I have done some research on cutaways and why they are needed and so important in documentary. I will be using lots of cutaways in my work over the voiceover and the interviews which gives my audience visual representation. They are so important in documentaries and a huge technique used in expository documentaries.
Cutaways helps when jumping from one part of an interview to another, this hides jump cuts.
Cutaways are individual shots of anything that is relevant to the interviews and the locations. They can be close up, medium and wide shots. They can be anything that captures the character of the location, says something related to the topic or communicates more information about the scene or helps tell a story more effectively, this makes a good cutaway. Getting as many cutaways as possible, even if they don’t seem to help to tell the story, because something will always be needed to cut away to in editing.
I used a book written by Anthony Q. Artis, called The Shut up and Shoot documentary Guide.
Google Books. (2019). The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide. [online] Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yJ4TAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT262&dq=cutaways+in+documentary&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIxouZ9OHiAhV-RBUIHToXDh0Q6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=cutaways%20in%20documentary&f=false [Accessed 18 May 2019].
In my interviews, there are a lot of irrelevant parts and where they say ‘erm’ throughout them so I will cut them out which means there will be a lot of jump cuts, I know this from the transcripts I did for each interview, especially with my Grandad’s interview, he pauses a lot and he says erm a lot as well as rambling on so in my Transcript – Grandad interview, I have cut it right down so he is only speaking for about 45 seconds. I will have to use a lot of cutaways throughout his interview because there are so many jump cuts. When doing some research on the importance of cutaways in documentaries, I have discovered that they are used to solve these problems which helps it look continuous and has no pauses.
Lights Film School. (2019). How to Film a Documentary Interview | Lights Film School. [online] Available at: https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/documentary-interview [Accessed 18 May 2019].
Cutaways are used as a bridge intercut shot between two shots for the same subject. It is also used to avoid a jump cut and used as a shortcut for the passing of time.
Visual-memory.co.uk. (2019). The Grammar of TV and Film. [online] Available at: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/gramtv.html [Accessed 18 May 2019].
The voiceover and the interviewees who also act as a voiceover when they aren’t on screen that is the narrative baseline of the documentary and they are the commentators and the cutaways are used to back up what they are saying. I found a book called Issues in Contemporary Documentary to back up my point and took a screenshot of it that gives more detail as to why cutaways are important and used to go with the narration.
In my documentary, I am going to use cutaways to anchor the meaning by using visuals that match the audio underneath for example, when Frank Carlyle talks about the iconic attractions like Mathew Street, I will need include the cutaways that I have shot to go over the audio in the edit to allow the audience to see what he is talking about as a visual representation.
Google Books. (2019). Issues in Contemporary Documentary. [online] Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HzcPuN6XCQIC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=anchorage+of+meaning+in+film+cutaways&source=bl&ots=wLIMRFXN6g&sig=ACfU3U2WxWjyNZ5-lLSx2sh5G7J8RQkFvw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjekOb47PLiAhW3SEEAHabNB2YQ6AEwHnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=anchorage%20of%20meaning%20in%20film%20cutaways&f=false [Accessed 18 May 2019].
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