We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
to the table. The cut would be mechanically smooth and the action would be clear.
Now let us look at an alternative way of editing the scene. The first shot could be shown as before. Then, when the actor recognises something off screen and is just about to get up, we cut to what he sees, namely a shot of the matches lying on the table. The shot of the matches is now held until the actor walks into frame and we see him pick them up. At the moment the actor looks up, the spectator wants to see what it is that has caught his eye. At this moment there is a motive for cutting : the cut makes a point because it identifies the reason for the actor's movement. In the first method of cutting the scene the cut made no point : no idea was carried across it — the joining of the shots was a simple physical necessity which could have no significance for the spectator. In the second case, the cut made a point : the first shot caused the second, and the continuity was therefore more incisive.
In comparing these two methods of cutting a scene, it would be wrong to insist that every cut should be motivated in the way we described in the second example. There are obviously a great number of cases — such as when a character has to be taken from one room to another — where it is physically necessary to shoot the scene in two separate takes and simply join them to form a continuous movement. One can, of course, not make a hard and fast rule. What does seem clear is that a series of dramatically apt cuts is generally to be preferred : it keeps the audience thinking and reacting continuously and never allows the presentation to become a passive record.
There is, moreover, a further advantage to be gained from editing the scene in the second way. Say, for example, it takes the actor ten steps to cross the room and reach the matches. In the first case, where the whole movement has to be shown, all the ten footsteps must be seen if the continuity is not to become jerky. In the second case the man's walk is not shown at all. From the moment at which we imply that he is about to rise, we cut to the matches. Then after a very short time of holding shot 2 on the screen, the actor can be allowed to enter frame. The spectator, interested only in the sequence of significant events, will not notice any physical inaccuracy. The editor is able to reduce the screen time of the scene by simply cutting out the interval during which the actor is crossing the room. In other words, he is able to edit the scene in such a way that the significant events are shown in full and the physical movement is unobtrusively cut down to a minimum. 228