CUTTING ACTION
Cutting action requires another sort of skill. Action has to look realistic (unless you're after comic effect.)
Fights go very fast in real time, especially punches and hits, so you have to overlap the punches and hits by about two frames on each side of the cut! This way they look more realistic on the screen!
Sometimes it's one frame, other times more depending on how fast the action is, as in case of a car crash or, all right I asked for it, in case of a helicopter explosion. (Someone reading only this section of the book will think I'm crazy! "What's he mean, 'I asked for it?'! " See, there are rewards for reading the whole book!)
Just be sure, you remember (?): don't repeat anything twice, like the same explosion twice, three times, four times, five times (I've seen it!) from different camera angles, over and over -- people aren't crazy about explosions! Yes, psychologists have told us that man likes to look into fire at night because it's a throw-back to the caveman days when he associated the fire with food, so he sort of is drawn and comforted by the feeling of security, of having food and all; but, let me tell you something, modern man may associate fire with romantic evenings by the fireplace and that's why he looks at fire with languishing eyes! Okay, okay, enough of the silly talk, back to cutting action.
A lot of action moves so fast across the screen that it encourages the sloppy editor to just slap shots together, and somehow they work! I agree, it's awfully tempting sometimes, if not out of a desire to be sloppy or even lazy, that you may find it really hard to find the right cutting point in action scenes and you feel you might be better off just cutting in whenever you want the action shots that you like or find important, let's say.
Believe me this is not a good idea. You should take the trouble to work with this type of scenes. They'll come out a lot better if you do. And I know, there are a lot of major movies whose editors through arrogance (by virtue, actually by vice, of the monstrous budgets,) or plain ignorance, will cut, essentially what amounts to jump cuts, together just because well they work okay.
One old-time actor directing his first movie was standing over my shoulder at the editing table one day, while I was struggling to make a difficult cut, and suddenly he said, "This is a special occasion that calls for a Big-Time Smash Cut!" I was flabbergasted, especially since there was a ring of truth to that confident utterance. Where had this old geezer come up with it?
A "Big-Time Smash Cut!" Wow! I asked, "What do you mean?" He said, "Just cut the two scenes together!" "Right." I did it ... and the cut didn't work. "You see what I told you?" he bellowed. Editing for first-time directors can be one of the most aggravating experiences for most editors.
You've got to make every cut work! You study the action careful, matching corresponding frames where the cutting occurs and you make the best decision every fiber of your being dictates to you.
You match the position of peoples arms, legs, how they're leaning, where are they in the frame, how are they holding their head, how's their hair, which arm is up, which down, which leg forward, are they smiling, are their eyes open or closed, is their mouth open or closed -- you name it, whatever you see, whatever can be matched that will help smooth the transition, you make the cut at that point. You literally eyeball the two frames before you splice them together.
Some of the sloppiest cutting occurs in boxing movies. You take boxers throwing punches at each other, especially in close-ups, and you can literally cut any two shots together! They'll work. You can cut from somebody throwing a right cross immediately to him throwing a left hook and it'll look okay! If you don't believe me, find an old boxing sequence, cut it up into individual shots, throw the shots into a garbage bag and then reach in and grab one shot at a time and start splicing them together, then look at the assemblage -- it'll work ... almost as good as the original sequence, especially if it was cut by an amateur, or by the producer (who decided that he can best cut his own first movie "as a learning experience."
You can learn a lot about distribution that way too, after you make a grand tour of all the international film markets with two cans weighing 50 lb. each, and come back home to make a home video deal for "50¢ per cassette sold!" Let's see now, if the video sales go as high as 100,000, you'll make $50,000! That's about half your budget recovered already! If the video distributor doesn't go bankrupt first, before you collect!)
Editing your own movies is a lot more fulfilling, but remember to be just as astute as when cutting for others, hopefully,
professionals.