Continuity and Montage editing all in one scene!

I thought this scene from Inception was a great example of continuity AND montage editing.  The scene takes you back and forth between thoughts and dreams (montage) as well as multiple scenes in the same room (continuity) all while maintaining the same narrative.  There are quite a few people who do not like this movie and considers it rather confusing but I enjoy it.

The Godfather: Baptism Scene

This Montage is from the one of the breathtaking scenes in The Godfather, known as The Baptism Scene. The shooting scenes in this section, the Gothic and Catholic background music and the shootings interweave together and create the complexity and heartlessness of the protagonist himself. The paradoxical cuts builds up the tense of the movie.

Different types of "matches" within continuity editing

As Cache informs us, continuity has to do with the "smooth, clear passage of time with the shots occurring and it's logical, the brain can follow the story line."  In other words, continuity editing refers to how the film-making team works to create a smooth narrative.  Consider some of those early films, where there was no story, just a shot that included people moving around.  When directors like D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein started splicing strips of film together to create a coherent story line, film was able to move towards becoming the art form we know today.

Continuity editing is that editing that combines shots in such a way that they create a coherent sense of story while also compressing time.  Continuity editing refers to those instances where the editing splices together shots that occur within a common space and time frame, or that show the continuation of one given action.

So let's look at this film clip from the 1990 Truly, Madly, Deeply, an early film by the recently deceased actor, the wonderful Alan Rickman:

The primary type of editing going on in this film is "continuity editing," because the scene takes place in one room, and advances the story of the relationship between the male character (who is actually a ghost) and the female character (who just can't get him off of her mind.)  

Now, our Cahir text makes us aware of a few different continuity editing tricks, including "match on action or match on movement", "match on a line" "eye-line match" "match on an object", "cross cuts", "fade" and "dissolve."  These are all methods that a film editor uses to move from shot to shot, to advance the story, and yet at the same time, to use time efficiently and economically.  Here are a couple lovely little film examples of a few of these techniques:

Match Cut (or "match on action"

The match cut is the opposite of a Jump Cut

(This video also includes an example of a cross cut)

Here's an "eye-line match"

Here's a very simple example of fade and dissolve

As you can see these methods allow the story to move forward coherently, while also cutting out unnecessary time.  

Tomorrow, I'm going to ask all of us to consider these concepts and go back to the Chaplin video.  But if you get to this blog before then, try to identify a little more specifically how "The Immigrant" gives us some examples of Continuity Editing. 

till tomorrow!

   

Continuity editing example - "Rolo"

In this video the publisher uses this short clip to display what continuity editing is. Throughout the clip their are also examples of Fade as well as Dissolve when the man is eating the candy and looking at his watch. Cross cut is also used a few times briefly. When the women enters into the frame it seemed the strategy Match on a line was also used.

"The Immigrant" -1917-One of Charlie Chaplin's most beloved short comedi...