Continuity

Why is Continuity Important and how does it work in editing?
It is important to create a seamless narrative and allow a logical coherance to be made between shots to create a smooth narritive flow. This is essential in order to suspend disbelief in the audience and allow them to fully escape into the film world rather than them noticing what they are seeing has in fact been contructed.
The process that stems from this is called 'Sutre' where the audience is metaphorically swen into the narrative; the audience focuses on the story and does not notice the invisible editing process.
The aim of continuity is to allow the audience to get into the parallel world (the world of the film) and absorb it without disruption- increasing viewing pleasure.


Rules of Continuity Editing


Shot Order
Certain distances are routinely edited together in a particular order to create a smooth flow of narrative. For instance long to mid to close up). This takes the viewer across physical space steadily.


Eyeline Match
You need to make sure the direction of the characters gazes and looks stays the same, so for instance, if character 1 is taller than character 2, character 1 should always be looking down at character 2 and character two looking up to character 1.


Match on Action
You should edit movement (e.g. a character falling) 'in action' and make sure the character has clearly moved forwards or downwards between shots and not gone back on itself (so not repeated)as this looks fake and staged.


30 Degree Rule
If the camera angle moves by less than 30 degrees with the same framing, viewers may notice a jump in the footage also known as a 'jump cut'.


180 Degree Rule
It is important not to cross the 'line of vision' between two characters, unless the viewer sees the viewpoint move across the line. Otherwise the viewer may not be able to keep up with the sense of the scene. This same rule applies to a moving subject, keep to one side of a a direct movement, so the movement flows and appears to be in the same direction.

Transitions
Cuts
cuts are the most common way of seamlessly moving from one shot to the next, they create pace and rhythm usually for suspense.
Dissolves
Provides a slow, relaxed way of linking shots, e.g. in a montage. They can also be used in continuity editing to show we have moved forward in time and/or space:- they show there is a significant link between two shots.
Fading
Fade up and fade out- also fade to black- are foten used to signify a significant period of time has ended or elapsed between two sequences.


From my accident task i have learnt that it is very important for a sequence of shots to flow in order for the audience to understand what is going on between them and follow the story. So in the future, i believe continuity techniques will allow me to achieve this and avoid mistakes (like in the accident task) whereby i did not follow the match on action rule and it looked silly and staged. I must use the right sort of transitions in order to create the right moods, pace and show where the story is going or has ended and make sure i do not break any of the continuity rules to be sure that the film looks believeable and the editing looks 'invisible'.