Cutting Rhythms

CHAPTER 10

Devices

A device, for our purposes, is something that “complicates the formal patterning . . . providing form with variations.”¹ It is a way of constructing a moment or a passage that varies the unfolding of a story from direct linear cause-and-effect chains to more complicated and potentially formally more expressive patterns of telling. In particular, for editors, an editing device varies the form by playing with some of the unique capacities of cinema to shape time, space, energy, and movement to create experiences of tension and release.

Before talking about devices and their uses, it is important to note here something editors often say when trying to make generalizations about their work or working process, which is, ...