WHAT MATCH CUTS ARE AND HOW YOU CAN USE THEM FOR GREAT STORYTELLING

Matching movement is possibly the most basic kind of match cut. It’s exactly what it says. A panning motion in one room cuts or dissolves to panning in another room, suggesting a connection between the rooms. A door closes, another door opens at the same angle and vantage point, suggesting someone moving from place to place, perhaps from an elevator at work to a subway platform heading home. Walking feet cut to walking feet in another location, giving the impression of progress, or maybe even a confrontation about to happen.

One of the most common match cuts is a clever way to make a transition between shots seem like one continuous shot. The camera follows a person who then fills the screen and takes up the entire shot. When the person moves away, we’re in a new shot, but if it’s done well, it appears seamless, even if the next shot is in another location entirely.

An object, such as a car, getting closer and filling screen, then cutting to object moving away, is also a classic way to suggest speed and traveling over a long distance.

Other types of match cuts don’t have to be perfect matches. A closeup of a character writing with a pen that dissolves to the same character’s hands now typing can suggest progress in time or the developing sophistication of the writer.

And of course, there are an infinite number of other types of movements you can match and cut on. It all depends on the needs of your project and the creativity you bring to it.

Video and motion picture are visual media first, so most of the information you’re giving your audience will be visual. But sound plays a critical role, too, and you can use sound as a powerful creative storytelling element.

Often, a cut matching on sound may transition between two very different visuals, but the sound connects them in ways the visuals don’t. In fact, the visuals may intentionally contrast, but the sound ties them together.

For example, a character stays up all night gambling, excited at winning, and the ringing of slot machines or coins filling up the character’s winnings pile transitions into an alarm clock bell the next morning, when the character is hungover and late for work.

Maybe a character sits on a deck by a peaceful lake, and a foghorn transitions into a loud truck horn in a bustling city, where the character has returned to a high-stress job after a vacation.

Or it could depict a more logical transition, such as the laughter of a child sledding down a hill cuts to the laughter of the child as an adult, riding a luge in Olympic competition.