8 Essential Cuts Every Editor Should Know

These 8 essential cuts will help any editor transform their footage into a gripping, solid narrative.

If your goal is to master the art of editing, you're going to need to know the essential cuts to use when editing a film or video. Let's go through eight of these and look at some examples of each.

1. The Standard

The hard cut is the basic type of cut in editing. This type of cut is utilized when you want to cut from clip to clip without any type of transition or where you cut from the end of one clip to the beginning of another. The only downside of the hard cut is that (out of all the cuts we'll talk about) this one gives the least amount of visual meaning.

2. Jump Cut

The jump cut is a technique that allows the editor to jump forward in time. We see an early version of this technique in Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, where the battleship fires a mortar round, and we watch the destruction as various angles jump cut from one to another. It gained traction and is one of the most used types of cuts today next to the hard cut.

Another great place to use jump cuts is during an interview, especially if you film the interview with multiple cameras. This allows you to jump from one angle to the other without it being jarring for the audience.

3. L Cut & J Cut

First, let's talk about the L Cut. This editing technique is used not only by narrative filmmakers but is also a favorite of documentary filmmakers and commercial videographers. What L Cut means is that you are hearing the audio from the previous shot, even though we've moved on to another shot. So, the audience is looking at clip B but still hearing audio from clip A.

A J Cut is essentially the opposite of the L Cut. Here we hear the audio before we see the video. So, the audience is looking at clip A but still hearing audio from clip B.

4. Cutting on Action

The technique of cutting on action is a huge component of action films. The basic idea of cutting for action is that the editor cuts from one shot to another and matches the action of the shots. One of the best examples of motivated cutting is The Matrix. Almost every cut happens mid-action. This results in a much smoother transition and a more tense action scene.

5. Cutaways

Cutaways take the audience away from the main action or subject. These are used primarily as transition pieces to give the audience a view of what is happening outside of the main character's environment.

6. Cross-Cut

The technique of the cross-cut, also known as parallel editing, is where you cut between two different scenes that are happening at the same time in other spaces. When done effectively, you can tell two simultaneous stories at once. Probably no filmmaker has loved using the cross-cut technique more than Christopher Nolan.

7. Montage

Montage is another technique that has been around for a long time. The idea behind the montage is to use rapid cuts of imagery to help convey the passing of time or to help aid the context of the narrative. One of the best examples is the rhythmic montage in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

8. Match Cuts

The match cut is the technique of matching the movement or space of two opposite environments together. A classic example is from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Stanley Kubrick found a way to move from the Dawn of Man sequence to the Space Station sequence by matching the bone toss with a spaceship.