Continuity Editing

Continuity editing is used in most drama's or films nowadays - it is meant to make the storytelling smooth, to make sure the viewer is able to follow the story well. The viewer should be unable to notice the cuts, so the shots can simply flow together as if it were natural. The narrative has to appear logical, coherent and continuous.


Continuity editing is used to make the viewer not notice any of the editing. The rules, such as the 180 degree rule all is a part of this. If you break the 180 degree rule during filming, the audience will suddenly notice it. During the 
'Continuity' part of our Skins disk, it breaks the 180 degree rule, but then goes back to a master shot, establishing why they broke it, so it works, but generally it goes unbroken during filming.


The central elements of continuity editing involve the 180 degree rule - when two characters are facing one another they must never appear in the same half of the frame. Each time the camera cuts, they must remain in their half of the frame, otherwise the continuity of the scene will be broken. There is the match on action cut, this occurs when two pieces of footage of the same event but filmed in different ways are edited together to make them appear continuous. Next, there is the 30 degree rule. When changing the angle of the camera to film the same event you need to cut by at leas 30 degrees or you will produce a jump cut, which disrupts the flow of the narrative. There is also the eye-line match, where footage is matched to the eye line of the character. And, of course, there is the establishing shot, which simply establishes where you are and the shot reverse shot.


This is my first ever work on Photoshop, it is fairly basic, but it shows edits of Match on Action, the Shot Reverse Shot and the Eyeline Match.