How Editing Can Ruin a Scene - Part 2

Following on from a previous post, in which I discussed ruining the context of a scene with bad editing, I would like to take a more in depth look at continuity and how careful you must be in that regard within film editing.

Continuity is where everything is absolutely consistent throughout a scene, and even the whole film. A prop that a character is holding in one hand shouldn't magically switch over to the actor's other hand throughout the scene, as this makes the editing look more obvious, ruining the suspension of disbelief one should feel when watching a film.

Clip from Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

This clip from the latest installment of the Resident Evil film series is filled with a lot of continuity errors that stem from a lack of consideration for when to cut at which particular frames.

The knife has switched position in Alice's hand.

She already turned her head in the last shot...

Alice was looking straight down, then her head is up again instantly.

Editing mistakes like this can make a film feel disjointed, and ruins the seamless consistency that should be used throughout. You notice the cuts, which is a very bad thing in a film. What you should take away from this lesson is that you need to watch the very specific positions of the characters and objects on screen before making a cut, so that you know which frame to match up with it. 

On another note, this enforces a reminder that coverage during shooting is very important, as not filming enough footage can make mistakes like this more and more likely due to a lack of material to work with during post production.