Lesson 2: Continuity, Pace and Flow

1. Continuity:
Continuity is the art of ensuring that each cut feels as natural and seamless as possible. This
means movement between cuts must be continuous; prop/actor placement on a location
must be continuous; if an actor uses his left hand to lift a glass, he can’t be holding the glass
in his right on the next cut, etc.

Cutting on action:
Cutting in the middle of an action helps to stitch two shots together through movement. E.g.
a movement starts on a wide shot (a character lifts a glass of water from a table) and is
continued to a close-up (the character brings the glass to her lips).

Note: in cinema, there is a 0.2s delay in the audience’s attention when there is a cut on
action, as the brain is still catching up with the cut. This means that editors won’t cut exactly
to real-time, but will “reshow” a bit of the movement in the second shot.

e.g. A student lifts her hand up to answer a question in a wide shot. The editor CUTS as the
elbow reaches her ear. The second shot, a close-up, begins with the elbow still bent below
her ear, near her chin; the movement continues and her hand is up in the air.

2. Pace:
This is the tempo of a scene. Editing will determine how fast or slow a scene feels.

Quick cuts will most likely make a scene feel fast-paced, claustrophobic, or frenetic. The
most obvious places to use this is in a scene with a lot of action; e.g. a bank-robbery or car-
chase scene. However, this can also be used in dialogue very effectively – an argument
between two people can feel extremely claustrophobic when their words are cut over each
other. The effect is that there is no breathing space, and it feels as if the two aren’t
interested in listening to each other.

Slow cuts will most likely make a scene feel longer, still/dead, and maybe even tedious. The
most obvious places to use this is in a scene of trauma that you want the audience to feel
alienated, to stay in a character’s suffering without relief, or to give the sense that things are
slowly unravelling in a destined way. Many great films have decided to use slow cuts to draw
an audience into a scene, a character’s monologue, or to prevent the comfort of stepping
out of a moment.

The most effective way of pacing a scene is through juxtaposition. An audience will not feel a
fast-paced adrenaline-fuelled scene, if the entire film has been cut in this way. The audience
will build a tolerance, and you would need to increase the dosage to make them feel a
change in pace. Think about the last blockbuster action film you watched that did this – you
get numbed to the pacing very quickly.

Now think of a movie that did the opposite and had a very quickly-paced scene after a very
slow scene, or vice versa. A slow scene can feel tense and sadistically suspenseful, or a quick
one can pump up an audience’s adrenaline and heart rate. The important thing is a change
in pace, rather than the pace itself.
3. Flow
Flow is related to both continuity and pace. It is the seamless progression of drama,
narrative and the audience’s feelings. There is flow in a single scene, in the transition
between scenes, and overall in the entire film. You can think of flow as a line-graph, like
below:

This is a typical Three-Act Structured narrative. You can see the seamless line that directs the
audience throughout the movie, throughout a scene, and between the scenes.

Flow is essentially the notion that things happening within a scene or act fit into the film as a
whole. It is the consistency throughout, that even as pacing is changed, the film feels whole
and complete in and of itself.