Film and Video Editing Theory

8 Rhythmic and Graphic Editing

An introductory text on film aesthetics argues that creative editing “offers the filmmaker four basic areas of choice and control:

1. graphic relations between shot A and shot B
2. rhythmic relations between shot A and shot B
3. spatial relations between shot A and shot B
4. temporal relations between shot A and shot B.”¹

These four areas are universally available in the editing process, regardless of the genre. An experimental film might be constructed graphically, so that the edits are chosen solely on whether there is, say for example, the form of a circle present in each outgoing and incoming frame. Or that same film might be structured overall as a temporal reversal, so that the edits are chosen based solely on whether ...