Quick Cuts

 Here is a post about my experimentation with quick cuts. 

A "quick cut" sequence in film is a series of rapid, short shots edited together with dynamic camera angles and movements. Its purpose is to create urgency, excitement, and intensity, often used in action scenes or tense moments. This technique engages the audience, heightens emotions, and visually stimulates, effectively conveying fast-paced energy within the narrative.

Edgar Wright

The film director Edgar Wright employs quick cuts to give life to mundane situations. For example he adds energy and dynamism to simple everyday tasks like getting ready, going to the bathroom and filling in paperwork. Another technique is to mix the quick cuts with shots of a longer duration for comedic effect, as well as adding a crash zoom to the shots. Some of his films are; Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Baby Driver.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

My Example

Storyboard

Quick Cut Video

I decided to do a short scene of a teacher making the mistake of writing on the whiteboard in permanent marker. The brief asked for a boring school task to be made more energetic using quick cuts. I enjoyed this mini project as it allowed me to be quite experimental, the short deadline and broad brief gave me a lot of freedom to try new things. I started with a simple storyboard, this helped me get my ideas down before I forgot them and also ade my filming more efficient. I was working by myself so I had to create a scenario that would allow me to perform the action with one hand and film with the other.

I am happy with the first half of the scene, I think the sound effects and quick cuts match well to make the mundane task of opening a draw seem more exciting. However I don't think the second half of the scene is as good, I had some difficulty matching the sound effects to the action, and I think it distracts from the finished product. Another issue is that I made all of the sound effects myself, and there are only so many noises I can make. As a result some of the sounds are either too similar or have been duplicated throughout.

Next time I will probably ask for someone's help to film the scenes. There are times when my camera is not positioned correctly because I was doing both actions (filming and performing) at the same time. I also think I need better editing software, the iMovie on my phone makes it difficult to add sound in the correct location.