Film Editing

180 Degree Rule: This is a cinematic technique where during a conversation or fight scene, the camera will not cross over an imaginary line placed between the two people, so that no matter where that camera moves to on one side of the line, the characters stay in the same position relative to the
other and the audience do not get confused. A diagram of this can be seen to the left. [1]
An example of this is in the 1999 film by David Fincher, 'Fight Club', when The Narrator and Tyler Durden first fight, and the camera doesn't cross the imaginary line, as they both have a side of the screen, with the mise-en-scene on each side reflecting their own personalities with Tyler's being far more cluttered and unorganised than The Narrator's, as Tyler is represented as much more of a chaotic person than 'Jack' who is stuck in the consumerism, conformist state of mind.


Crosscutting/Parallel Editing: This is where there is a cut away from the main scene to another scene, often showing that the two events are happening simultaneously, however this is not always the case as sometimes there is parallel editing between the present and a flashback sequence, or a flash forward. [2]
This technique can be seen in the 1991 film by Jonathan Demme, 'The Silence of the Lambs', in the scene where Buffalo Bill (the film's main antagonist) has his victim trapped in a hole dug in his basement, and the scene cuts between this and a group of FBI agents surrounding the house we believe to be Bill's, even with the doorbell being rung by an agent and the doorbell ringing in Bill's house, however when he answers the door, we see agent Clarice Starling(the film's protagonist) and not the FBI agent we just saw in the previous shot at the door, which we as a viewer now know is a very dangerous position for her to be put in, alone on the doorstep of a serial killer.

 Temporal Overlap: This is a style of editing where the rules of time and space are defied so that an audience can see that AWESOME backflip 6 more times in slow motion from different angles, just in case you missed it the first 5 times. In more formal terms, this is where a scene is shown again from a different angle directly after being shown the first time. [3]
This technique is used frequently within Kung-Fu movies, and throughout the 2005 film Ong Bak. In this scene, we see the protagonist take down several men one after the other, but when he fights one of them we see him jump up and wrap his legs around his head. when this happens, there is a cut back to when he jumps and we see this shot 3 times from different perspectives, as if the audience are taking the viewpoints of members of the crowd.

  Resource List
1- http://learnaboutfilm.com/film-language/sequence/180-degree-rule/
2- http://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/parallel-editing/
3- Stop the Clocks! Time and Narrative in Cinema -Helen Powell -2012