Helping slight jump cuts
by Chris Poisson
on
Feb 8, 2008 at 3:57:04 pm
I am finishing up a talking head video, the subjects are parents who lost young kids to cancer.
The client was VERY selective about what they say and when, so there are a few jump cuts as they speak. If they are between thoughts, a dip to black fixes it fine, or I can put b-roll or stills over them. But there are one or two where the jumps come in the middle of a thought, so I'm stuck with them.
Re: Helping slight jump cuts by Jeremy Garchow on Feb 8, 2008 at 4:15:34 pm
Set up the gimmick early. If you are going to go with jump cuts, make a style of the piece so the audience will accept it instead of rejecting it when it happens "all of a sudden".
Find more Broll/Pictures, even if it isn't 'see say'.
Re: Helping slight jump cuts by lightning ad on Feb 8, 2008 at 4:18:33 pm
depends on the context....
if your edit is actually changing the meaning of what was said and you don't want it be known that is what you've done, then cover the offending cut, but be as subtle as you can with choice of covering shot, maybe using a couple of shots as a relevant montage. A single shot will usually look obvious as a cover-up.
If you would rather be honest and say yup, we cut this because they droned on for hours - then use a subtle mix. People will know its been cut, but they also know that as you have visually admitted it, then chances are you're not trying to pull the wool over anyones eyes.
Re: Helping slight jump cuts by Greg Ball on Feb 8, 2008 at 4:21:47 pm
I tend to use white flash frames, or there are some really cool glows built into FCP that you can use. But as someone else said earlier, you need to determone the style, look, and feel you want and then add effects accordingly. Try not to overuse them though.
Re: Helping slight jump cuts by Del Holford on Feb 8, 2008 at 4:32:10 pm
I think the conventional wisdom of soft cuts (3 -6 fr dissolves) combined with dips to black for complete thoughts would be sensitive to the subject matter. Even though you soft cut in the middle of the thought, continuing dips to black at the end of those thoughts will keep a smooth flow. I suspect you have limited B-roll and photos so you would want to use those where they put forward the story rather than randomly dropping them in as cover for the jump cuts.
Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org
