Continuity Editing

Continuity editing refers to arranging the sequence of shots to suggest a progression of events in a logical way.

You can’t put the camcorder anywhere, edit randomly chosen shots together, and expect the result to make sense. You have to make sure that the continuity is maintained each time an edit is made.

The most obvious continuity matter lies on content. For instant, in shot 1, the actor picks up the phone with his right hand, then it is expected that the phone is still in his right hand in shot 2.

If you have been working as an editor for several years like myself, you won’t be surprised that how many times an obvious, even silly, mistake is made while shooting and nobody has noticed that while shooting. Now the task is in your hand, you have to fix it in post-production stage. We’ll talk about how to solve continuity problem in detail later.

Other continuity matters include:

Continuity of direction
Continuity of movement
Continuity of position
Continuity of audio

Continuity Editing - Video Editing Glossary & Terms

Continuity Editing