Avoiding Jump Cuts

The relationship between video and audio in a reporter package is intricate. However, through practice the experienced broadcast journalist learns to exploit the interplay between words and pictures almost unconsciously.

When time permits, the reporter may first edit the video, experimenting with the order and length of shots, to create the optimum visual impact. Under deadline pressure, though, broadcast journalists are more likely to view the video and then write their narration with certain key shots and interview segments in mind. Once the narration is written and recorded, the videotape editor often pieces together the audio segments of the videotape first and then lays in the corresponding video shots.

To understand how this works in practice it helps to disassemble the video and audio elements of a completed reporter package.

On the following pages, there has been a separation, into its component parts a local San Francisco television news report describing a fire in a high-rise apartment building. By carefully comparing the video freeze frames and the reporter’s narration, you can begin to recognize how video and verbal information are pieced together to create effective establishing shots, interview sequences, and narration in a television news story.

Once you view the freeze frames and read the matching audio cuts and shot descriptions, take a look at my comments below and review the audio and video components again.

Note that the freeze frames and shot descriptions are identified by the time at which they would appear if you were viewing the videotape. The audio segments are simply numbered as cuts one to ten. Remember also that this split-page presentation is not a standard 1V news format. Normally there’s no reason to type such a detailed list of shot descriptions and audio cuts unless the videotape editor must assemble the package without the writer being present.

Now that you have looked over the freeze frames and a written description of the reporter package, here are some major details. Since the telling of the story relies more heavily on the audio track than the visuals, my comments will be organized so they correspond to each of the ten audio cuts.

Some of the tricks employed in the editing process also raise some ethical questions. In order to avoid jump cuts-the jerking of the head that occurs when video cuts are juxtaposed-film editors (it started long before the advent of video) came up with cutaways, reversals, and reverse questions.

These techniques are designed to cover up video edits. Editors, producers, and everyone else in the newsroom defend the use of most of these techniques because they make the finished product much smoother to watch. “Who wants to watch a head jumping across the screen?” is the answer editors give for using a cutaway, a reversal, or a reverse question. It is hard to argue with that response. Such techniques are not quite honest because the audience, for the most part, does not realize what the editors are doing. In an effort to avoid jump cuts, editors also distract the audience’s attention from what the editors are doing by inserting other video between the edited material.

In a cutaway, it appears that the cameraperson just decided in the middle of an interview or speech to show the TV audience that the room was crowded with spectators and reporters. This cutaway shot may show another cameraperson shooting the scene or a reporter scribbling in a notepad or just a row of the audience. That shot makes it possible for the editor to take part of the video comment and marry it to any other video comment made by an individual while he or she was speaking. The first part might have been at the beginning of the speech, while the second comment might have been made 10 or 20 minutes later.

“So what, there’s nothing dishonest about that” is the response from many editors, and for the most part, there probably isn’t anything dishonest about it if one accepts that it is not necessary for the audience to know that the tape was edited. The real harm comes when the video is badly edited and does not accurately represent what the individual said during the interview or speech and the audience has no way of knowing this.

Another editing technique used to avoid jump cuts is the reversal, also referred to as a reverse shot or listening shot. After completing an interview, the reporter pretends to be listening to the interviewee while the cameraperson takes some shots of the reporter. The worst examples show the reporters smiling and nodding their heads in agreement. These shots then are sandwiched in between two bites of the interview, and again the audience, for the most part, believes that the cameraperson simply decided to take a picture of the reporter at that point in the interview or believes there were two cameras in the room.

One key scene in the popular Hollywood film Broadcast News deals with the unethical use of the reverse shot. In the film, an ethically minded TV news producer breaks off a relationship with an anchor-reporter because he used a reverse shot of himself crying in the middle of an interview when he actually had not cried during the interview itself. A cameraperson took the crying shot later. That was outright deception.

Fortunately, such examples are not typical of the reverse shots that appear in TV news stories. Most objections to the reverse shot are not about deception but about concern over the audience’s inability to know that the video has been edited.

The most dangerous technique, which is not as popular as it once was, is the reverse question. A reverse question is one the reporter asks a second time after the interview has been completed. The camera is facing the reporter this time. The technique allows the editor to avoid a jump cut by inserting video and audio of the reporter asking the question. The problem occurs when the reporter does not ask the question exactly the same way the second time. Newsmakers themselves have sometimes complained about reverse questions when they realized that the questions they heard on their televisions were not exactly the same as those they had been asked when they were in front of the camera. If there is any change at all in the second version of the question it could be a serious ethical issue.

Producers and news directors who routinely allow the use of such techniques sometimes draw the line when the president or some other top official is making an important policy statement. In such cases, many producers allow the jump cut- particularly if it is not jarring-so that the audience knows that the remarks by the chief executive or other official have been edited. Instead of using a jump cut, some producers prefer to wipe between bites.

Radio News

While the radio drama script format is extremely versatile, the radio news script format is highly specialized. Form follows function. The basic format assumes that only the newscaster is speaking live in the studio and that all other voices are recorded on audio tape. In addition, news stories are typed in double- or triple-spaced 70-character lines that are easy to read, easy to edit, and easy to time. If the anchor reads approximately 150 words per minute, then each full line of copy represents about four seconds of air time. The sample script that follows is just over six and a half lines, which times out to approximately 25 seconds. Most stories run less than a page, but each new story is typed on a separate sheet so the order of stories in a newscast can be rearranged until air time if unexpected developments occur. Each story is identified with a slug in the top left corner and is followed by the time of the broadcast, the date, and the initials or last name of the writer.

As in the radio drama format, all text to be read is typed in down style, but there’s no need to designate a talent, because the newscaster does all the reading. Further, stories are usually written as single paragraphs, because multiple paragraphs result in more partial lines, which make timing by line count less precise. The triple number sign under the last line of the story indicates the end. If a story continues to a second page, then “(MORE)” is typed at the bottom of the first page, and a new slug and page number are typed at the top of the second page.

A group of doctors and public health experts say up to 20- million Americans suffer from hunger at least once a month. After a year-long study, members of the Physicians Task Force on Hunger report that hunger in America has reached epidemic proportions … caused in part by governmental cutbacks in income and nutrition programs. The Task Force is urging Congress to increase welfare and food stamp benefits, and restore hunger programs for the needy.

For short newscasts and updates, the only voice heard is that of the newscaster. Longer newscasts may also include reporter stories and actualities (sound bites) from newsmakers, experts, or witnesses. These audio segments are usually recorded on short cassette tapes, known as carts (short for cartridges), which can be cured and played on a special tape player at the push of a button. The use of a CART is noted on the script exactly at the point it is to be inserted into the news story. Because it takes about a line to identify the cart’s slug, its running time, and its audio out-cue (the last few words of the recorded segment), the information is usually centered on a separate line.

CART: HUNGER (: 14) OUT-Q: “… at government offices.” Any tag or additional material that the newscaster is to read after the cart has played then begins flush left on a new line. The HUNGER story with the actuality added would run about 40 second’s total.