The Key Element in Editing a Good Film: “Emotion”

When faced with the same footage, for an excellent editor, editing is never just about arranging and combining shots; it is about arranging and combining emotions.

In previous videos/articles, I’ve mentioned more than once a concept called the “Six Rules of Perfect Editing.” Today, let’s break them down in detail.

The Six Rules of Perfect Editing:

1. Emotion (51%)

2. Story (23%)

3. Rhythm (10%)

4. Eye-trace (7%)

5. Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%)

6. Three-dimensional space continuity (4%)

These were proposed by the famous editor Walter Murch (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) and are often regarded as a kind of editing “bible.”

Look at the weight each rule carries.

The least important three (Eye-trace | 2D characteristics | 3D continuity) are exactly what we usually call “editing technique” or “editing theory”: the relationship between eye line and camera direction, match cuts, avoiding jump cuts, continuity of movement, and a whole series of textbook, academic theories.

In contrast, the three most important elements have nothing to do with these technical requirements.

So what exactly does the most important one—emotion—refer to? One example makes it clear:

In the film The Talented Mr. Ripley, there is a shot after the protagonist has gone through a series of ups and downs in his life: he stands on a boat, looking out at the sea, and this medium shot lingers for a long time.

Editor Walter Murch described his thinking when cutting this shot:

“As long as you can imagine his thoughts continuing with the sea, that’s how long you can let the shot stay on.”

That is emotion. That is the most important function of editing—narration.

Even in a film with a “frantic, fragmented” editing style like Requiem for a Dream (which breaks records with around 2,000 shots; a typical 60–90 minute film usually has only 600–700 shots), there is no lack of long takes that linger. To maintain the style throughout, the editor could have insisted on a relentlessly fast cutting pace. Wouldn’t inserting long-held shots destroy the rhythm?

— The editor is prioritizing the character’s emotion above all. Real emotion can only be captured by a camera that keeps rolling.

In fact, Murch’s “perfect editing” rules are not just applicable to films; they apply to editing of all kinds of projects.

We often focus too much on “technique” while ignoring the most primitive “emotion” the shot conveys to the audience.

According to orthodox film-school theory, selecting footage is the editor’s primary task, and you must follow general rules such as “the shot must be stable, no shaking, the face must be clearly visible, composition neat and proper…” But if you truly want a film’s emotion to be accurately presented, you often have to break these rules.

In this scene from The Godfather, when the protagonist exits the frame, he accidentally bumps into the camera, causing the image to shake, yet the editor deliberately kept it.

In the opening of 12 Years a Slave, several seconds pass on the shot before the dialogue begins (according to conventional editing practice, the film would most likely start directly with dialogue).

These are all ways of preserving emotion through editing.

So it seems that what a great editor pursues is transforming “where do I cut?” into “what if I don’t cut?”

You’ve probably heard it said that good editing is about telling a story—telling a story with images. How do you tell a story well? If someone recites a story like reading from a textbook, flat as water, you’re unlikely to remember it and may even start yawning. But if someone uses exaggerated facial expressions and body movements, varied tone and pace, spittle flying as they speak, then even if the story itself isn’t great, it will still be engaging.

That’s why a good director can still make a mediocre script watchable: they understand how to control rhythm. And that rhythm is controlled by emotion.

When viewers say a film is good, there must be something emotional in it that moved them. This is what we mean when we keep repeating that “a good editor is always telling a story.”

Returning to what we said at the beginning: “For an excellent editor, editing is about combining ‘emotion’.”

Using a sequence of shots to create a montage imbued with “anger” may not be too hard.

But in a feature-length film, the emotional palette is not just “anger”; there may be passages of “joy,” “sadness,” “delight,” etc. To blend these emotions back together into a cohesive work is extremely difficult.

For a 15-second or 20-second short video, the primary goal is simply to convey a single emotion.

This is why being good at cutting short videos does not necessarily mean you can edit feature films, let alone cinema.

The reverse, however, can be true.

This is also why learning editing properly should start from film theory.

Stripping away some technical aspects, a good film must be led along by an emotional throughline—or by several emotional throughlines that weave together.

Suppose you’re editing a film whose theme is “sadness,” and in your bin there are two shots of someone sobbing that you need to choose from:

Shot ①: Normally shot, technically flawless.

Shot ②: Out of focus, shaky, but the crying is more deeply emotional.

From a technical standpoint, Shot ② is a so-called “bad shot.”

But if you want the film to work, you still choose Shot ②.

Anything the camera records—regardless of whether anyone calls “cut” or not—contains no “wasted” seconds in the edit bay.