Cross-Cutting: My Example

In my film i’ve used cross cutting by joining a clip of an interrogation and a clip of someone running. As the clip goes on the speed of the cutting gets faster, this creates  The audience thinks that the person running is going to become connected to the interrogation scene. For example the audience may believe that the person running is going to come a save to man being interrogated or that the person running is the man later escaping. Their ideas will change when the man being  interrogated gets shot, which is when the audience really starts to question, who’s running? and why? The big revelation is that the man running looks exactly the same as the man that gets shot. This also develops a character arc as in the end the woman was right to question weather it was the same guy that stole the drugs, as in the end they shot the wrong guy.

Cross-Cutting Example: Inception ‘Rotating Hallway Fight’

In the 2010 Christopher Nolan film ‘Inception,’ there is an effective use of cross-cutting. In the scene named ‘ Rotating Hallway Fight,’ the character Arthur played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt is having a physical fight between a subconscious (people a dream). The fight is happening inside a dream while Yusuf played by Dileep Rao is driving a van protecting the characters bodies, inside another dream

The scene switches between the hallway fight and the bodies in the van to show the audience that the two clips are happening at exactly the same time. This is important to help the audience understand the scene and understand that the hallway is rotating as a result of the van falling off the bridge, as the character’s body is in the van and is making his dream rotate. This also creates a great, unique visual fight as the characters fight as the hallway rotates and they fall and collapse around each each other. The tempo of the scene changes as the fight happens with a very fast pace then when it switches the car falls in slow motion style. Using this slow motion effect allows the audience the understand the storyline further, as the different characters are in a dreams that are inside each other and as you go deeper inside a dream the pace of time slows down, therefore to add to continuity it makes sense that more happens further in the dream then closer to reality.  This also keeps the audience hooked and interested in all the different parts of the scene.

Cross-Cutting

Cross Cutting is an editing technique used in film and video to establish action in two different locations, occurring at the same time. In this technique the camera will cut from one action to another. Cross cutting can be used to create suspense and excitement during a scene, for example in a chase sequence swapping from one person to another.