Quality Certified
Programme : BA(JMC)
Semester : IV
Subject Code : BA(JMC)-206
Subject : Television Programming & Production
Topic : Basics of Continuity Editing
Lecture No. : 22
Faculty
: Ms. Sanyogita Phogat
Basics of Continuity Editing
Continuity in shooting and editing is the practice of ensuring that details in a shot
are consistent from shot to shot within a video film.
When there is continuity between shots, then audiences have a greater suspension of
disbelief and will be more engaged in the video film.
Meaning of continuity
Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in the
postproduction process of filmmaking of narrative films and television programs.
The purpose of continuity editing is to smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the
editing process and to establish a logical coherence between shots.
Continuity editing is the dominant editing technique found in narrative feature
films, television shows and web content. It is used to unify a series of disconnected
shots into a scene that plays out in a logical fashion.
Movies and television are relatively new mediums of storytelling completely
different from anything we've ever seen before. Part of what makes them so unique
is that editing allows the viewer to see a wide shot cut to a close up--something our
eyes don't see in real life.
This could make a story hard to follow, but continuity editing combined with solid
narration allows the viewer to easily get immersed in the story. on tape or memory
card, but unless they are well organised‘, into a programme, they remain useless.
Rules of Continuity
Action Match Cut
One sequence shot from two angles and merged in one so that it provides
continuous flow of the actions and story. Entire scenes and montages can move
between time, but the shots that compose the scene should have temporal continuity.
An individual scene needs to feel as if it is happening right now in real time. The
most common way of maintaining this illusion is to cut your shots on actions so that
they match up to each other.
Cutting on action or matching on action refers to film editing and video editing
techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first
shot's action.
A common example is a man walking up to a door and reaching for the knob. Just as
his hand touches the knob, the scene cuts to a shot of the door opening from the other
side.
Although the two shots may have actually been shot hours apart from each other,
cutting on action gives the impression of continuous time when watching the edited
film.
By having a subject begin an action in one shot and carry it through to completion in
the next, the editor creates a visual bridge, which distracts the viewer from noticing
the cut or noticing any slight continuity error between the two shots.
180 degree axis
An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the
camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is
always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the
first.
The first rule that any filmmaker needs to learn before he picks up his camera is the
180 degree rule. Adherence to this rule is necessary to maintain continuity in your
scene.
What you do is create an imaginary line across your set that you will not cross with
the camera. This way if the actor is on the left side of the frame and the actress is
one right side in the master shot, they will stay in those established positions
throughout the scene as the medium shots and close ups are editing together.
If the camera crossed the line and the actress appeared frame left and the actor
frame right, then this would cause the audience to become disoriented because the
established spatial continuity had been violated. Once the spatial distance and
positions has been established, you should not violate it if you want to maintain
continuity.
Audio Continuity
Maintaining a smooth flow of the audio. It can be ambience sound or dubbed audio
or narration.
Audio Continuity Problems can be caused by a wide range of factors including shot-
to shot variations in:
•Background sound
•Sound ambiance (reverberation within a room, mic distance, etc.)
•Frequency response of mic or audio equipment
•Audio levels
In single-camera production most of these inconsistencies may not be easy to detect
on location. It's only when the various shots or takes start to be assembled during
editing that you discover the problem.
As you cut from one scene to another you may discover that the talent suddenly
seems to move closer or farther away from the mic, or that the level or type of
background sound changes (passing traffic, the hum of an air conditioner, or
whatever).
Some problems can be helped with the skilled use of graphic equalizers or
reverberation units. Changes in background sound can sometimes be masked by
recording a bed of additional sound in the audio. This could be music or street noise.
As in most of life, it's easier to avoid problems than to fix them -- assuming there
even is a way to fix them.
Things to Be Alert For
First, be aware that mics used at different distances reproduce sounds differently.
This is due to changes in surrounding acoustics, as well as the fact that specific
frequencies diminish over distance.
Although some expensive directional mics will minimize the effect of distance,
most mics exhibit proximity or presence effects.
