Fast cutting is a film editing technique which refers to several consecutive shots of a brief duration (e.g. 3 seconds or less). It can be used to convey a lot of information very quickly, or to imply either energy or chaos. Fast cutting is also frequently used when shooting dialogue between two or more characters, changing the viewer's perspective to either focus on the reaction of another character's dialog, or to bring to attention the non-verbal actions of the speaking character.
One famous example of fast cutting is the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho (1960).
More recent examples include the Can-can scene in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001).
The film Mind Game makes extensive use of fast cutting to convey hundreds of short scenes in the space of fifteen minutes.
In Lola Rennt fast cutting is used to quickly tell stories about minor characters to show how the casual actions of the protagonists have profound impact on what happens to them.
Read more about Fast Cutting: Hip Hop Montage
Famous quotes containing the words fast and/or cutting:
“I don’t go that fast in practice, because I need the excitement of the race, the adrenalin. The others might train more and be in better shape, but when I’m racing, I put winning before everything else. I don’t stop until the world gets gray and fuzzy around the edges.”
—Candi Clark (b. c. 1950)
“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)