Compressing, Expanding, and Ending Scenes

Chapter 9 describes and illustrates several shooting and editing techniques for compressing or expanding time within a scene, as well as techniques for ending scenes. A movie usually tells a story that takes place over days, months, or years. Compressing a story into an hour or two of screen time requires techniques that move time ahead in ways that seem natural to viewers. Most of a film’s acceleration of time occurs between scenes, but time within a scene is often compressed even though it seems continuous. Some of the time manipulation techniques that are examined are transitions, jump cuts, cutaways, cross-cutting scenes with parallel action, repeating action, and slow motion.