This blog entry explains in further depth the key concepts editors must understand when utilising continuity editing. It refers to rules which I have already come across, such as the 180 degree rule, but introduces a new system of filming, called the triangle system.

This system operates with three cameras creating a triangle adjacent to the line of action. The blog post’s analysis of the rule includes visual aids and mentions the use of this system in Pulp Fiction, a film I am familiar with. The point of the entire post is to investigate spatial and temporal editing, and it stresses the importance of a match-on-action, or match cut, but also mentions that there is a time where this technique, and other techniques, can be broken. The post says that continuity editing “can be broken to create thematic and dramatic effects such as disorientation and confusion.” The example given is the bathroom scene from Kubrick’s, The Shining, and after watching this scene, it became obvious how breaking the rules of continuity can work to the advantage of the filmmaker.

This post was perhaps more helpful for the links that it shared, and the examples it gave. I had struggled to find proper visual evidence of continuity editing rules being broken. The example given here clearly demonstrates how the director wanted to create confusion and disorientation in the scene, and did so by violating the previously unbroken rules of continuity editing.