The ONLY 7 Cuts You Need To Tell Any Story

I used to think that a good edit had a lot of layers , a lot of effects, and even more transitions . But after 15 years of being a filmmaker and editing hundreds , if not thousands of videos, I realized that great storytelling doesn't come from complicated edits . It comes from simple, intentional cuts that actually make the story feel like a story. So today, I will walk you through the only seven cuts you really need with editing because these are cuts that I keep coming back to no matter what kind of video I'm making . So, let's start with one of my favorites, the flow cut . This is when your shots feel like they're dancing together . It's smooth and invisible . So, here's the basic idea . When something moves in your frame, like a person or an object , or it could even be the camera itself , your viewers's eyes start to follow that motion . And if your next shot picks up that movement in the same direction , their eyes just keep going effortlessly . For example, this marker being dragged up followed by a new shot that continues the upward motion from the camera . You can notice here my hand goes up in the first shot and in the next that upward motion continues with the camera movement . So your eyes are guided upward . If instead the first motion goes up and the next shot starts going the opposite corner or going sideways , that's friction and the viewer will feel the cut . So start thinking of editing a bit more like choreography . You know, if you guide the eyes naturally , the viewer won't notice the cut and they will just stay inside of the story . That's what you want . So, the next time you edit, look for flow in the motion . Is your subject moving? Is your camera moving ? And can you connect those directions from one shot to the next ? Where the flow cut is really about smooth transitions