Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead - The Plan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeJzHSxRq40

Here is a scene which I saw in Shaun of the Dead which is very well edited, this scene has a fast pace and it is entertaining to watch.

I found this cut to be interesting, this is edited in a way that looks like the cut has been done in one take which has a seamless effect. This helps create good motion and I think this kind of cut helps to introduce the edit into the scene.

I think that one of the most important things about this scene is that each shot is cut to motion. Cutting to motion is essential for film editing because it creates a better edit, so this is the reason why this edit really worked. For example, if the motion ended at the end of each shot the edit would not look good and it would appear to be slow. Below is a link that I found which shares some good information about why it is important to cut to motion. This link tells us about how cutting to motion really helps the edit to look seamless:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos/photography-tips/video-editing-cutting-on-motion.html#b

I found that something important to note about this scene is that the camera often moves forward or backwards in certain cuts. Below are some screenshots where I added arrows to show movement. 

In this shot the camera remains static but the car moves foward as shown by the arrow. 

In this image the actors move forwards as shown by the red arrows, but the camera moves back as shown by the blue arrow. 

The blue arrow shows how the camera moves forward.  Suddenly, after this shot the camera quickly pans down into the next cut.

The movement of the previous shot follows into this shot as the camera still continues to move downwards in this shot. As we can see from all of these shots the editors have planned the movements so precisely so that the edit will work. This scene has been very inspirational to our final major film for this year which we have been working on in pre-production and production technology. We are planning a quick montage scene, so to successfully create this we will need lots of fast cuts and motion, we will need to storyboard out this montage.