Murch on Editing

Summarize each of the six rules of when to make a cut. Why do you think cutting on emotion and story are so much more important than the next four?

1. Emotion: The overall emotion of the cuts must match each other to prevent the confusion of the audience. The cut must add to the preserved emotion.

2. Story: The cut must make the story advance. Each cut should be able to provide new information to the audience.

3. Rhythm: The cut must be placed so that it goes with the rhythm of the music to fit with the overall established rhythm.

4. Eye-trace: A technical rule to make sure to have a reasonable point of view.  The character must be looking in the same area as the previous clip.

5. Two Dimensional Plane: The 180 degree rule. Are the characters facing the same direction as the previous cuts?

6. Three-dimensional Plane: Objects must be coherently placed in the three dimensional world. 

Cutting on emotion or story emotion is much more important to than the following four because the rest of the rules can be used to disorient the audience to call attention to them. If the editors make a bad cut on action on emotion, the audience will not be able to fully immerse themselves into the story. However, the violation of other rules can cause the audience to be disoriented, forcing them to focus on the important scene.