Table of contentsIntroductionThe rules of continuity editingViolations of continuity in cinematic continuityWorks CitedIntroductionSome studies dispute the importance of the rules of continuity editing in understanding film, presenting a debate between continuity and discontinuity. Instead, they suggest that editing errors and discontinuity do not obstruct or disorient viewers' attention and that the most important aspect for understanding the storyline is narrative coherence. Attention is mainly directed towards understanding the succession of events, rather than towards perceptual inconsistencies (Germeys & d'Ydewalle 129). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayThe Rules of Continuity Editing Regarding the aforementioned continuity editing techniques, Berliner and Cohen state that if a filmmaker wants to convey their story perfectly on behalf of the viewer, they must “obey” the rules of classic continuity editing. Continuity as a technical and aesthetic choice is thus considered, by many cinema theorists and filmmakers, as a natural necessity. But really, these are just rules of thumb. The test of whether a cinematic sequence is successful is whether or not it works - whether or not it communicates, whether or not an audience can follow it, whether or not it produces the effect the creator of the film intended. the image. For every so-called rule of cinema, one can find distinctive cinematic counterexamples. In the book “Eye Guidance in Reading and Scene Perception”, Géry d'Ydewalle highlights three categories of editing rules and their respective violations (129). Discontinuity Violations in Film Continuity First-order violations refer to either camera movements or changes to a frame size that disrupt the smooth flow between shots (i.e. say, jump cuts). Shot breaks are produced by an elliptical cut between two shots that appears to be an interruption of a single shot due to the camera position varying ever so slightly. Instantaneous changes in the background or characters in the same scene between the two shots or changes in frame size of the shots give the impression of jumping and disrupt the flow from one shot to the next. Jump cuts are generally avoided in continuity editing because they draw attention to the structure of the film (i.e. editing and cuts), obstructing viewers' attention from the narrative. However, Jean-Luc Godard employs jump cuts in several films, including Breathless, where they function as a kind of expressive punctuation, signaling the improvisatory nature of the film and its filmmaker. Viewers do not interpret these montages as tears in the fabric of the universe, but as signs of auditory exuberance. The jumps are perfectly intelligible to the viewer, who understands them like the author's fingerprints. Nor is the jump simply the gesture of a single moment in the making of a film. The use of jump cuts for expressive purposes appears in contemporary films such as Ridley Scott's Matchstick Man (Carrol 30). Second-order violation refers to violating the 180-degree rule by ignoring the axis of action of the location (i.e., reverse-angled shots). ) and obstructing the spectators to create a spatial-cognitive schema of the scene. According to the 180 degree rule, when filming a scene, an imaginary line called the axis of action is drawn in the middle of the scene or in between..