To view other examples of black outs as well as white outs and learn more about how basic effects affect story, turn to Chapter 4: Cuts that use Basic Effects of Film Editing: Great Cuts Every Filmmaker and Movie Lover Must Know.

A couple of notes:

1) Hitchcock’s editor invariably added few black frames to soften the match between master shots, but a rope cut can work without black frames if the camera work is consistent. To demonstrate this, I deleted the black frames in the frames below.

2) Rope most often uses a character’s back to end one master shot and cut to another as evident in frame 4 below.

This example consists of two shots of three frames each and one rope match cut between the two shots.

• Shot 1 has the character cross the room (frames 1-2) and pause with his back to the audience (frame 3) to end the shot and initiate the cut.
• Shot 2 starts where Shot 1 ended: with the character’s back to the audience (frame 4). Shot 2 then continues as the character exits frame and reveals another conversation (frames 5-6).

The angle matched here is a raking angle. A form of a two-shot, a rake is a tight shot filmed from the side that favors one character and usually includes part of the other character. Raking shots are filmed in pairs and are habitually used in bed scenes and interior car scenes where the physical set-up is too constrained to make a reverse shot or OS.

Juxtaposition 4:
Lost Laotian youth compare tats while their equivalents in Laos put in their required time as monks.

• from the front of a character(s) to the angle behind the character(s)
• or from a character(s) to the character(s) they’re facing.

• from the front of a character(s) to the angle behind the character(s)
• or from a character(s) to the character(s) they’re facing.

What 2011 Academy Award for best picture and best editing movie ended with a white out that supports this convention? For the answer, see below at the end of Comment section.

Answer to quiz question: The Black Swan ended with a white out.

In frame 1 the family plays tennis in a drab indoor tennis court. We witness the tension boil over between the parents in Frame 2 as he slams the ball at her. It hits her in frame 3 and hurt and furious, she walks off the court. In frame 4 he meets her with anger his own and exits toward her in frame 5 as their two sons turn to each other, foreshadowing a pattern that will be repeated many times in this no fun and games family movie. In frame 5 the boys watch their parents fight, a prelude to their separation a few scenes later.

1) Eyelines set the scene’s geography, meaning the setting and placement of all its characters.
Typically a wide shot at the beginning of a scene sets its geography. Nowhere in the scene in there such a shot. Instead geography is established through medium shots, two shots, and group shots – all directed by eyelines. Eyelines help render this boardroom scene – a commonplace setting – anything but common in this taut scene. In shot 1 frame 1, the client starts the meeting and asks Don Draper – the show’s main character – to pitch his firm’s advertising ideas. In frame 2 – the start of shot 2 – Don looks directly at her. By the end of the shot – frame 3 – he looks to the client’s board, setting their geography so that we’re not confused when we see them in frame 4, shot 3. Similarly, in frames 5 and 6, comprising the head and tail of shot 4, a two-shot, Don’s eyeline throws the scene back to the client whom we see in the last frame.

2) Beyond setting geography, the characters’ eyelines underscore the tension in this scene. This is the first time they are meeting. Will they connect? Reach agreement? Make a deal? This is the undercurrent as they look directly at each other. In frame 2, after listening to the client’s opening remarks, Don’s eyeline shows how he takes control. In frame 3 he looks to the board to gauge their reaction to his opening pitch. Frame 4 reveals the board to be attentive but not quite hooked. Don continues his pitch in frames 5 and 6 before throwing the discussion back to the client in frame 7. And so the plot advances and this superbly edited, scripted, directed, and acted scene unfolds, eyelines playing a major part in directing and revealing the drama.

Main character Vera Drake has admitted guilt for helping needy women terminate their pregnancies. In frame 1, at the end of scene 1, main Vera Drake sits in the local magistrate’s office in 1951. She has just whispered the truth to her beloved husband who has been in the dark about her unremunerated services.

I am struck by the lights and darks in these four frames which echo the dark secret coming to light. I am also struck by how the camera, which is locked off, allows the characters to move through space and their emotions.

In frame two, scene two, Vera’s husband walks toward us through falling snow. Combined with frame 3 – the cut to black – this second scene is a dark passage to frame 4 and the third scene where the door opens to the family who now must be told the news.

Powerful filmmaking thanks to stand out lighting, directing, acting, and editing.

This fun, splashy cut comes with equally delightful dialogue which I can’t resist adding. (It must be the Martini effect.)

Here’s the dialogue from the beginning of this scene, which kicks off the episode.

GC = George Christopher

JA = Jonathan Ames

GC: I love martinis. They heal all wounds. After about a thousand of them I’m still amazed.
JA: But your poor liver has had to work so hard.
GC: I know, I know. I’m very proud of her.
JA: Your liver is female?
GC: You know, all my internal organs are women.

Notice the house. It is moving to right to left. So it exits frame 1 on the right and enters frame 2 on the left. If it entered frame 2 on the right it would be as if the house had reversed direction and was moving right to left. The audience would be confused, if only momentarily.

Vertical screen direction match

Now the house is descending. So in frame 2 it enters frame from the top.