The Field Guide to Extraordinary Creatures
An illustrated field guide to 375 strange and unseen creatures.
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The story behind the book
A short history of the cut
Some of the earliest films were single, uninterrupted views of an event. Filmmakers soon discovered that joining shots could move a story from a street to a room, or from an action to its consequence. By the 1910s, a set of continuity habits had grown up to help audiences follow space and time: establishing shots, matching eyelines and cutting during movement.
Continuity was never the only answer. In the 1920s, Soviet filmmakers showed that placing two images side by side could create a meaning neither had on its own, an idea now known as the Kuleshov effect. Montage became a way to think, not only to tell.
Tools kept changing what editors could try. Splicing film by hand made every cut a commitment. Digital, non-linear editing made it possible to test ten versions in an afternoon. The techniques in this book come from that whole history, and they all ask the same question: what should the audience feel at this exact moment?
