Pacing in Film Editing: Techniques Every High-End Editor Must Know

Imagine if every scene in every drama, documentary, and reality show was at the same pace for the whole film. If it were fast all the time, it [music] would be relentless and overwhelming. If it were too slow, it would be too relaxed and the audience would fall asleep. Either way, it would be dull. But it would be dull for a very interesting reason, lack of variation. As human beings, we love variation in all its forms. Our brains are wired for novel stimuli. Not only does it give us pleasure, but we're also rewarded with a shot of dopamine every time we experience it. Lack of variation and lack of new experiences, however, does the opposite. No shot of dopamine. And it's this knowledge that we, the editors, the designers of intrigue, drama, and entertainment must keep constantly in our mind when we look across our timelines. Variation in editing comes in many forms, from changing cutting styles to changing music tonality to unexpected events happening [music] in the narrative. These create unpredictability within our storytelling and audiences are addicted to it. And one of the most powerful skills we can have as editors is to design variation in pacing across our whole film. Our ability to control this tempo is the skill set that tells producers, directors, and high-end clients that we have truly mastered editing. So, in this episode, I'm going to outline the concepts and techniques that you can use to create high-end pacing like a pro. If you want sequences to have that amazing tempo design of a Netflix documentary, then you're in the right place. I'm Patty Bird and this is Inside the Edit. Everything in editing means [music] something. Every decision we make has an effect on the audience. From the shots we include to the dialogue or facial expressions we leave out. There are no random decisions in editing. Every frame is there for a reason and pacing is at the very top of that list. A great way to think about this pacing variation is like the ability to design an excitement roller coaster for our audience. We are the entertainment engineers that will bend and shape the angle, the gradient, and the duration of every curve on that roller coaster. We'll decide how long that slow crawl up to the peak will be and how fast and deep that drop will go down. when they get to the top. Our timeline may look like a flat two-dimensional block of interconnected Lego,