
Looking for Story Structure 225
Then, after you’ve gotten a few pairs of shots, shoot a few short cutaways. A
cutaway is a shot that’s not part of your main action but is somehow related.
If you’re shooting a scene at the beach, get a few shots of seagulls or the waves.
That way, if you can’t find a smooth edit between any of your pairs of shots,
you can cut away to the seagulls to cover the transition.
Ultimately, the whole trick to effective filmmaking is to choose each shot to
answer a specific question: Who is this scene about? What are they doing?
Where is it taking place?—and so on. If you don’t know precisely what the sub-
ject of each ...