Being aware of some editing techniques will only make your movie watching experience more fun. Filmmaking is equally about technology, as it is about art. And editing being one of the most important aspects of the whole process, is responsible a lot for the movie's ultimate quality. There are several types of cuts used to tell the story more smoothly on screen. While the majority of the audience don't look into it minutely, one who is passionate about cinema should definitely understand all these techniques in order to go deeper into this world. Here are some simple cuts that every film buff needs to know primarily: Standard Cut: This is the most basic and commonly used cut in editing. When two different clips are put one after another without any transition, it's a standard cut. This is used when the filmmaker wants to convey it in a simplistic manner. Match Cut: This cut is used to continue the narrative in a seamless way. It transits one shot to another similar shot by matching their composition. There's a good use of match cut in the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' by Stanley Kubrick: the ape throws a bone up into the air which leads to the next shot showing a space station of similar outlook. Some other examples can be found in movies like ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘Titanic’, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Apur Sansar’, ‘North by Northwest’ etc. Cross-Cut: Cross-Cut is also known as parallel editing as it's used to connect two or more shots of different actions happening simultaneously but in different spaces. This technique is mostly used to create a contrasting and tension filled impact on the audience. The greatest examples of cross cut can be found in almost all Christopher Nolan movies, especially 'Inception'. Jump Cut: It cuts a single continuous shot into multiple pieces and then puts them together just to jump forward in time. You can see numerous uses of jump cuts in Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potemkin'. However, the first movie that popularized this editing technique was the French movie 'Breathless' (especially, the car scenes) by Jean-Luc Godard. J & L cut: J cut is used to make the next shot's sound arrive before it actually takes place. L cut is just the reverse of J cut, that means the previous shot's sound is audible in the next sequence of shots. The sequence from Martin Scorsese's 'The Wolf of Wall Street' where Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) interact and the scene from David Fincher’s 'Fight Club' where Tyler is seen reciting the rules of the fight are great examples of J and L cuts respectively. Some other essential cuts in film editing are Cutaways, Cutting on Action, Montage etc.
