A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same
subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of
edit gives the effect of jumping forwards in time. It is a manipulation
of temporal space using the duration of a single shot, and fracturing the
duration to move the audience ahead. This kind of cut abruptly communicates
the passing of time as opposed to the more seamless dissolve heavily used in
films predating Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, when jump cuts were first
used extensively. For this reason, jump cuts, while not seen as inherently bad,
are considered a violation of classical continuity editing, which aims to give
the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by
de-emphasizing editing. Jump cuts, in contrast, draw attention to the
constructed nature of the film. Continuity editing uses a guideline
called the "30 degree rule" to avoid jump cuts. The 30 degree rule advises
that for consecutive shots to appear "seamless," the camera position must
vary at least 30 degrees from its previous position. Some schools would
call for a change in framing as well. Generally, if the camera position
changes less than 30 degrees, the difference between the two shots will
not be substantial enough, and the viewer will experience the edit as a
jump in the position of the subject that is jarring, and draws attention to
itself. Although jump cuts can be created through the editing together of
two shots filmed non-continuously, they can also be created by removing a middle
section of one continuously-filmed shot. Jump cuts can add a sense of speed to
the sequence of events. History
Georges Méliès is known as the father of the jump cut as a result of having
discovered it accidentally, and then using it to simulate magical tricks;
however, he tried to make the cut appear seamless to complement his illusions.
Dziga Vertof's avant-garde Russian film Man With a Movie Camera is almost
entirely composed of jump cuts. Contemporary use of the jump cut stems
from its appearance in the work of Jean-Luc Godard and other filmmakers of
the French New Wave of the late 1950s and 1960s. In Godard's ground-breaking
Breathless, for example, he cut together shots of Jean Seberg riding in a
convertible in such a way that the discontinuity between shots is
emphasized and its jarring effect deliberate. In the screen shots to the
right, the first image comes from the very end of one shot and the second is
the very beginning of the next shot — thus emphasizing the gap in action
between the two. Recently the jump cut has been used in films like Snatch, by
Guy Ritchie, and Run Lola Run, by Tom Tykwer. It is frequently used in TV
editing, in documentaries produced by Discovery Channel and National
Geographic Channel, for example. It is noticeable in Universal Monsters films
and music videos. Notable examples
The jump cut has sometimes served a political use in film. It has been used
as an alienating Brechtian technique that makes the audience aware of the
unreality of the film experience, in order to focus the audience's attention
on the political message of a film rather than the drama or emotion of the
narrative—as may be observed in some segments of Sergei Eisenstein's The
Battleship Potemkin. It was also used in Alexander
Dovzhenko's Arsenal, where a close-up shot of a character's face cuts closer
and closer a total of nine times. Mark Cousins comments that this
'fragmentation captured his indecision... and confusion', adding
that 'Although the effect jars, the idea of visual conflict was central to Soviet
montage cinema of that time'. Jump cuts are sometimes used to show a
nervous searching scene as is done in the 2009 science fiction film Moon in
which the protagonist, Sam Bell, is looking for a secret room on a moon
base, and District 9 in which the protagonist, Wikus, searches for illegal
objects in the house of Christopher's friend.
In television, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In editor Arthur Schneider won an Emmy
Award in 1968 for his pioneering use of the jump cut. Jump cutting remained an
uncommon TV technique until shows like Homicide: Life on the Street popularized
it on the small screen in the 1990s. The well-remembered music video for
"Everybody Have Fun Tonight" has a jump cut for virtually every frame.
Other uses of the jump cuts include Vincent Gallo's short "Flying Christ" in
which various shots of "christ" jumping are cut together as he is in mid jump,
creating the illusion of flight, and in many vlogs online, as popularized by the
show with zefrank. Confusion with other transitions
Vernacular use of the term jump cut can be used to describe any abrupt or
noticeable edit in a film. However, technically many such over-broad usages
are incorrect. In particular, a cut between two different subjects is not a
true jump cut, no matter how jarring. A match cut may also be abrupt, but the
viewer is meant to see the similarity between two scenes with disparate
subjects rather than experience the discontinuity between the two shots. A
well-known example is found at the end of the "Dawn of Man" sequence in the
film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A primitive hominid discovers the use of a bone as a
weapon and throws it into the air. When the bone reaches its highest point, the
shot cuts to that of a similarly-shaped space station in orbit above the earth.
This edit has been described as a jump cut by those unfamiliar with film
editing terminology, but it is properly termed as a graphic match or a match
cut. Jump cuts are also distinguishable from
an impossible match on action, where the action of the subject seems continuous
and fluid but the background suddenly changes in an impossible way. Several of
the cuts, sometimes mislabeled jump cuts, in the "Patricia in the car"
sequence from Godard's Breathless are actually examples of impossible match on
action. Other infamous examples include Resnais' Last Year in Marienbad, and the
"air mattress to Mrs. Robinson" cut in The Graduate.
See also Match cut
Smash cut References
External links "Avoiding Audio Jump Cuts",
AskTheCameraMan.net article explaining what jump cuts in audio are and how/why
to avoid them