Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay about the different ways film editors approach scene transitions.
How do you transition from one scene to another? Well, with a cut, surely. Okay, but what kind of cut?
It’s a question you don’t always ask yourself in the heat of the moment while watching a movie. In part, because that’s precisely the magic of editing: you don’t tend to notice it. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that if an edit works, even if it’s stylish or ironic, it shouldn’t draw attention to itself or pull you out of the movie.
Then again, for those of us with an itch for terminology, there’s a certain joy to knowing the inner workings behind cinematic techniques: why they’re deployed, what they’re called, and how to tell them apart from their peers.
If that describes you, good news: you’re in luck. The following video essay casts a wide net to identify, define, and provide examples of nine commonly used scene transitions in film. While you may have a passing knowledge of match cuts and whip-pans, we heartedly recommend watching for the accompanying visuals, which hammer home key differences from edits that tend to blur together.
Watch “Ultimate Guide to Scene Transitions”:
Who made this?
This video about scene transitions in film was created by StudioBinder, a production management software creator that also happens to produce wildly informative video essays. They tend to focus on the mechanics of filmmaking itself, from staging to pitches and directorial techniques. You can check out their YouTube account here.
More videos like this
- Here’s another scene breakdown from StudioBinder, on what makes the poker scene in Casino Royale so captivating even if you have no idea how poker works.
- And here’s another scene breakdown from StudioBinder, on the iconic ending of The Graduate.
- Here’s more of StudioBinder’s work: a video essay that clarifies the importance of a script breakdown with a look at Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
- And here’s StudioBinder’s video essay on what makes the business card scene in Mary Haron‘s American Psycho so effective.
- Finally, here’s their breakdown of the “expectations vs. reality” scene from the movie (500) Days of Summer.
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