DIY Centre:

Composing better video.

When formulating scenes sequences, and later in editing, do one of two thing; make a tiny jump from one scene to the next, ie. two faces in a conversation; or make a giant leap, such as one scene to another with different characters and then cut back to the previous characters in a new scene. For some reason human psychology doesn’t like intermediate jumps in narrative, but can understand major leaps from one piece of action to a completely different situation.

When deciding on which frame to cut in an edit, look for when an actor blinks and end the scene at the previous frame. Actors will often blink just at the right moment when a scene has finished telling its narrative information. If they don’t, try and be aware of your own eye reflexes or watch someone else watching the footage and look for their blink.