An ideal cut for me is one that satisfies all the following six criteria at once:
- it is true to the emotion of the moment
- it advances the story
- it occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and \"right\"
- it acknowledges what you might call \"eye-trace\" – the concern with the location and movement of the audience\'s focus of interest within the frame
- it respects "planarity" – the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two (the 180 degree rule)
- it respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in the room and in relation to each other)
Murch suggests that if you must sacrifice to make a cut you start from the bottom of this list and work your way up, with emotion and story worth more than the bottom four. Ultimately he says that emotion is worth more than the other 5 combined, since if the emotion is right it will mask any other deficiencies. He also says that each item in general will help obscure problems with items lower on the list, but not vice versa.
Rule of Six: When to Cut
Emotion – 51%
Story – 23%
Rhythm – 10%
Eye-trace – 7%
Two-dimensional plane of screen: respecting the 180 degree rule, maintaining screen direction etc. – 5%
Three-dimensional space of action: matching issues, continuity of action (cutting on action to seamlessly maintain illusion of continuous time and place) – 4%
