Continuity Editing

What is 'Continuity Editing'?

Continuity Editing is a style of Film/Video editing in the post-production procress of filmmaking and television programmes. The main purpose of this style of editting is to smooth over the movie, and make each shot in line with the previous one.

Majority of the films have coherence by cutting to continuity, which shows smooth transition of time. On the other hand, some movies have a complexed technique in continuity editing, as the same shot can reflect different emotions through continiuty editing.

Another form of Continuity editing is Montage, this is a series of events that occur over a short period of time in the film. The events could be for 4 days in the films but only lasts for about 30 seconds of scenes are used.

Match on action technique can be used where there are unrepeated actions, as the character walks into a room the camera then changes into a different angle but the character remains the same action as the previous shot, this type of editing is used to express the action of the character from different views.

The flashback editing is where the scene changes into a previous event that occured in the past. This form of editing allows the audience to identify the previous events that occured prior to the present. Many flashbacks are used in horror or murder films as it allows the murderer to hide his motive on why he is comitting these crimes. An easy way to recognise flash is through the mise-en-scene as many of the characters will be wearing old clothes or even objects around the room/area.

The first shot of the movie is called an establishing shot, this shot allows the audience to understand and identify the location which the event is occuring at. However, this shot doesn't always have to be used once, when the scene changes into a different location the shot can be used again in order for the user to understand the new location.