Cutting on Action

It’s no coincidence that many of the most capable Hollywood directors have worked in a cutting room. The editing suite is the best place to learn how to shoot! When you try to join two shots you really learn how you should have shot them in the first place.
One very basic rule is to cut onwards not backwards on action. If you have a mid shot of someone talking about grasshoppers and he holds out his hand to show one, cut to the close-up as he moves his hand. But cut from the wider shot a few frames before his hand stops, and to the close up a frame or so before his hand comes to rest and it will look OK. The rationalisation is that the viewer takes time to realise he’s looking at a new shot, and somehow expects visual time to have moved on too. It really is a rationalisation, but it works. Experienced film editors often cut two or three frames before the beat on a music sequence for exactly the same reason.