So right now Fool For Love is playing in the other room; let’s break that
down briefly. The scene is Spike telling Buffy about killing his last
slayer and it’s a good example because it’s two fights cut together,
into one, explicitly, so it’s easier to really see the matches.
They are showing you the matches. The scenes are stitched together
through these motion matches until they occupy the same space. By the eyeline match, they can have 70s Spike addressing 2000s Buffy and it’s perfectly coherent.
Consider that these two scenes are really four scenes – that all
fight scenes are really shot as (at least two) separate scenes cut
together because the actors and the stunt doubles both act out the
scenes and then their motions are matched and cut together to form one
percept.
Now realise ALL continuity editing does this – even in the same scene with the same actors. You can connect any clip to any other clip, from anything, so long as there’s some continuity of form: in shape, colour, motion, eyeline…
Which reminds me, in Pteryx’s interview she talks about the Buffy titles, which have to be acknowledged as massively influential on vidding*.
Just spend some time watching these credits and look for motion matches,
graphic matches. This is like that, this is like that. Once you start
seeing them you’ll notice this all over.
Dawn’s eyebrow takes up the motion line. The motion builds a tangible space by bouncing itself against “walls”.
Watch it again with another eyebrow follow-through. Dawn is the key. 😛
See how the motion moves one way and then resolves back: the conceptual “room” must have some limits, some rigid bodies and colliders
*As well as the Friends titles; I mean, the Friends titles basically
slowly teach you how to edit (very simply) to music- they start off with
the characters literally dancing to the music and then gradually over the years
replace each dance move with a clip from the show that dances in a
similar way. There’s a reason making Friends Style Credits is a gateway
drug.
