Jump cutting

What is jump cutting?


Jump cutting is where the camera jumps to a shot where the scene can be enhanced. For example, a girl is crying in a medium shot. The shot can then jump cut to a close up of her face to portray her emotions further.


For the audience, this enhances the scene dramatically. It enhances the scene by viewing actions in different ways without dragging out scenes. It comes down to the flow, the flow of jump cutting at the right times. You need to ensure that you jump cut at the right moment otherwise it can seem like the editor is unprofessional and can draw the audiences attention away from the content of the scene and towards the poor editing.


Below is an example of jump cutting:






The clip above is an example of using jump cutting to cut time within a scene. The audience new what was coming when he was shaving off his beard however it would be unnecessary to show a 10 minute clip of the actor cutting his facial hair. The director used jump cuts to speed up the scene to keep the audience engaged.