Today I'm gonna show you a few ways to
hide your jump cuts so your videos don't end up
looking like this. Let's get-- Undone.
[offbeat music] ♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and I actually talk quite slowly but speed everything up in post.
So, I've got several tips and tricks regarding jump cuts
that range from things you can do while shooting,
to little tweaks and edit to reduce the impact of the jump.
And let's work through them in that order.
So, the first and most effective solution
is to use two different camera angles.
That way it seems like you just changed cameras, even though
the second shot might take place several minutes later.
There are some things you need to know about your second
angle, so you don't end up with a cut that's just as bad.
Basically, your second angle needs to be different enough
to not look like another jump cut, where the camera
was accidentally moved, but not so different
that it makes the viewer feel uneasy.
And there's two basic rules to remember for this:
the 30/20 rule, and the 180-Degree rule.
Now, the 180-degree rule is not to be confused
with the one for setting your shutter speed.
This one's about camera angles, and suggests
that you should stay on the same side
of the imaginary axis of your subjects.
So, right now you're looking at me from this angle,
and if was talking to somebody over here,
you could move around me, all the way across,
but don't go behind me or exceed this 180 degree arc.
The reason why is because if you do that, I'll magically jump
from being on the right side of the frame, to the left side
of the frame, if the camera ended up behind me.
This'll make the viewer think that you have a continuity
error, and forgot which side the talent was standing on.
So, instead, aim for the 30/20 rule, which suggests
that you should move at least 30 degrees from your primary angle,
and that you change the focal length by at least 20mm--
either wide or telephoto. This is just a rule of thumb,
so you don't have to hit these numbers exactly,
but it does give you a good starting point.
Now, for instances where you don't have a second angle,
or your second angle doesn't help with the cut,
the next best option is a B-roll cover-up.
Insert some relevant cutaway footage before the cut,
and let it run until the point is made, or it feels natural
to transition back to the talking head.
And I said before the cut, because it can often be
just as jarring to have a sentence that starts ON a cut
also jump to b-roll at the same moment,
because it'll emphasize the fact that the audio
is slightly different. But I'll show you how to deal
with that audio problem at the end of the video.
Now, if you don't have any relevant b-roll that you shot,
then perhaps a stock footage library might be the answer.
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Now this next tip is geared more towards this type
of web presentation, but if you know while shooting
that you've just entered into jump cut territory
because you botched a line, and maybe you're holding
something in your hand and there's no way to perfectly
re-set to start the take over, I'll tell you a little trick
that I do to mask the jump cut as much as possible,
or at least make it seem less jarring.
I recommend throwing a little flare and flourish
as you start the next take. Sometimes it's as easy
as passing something from one hand to the next
or starting the motion of setting something down.
One of my favourite ones to do, which you can see
a lot if you go back and watch my previous videos,
is to prime a new object in my other hand, and then
lift it up while lowering the other one very quickly.
So, let's say I was holding this lens, and I botched the take,
but my next sentence I started to talk about this hood.
Well, I'll start the next sentence with this hand motion,
and often when edited it seems surprisingly smooth--
much smoother than had I just jumped to holding
this lens in a different position.
It's basically simple misdirection.
You're just trying to redirect your viewers' eyes,
so they don't look at what you're trying to hide,
which is that the position of this object has changed.
And you can do this with other things, too,
like taking your glasses off, and so on.
That's not an option, though, for whatever reason,
you can sometimes create the same misdirection,
but in post using a graphic or a lower-third.
If you look at my videos, you'll notice that my graphics
from a previous paragraph will usually disappear
with a distracting effect, just as the jump cut happens.
That way it draws your eye to the disappearing graphic,
or the appearing lower-third,
so you don't notice that my head moved around weirdly.
Sometimes though, none of the things that I mention
will make sense to do, and you'll just have to deal
with one of those unfortunate situations where you need
to combine half a sentence from a previous take,
and the other 1/2 from a later take.
And in that case, I recommend that you take
a look at the smooth cut found in DaVinci Resolve.
If you're not a Resolve user, it might seem crazy
to switch to a different program for a single transition,
but I was surprised at how good the smooth cut is
when I moved over from Premiere. And since Resolve is free,
if you're someone who finds themselves in this
position a lot, it might be worth a look.
I find that if my head didn't move too much,
a smooth cut placed over just a couple frames
will completely hide a jump cut. For example,
I did one in that previous sentence-- did you see it?
--position a lot, it might be worth a look.
I find that if my head didn't move too much--
And while we're editing, let's talk about audio,
because little audio tweaks can be applied to every
single method we discussed to make the cut even smoother.
Firstly, as I mentioned with the b-roll cutaways,
you're gonna wanna use J-cuts and L-cuts,
which are named that because they resemble Js and Ls.
Because either your audio is cutting before your video,
or vice versa, but the point is, that they aren't cutting at
the same time, because this'll make the cut more jarring.
And lastly, you're gonna wanna control
the volume changes between the two sections of audio.
Often after a bad take, we tend to start
our new take with more enthusiasm
than you'll find at the end of the previous sentence.
So we need to ramp up the volume at the end,
preceding the cut, and fade in the audio following the cut.
And you can do this with a little cross-fade,
or [unclear] power of band-aids. But I find I get more
precise results by key-framing my audio track,
so I'll usually just put two points before a cut,
and ramp that one up to a louder volume, and then start
the next cut lower and ramp it back up to normal volume.
And then you can put a little band-aid on there
if there's a little hiccup to hide.
But overall, it should sound much smoother.
Passing something from one hand to the next,
or starting the motion of setting something down.
Passing something from one hand to the next,
or starting the motion of setting something down.
That's pretty much it. Let me know in the comments
if you have any other tricks that you use to cover
your jump cuts. Even if they're odd and specific
to your shooting scenario, I'd love to hear them.
But that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found
this video entertaining or at least helpful, and If you did,
make sure you leave it the ol' thumbs-up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already.
But if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining,
then I bet your jump cuts even have jump cuts.
Alright... I'm done.