The Rule of Six

In video editing, there are many important details that go into producing a good quality piece. These six parts are as follows: emotion, story, rhythm, eye trace 2D plane, and 3D space. All of these things appropriately portioned out can lead to a successful film.

Emotion should take up 51% of the production. The reason this is so important is because one of the main objectives of films is to have the audience feel the emotion you want them to feel at each certain point in time.  Each of the other elements mentioned may need to be sacrificed at times in favor of getting the right emotional response.

The story portion is the second most important and pretty self explanatory. You want your viewers to have a story that they are essentially reading along with throughout the film to give them something to follow and eventually talk about. This takes up about 23% of the film.

Film Rhythm covers the timing of the cuts. Whether to make an invisible cut that flows during the lines of one of the characters to a reaction shot or to make a purposefully jarring cut to illicit a response of surprise or upset.

The eye trace in film takes up less than 10% of the piece because it is more of an unspoken and unseen continuity. Eye trace follows closely with the 180 degree rule, keeping character gazes and shot angles flowing along the same plane, which leads us to the next portion of the rule of six.

The 2D plane is the cuts of the shots themselves. Whether it goes from a close up of one character to another or the beginning of the next scene starting at a wide shot. This plane takes up a mere 5% of the film, but when done well can boost the emotional portion of editing.

Finally, the concept of 3D space lords over 4% of the Rule of Six. Even though the audience is viewing on a 2D format for the majority of films, the background and depth of the objects in the background contribute to the production of a good film. Two dimensional space affects and can even make the 3D plane even better.