Technical Research- Alternatives to the Continuity System

In-Camera Editing:

     Long Takes are basically just one continuous shot that doesn’t cut for a while. Long takes are usually done with a moving camera and are more common in high budget blockbusters where the camera is attached to a helicopter or a large crane. The high price of this kit means lower budget films don’t have this type of shot, unless it’s at the back of a vehicle or a camera being manually panned around originating from an establishing shot. The objective of a long take is to build up suspense or to capture the attention of the audience without cutting.

One famous long take comes from Forrest Gump (1994), Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the camera follows a feather which is blowing in the wind. This feather lands on the foot of protagonist Forrest, he then picks up the leaf and puts it in his suitcase. This connotes two things, that he is a ‘bit off’ for putting a feather in his suitcase and that the feather represents what is going to happen to Forrest in the movie. As a feather just goes where the wind takes it, until it settles on the ground; Forrest seems to blow aimlessly through life with fate deciding where he should be. Until he settles and gets what he’s always wanted.

 Another film which uses a long take is at the beginning is, Action/Adventure, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). The long take consists of Thor in a chase scene which changes to a brief fight scene and back into a chase scene but this time with Captain America giving chase. He then takes out a couple of enemies and Thor destroys a tank. Hulk catches the tank, throws it and starts beating some other guys; all the heroes then are in the same shot apart from Iron Man who flies past them heading towards the Castle. As this was a high budget film this expensive shot was possible though, it would’ve required a lot of planning and skill to get it looking as good as it did in the final film.

       A Jump Cut is an example of how shots can be edited so that one shot is interrupted but the flow is maintained. This means that the characters in the scene will remain the same and it will show an alternate view of what is going on. This is a very common shot that will be demonstrated in every film you see, no matter what the genre.