Thursday, April 23, 2015

Cutting a Dialogue Scene

Brianna Bosco
Non- Linear Editing
Blog
April 23, 2015

                                                            Cutting a Dialogue Scene

            Editing a dialogue scene is something that every editor encounters more than any other scene. Many people believe for a good dialogue scene that camera must always be focused on the character talking. But this is not the case; to have a good dialogue scene there must be a flow between the person talking and the person listening. Normally the people shows emotion while listening and if the camera does not show the listener it just feels like the one talking is talking to themselves. The editor has to make the scene tell a story and without showing both or all characters it is not portraying a story. An example of a good flow would be to start on the wide shot, then go to the person talking, and then back to the wide shot. When you are in a classroom and a person is talking you are not focuses on that person the entire time. You are looking around at the other people in the class to see what their reaction is to what they are listening to.

            When an editor is editing there are three primary aesthetic decisions and editor should make: when to use a wide shot, when to use a close up and when to use a reaction shot. When we edited Leverage, we had to make sure to get the right reaction shots to go with what the character was saying. Going back to the wide shot helped by giving the audience watching to gather their thoughts on what they just watched. Editors have to make sure the scene makes sense and make sure the dialogue is not repeated or misplaced.

No comments:

Post a Comment