Cuts are not a bad thing though. They are a part of the rhythm of the narrative and when a movie is edited properly they are a device that binds and moves things.
Dissecting a movies cuts is always fascinating though. One of the Film Studies 101 exercises is to story-board the gas station explosion in The Birds. I like doing cut analysis on animated films, because they have to be so deliberate. Films are edited in a winnowing approach, but animation (because of the cost per frame) is edited first, then filled in second.
When I was doing a lot of editing in school my approach was to use markers first to set a beat for the mood of the piece (sometimes relating to music, a presence track or even just a bpm/heartbeat), and edit to that.
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Cuts are not a bad thing though. They are a part of the rhythm of the narrative and when a movie is edited properly they are a device that binds and moves things.
Dissecting a movies cuts is always fascinating though. One of the Film Studies 101 exercises is to story-board the gas station explosion in The Birds. I like doing cut analysis on animated films, because they have to be so deliberate. Films are edited in a winnowing approach, but animation (because of the cost per frame) is edited first, then filled in second.
When I was doing a lot of editing in school my approach was to use markers first to set a beat for the mood of the piece (sometimes relating to music, a presence track or even just a bpm/heartbeat), and edit to that.
If you want to read about editing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect
The original experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gLBXikghE0
A case study in editing: The Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potempkin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-v-kZzfec
The Birds gas station scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-HYj5cLfEI