A good pair of padded earphones placed on top of a set of well-trained ears can
detect these differences.
With the increased reliability of wireless mics many production facilities are
equipping actors with their own personal mics.
The distance of the mic -- it's generally hidden in the person's clothes -- can't
change, and because of the proximity of the mic, background sounds tend to be
eliminated. Some of the things we talked about in using personal mics should be
kept in mind here.
Finally, you need to watch for changes in background sounds. For example, the
sound of a passing car or a motorcycle may abruptly appear or disappear when you
cut to a shot that was recorded at a different time.
Even if an obvious background sound doesn't disappear, its level may change when
you cut from one person to another. This may be due to differences in microphone
distance coupled with the level adjustments needed to compensate for the different
strength of voices.
Continuity Issues in Background Music
Music can smooth the transition between segments and create overall production
unity.
Background music should add to the overall mood and effect of the production
without calling attention to itself.
The music selected should match the mood, pace and time period of the production.
Vocals should be avoided when the production contains normal (competing)
dialogue.
Ideally, the beginning of a musical selection should coincide with the start of a
video segment and end as the segment ends. In the real world, this almost never
happens, at least without a little production help.
To a limited degree you can electronically speed up and slow down instrumental
segments with digital editing equipment, especially if the music is not well known.
Because a kind of continuity issue arises when music has to be faded out "midstream"
to conclude at the end of a video segment, you can back time the music.
If the music is longer than the video, during editing you can start the music a
predetermined amount of time before starting the video. You can then fade in the
music as the video starts. This will be less noticeable if the segment starts with
narration and the music is subtly brought in behind it.
Story Telling continuity
Series of sequences to tell a continuous story without breaking or disrupting the events
or narrative. Most narrative videos or film is made with the goal to construct a clear
and coherent event structure so that the viewer can readily understand the sequence of
events depicted in it.
Film continuity is managed in the service of telling a story and thus creating a sense of
continuity and discontinuity of events within the story world. To this end, directors
rely on formal devices for editing together the distinct camera shots that make up a
film. Some of these devices are quite dramatic, such as the fade-out, fade-in, or
dissolve, and are intended to signal a shift in scenes.
However, approximately 95% of editing boundaries are cuts (Cutting, 1995), which
constitutes the splicing together of two camera frames.
The juxtaposition of the content of two edited frames can be jarring and contain
little feature overlap, but most often, a cut is intended to convey a continuous flow
of events and be ―invisible to viewer.
Some authors have argued that cuts are invisible because they correspond to visual
interruptions that occur naturally due to the movements of the eyes, in particular
blinks and saccades.
Continuity editing is important for the management of perception of spatial and
temporal ellipsis. Films rarely depict all of the sub-events that make up a larger
event.
For example, one shot may show an actor approaching the stairs of a building and
the next shot may show the actor entering that building. In such cases, viewers are
intended to perceive these events as being roughly continuous in space and time.
The editing technique most likely to be used in this situation would be the cut.
In contrast, filmmakers may use fade-ins, fade-outs, or dissolves across shots to
indicate that there is a significant amount of missing narrative time between the two
shots.
Light continuity - Lighting for Time, Date, and Location
You may use lighting to indicate time, date, and location as a more subtle but
important consideration when designing and editing a scene. Early morning and late
afternoon light is different from that at high noon.
The colours are different (early and late in the day, the light is warmer, redder), and
the angle of the light is lower. Winter sun is bluer and colder; the lights of summer,
fall, and spring each have their own colours and contrast levels.
Intercutting scenes from cameras with noticeably different colour characteristics
(colour balance) in a dramatic production will immediately be apparent to viewers.
To alleviate this problem all cameras should be carefully colour-balanced and
compared before a production.
Once cameras are colour balanced and matched, an electronic test pattern with all of
the primary and secondary colours is often recorded at the beginning of the
recording.
This has traditionally been used to colour balance the video playback. However
today, many systems can electronically adjust color from the recording's integrated
colour reference signal.
Thank You !!