Frugal Cutting, Week 4

It's Wednesday, so here is the next episode of the Frugal Traveler. Week 4 is "Columbus, Indiana."

In the end it is a straightforward cut, but in the process there were some interesting editing questions. For example, there is a shot of a kid on a rope swing. He starts from standing, jumps up on the rope, swings toward us, then away. The end of the shot went out of focus and wasn't usable, so the cut is based on screen position -- when he hits a point that puts him in relatively the same position as where you would look in the next shot, I cut.

Does that work, or not? The old editing maxim was "motion to motion, still to still" so in a traditional view it doesn't -- he should finish the swing, then we can cut to the next non-motion shot, or the next shot should be motion also. Of course, with documentary materials this is the type of problem that comes up all the time, since there is often only one take available -- and it's needed for the story....