J cut and L cut - Premiere Pro Tutorial

- The split edit, otherwise known as a J-cut or an L-cut, is an editing technique where the transition of audio and video at a cut point happen at different times. Let's explore this further. Imagine two shots edited together. By default the video and audio transition at the same exact moment, which is the cut point. However with a J-cut the audio transition precedes the video transition. So we begin hearing the audio from shot B as we continue seeing the visual from shot A. As you can see, the shape of this type of edit looks like a J, hence the name J-cut. With an L-cut the video transition precedes the audio transition, so we continue hearing the audio from shot A as we see shot B's visual. The shape of this type of edit looks like an L, hence the name L-cut. J-cuts and L-cuts often result in smoother, more hidden edits because the transition of picture and sound happen at different times. The viewer doesn't notice the edit as much because there isn't an abrupt simultaneous transition of video and audio, rather it's a more gradual shift. For this reason split edits are a classic continuity editing technique. Let's take a look at a few good examples of split edits from the film "Tree of Life". See if you can identify if this is an L-cut or a J-cut. (organ music) That was a J-cut because the organ audio precedes the edit. This music bridge serves as an effective scene transition and helps to establish this dreamlike quality in the scene. Let's take a look at another example in this same scene. Again try to identify which type of split edits you notice. (organ music) (door slam) - You're going to stand there and you're going to close this door quietly 50 times. Count it out. - Three, four, five, six, seven, eight-- - So they were actually two examples. First there was a J-cut and then there was an L-cut. Let's take a closer look. (door slam) Here in this J-cut we hear the door slam two full edits early, which produces an interesting juxtaposition for the viewer. And here we continue to hear the door squeak as we see shot B. And this L-cut is another nice layering method to link moments within this dream-like montage. Okay let's move forward a bit for one more example. (muffled sermon) Hear the poetic layering continues within this montage with this J-cut. We hear the minister's sermon a full 12 seconds before we cut to the church scene. Now that you're getting the hang of identifying J-cuts and L-cuts, let's take a look at how things look in software. Let's take a look at how J and L-cuts not only hide the edit, but also help you control what the viewer sees and hears at each edit. I'm going to come to this part of the sequence here and I'll just play over these few shots. - That's it, 6 p.m. and if I'm a risky choice, don't use me. Okay, so Joseph is talking to his boss and here he is speaking on screen but here we continue to hear him speak as we see something else. In this case this is in L-cut because it makes the shape of an L. And this is important because not only does it help hide the edits, but it gives us some visual information that's important to this scene. We see the boss sort of stop in his tracks, which is really nice. If I didn't have an L-cut, if I just had a general straight cut here, you can see that we missed that. Okay, it sort of cuts to when he's already standing there. But going back and having an L-cut, we smooth this over and it gives us better visual information. I'm going to come to this moment down here and something similar is going on but this time it's a J-cut. Let me just play over this. Okay so in this case here you can see the J shape for the J-cut. And the boss begins speaking here, but we see Joseph linger on screen, all right, and we have a reaction shot from him, which is really important. So again, if we had a straight cut here, we would miss that reaction shot. Which I think is really important at this moment as well, okay, to have him look up and respond. Now I'm going to come to this sequence 'cause I want to show you that it's not just for dialogue. Let me play over these few shots here. So we heard the sound from the oven come on when we still saw Esther on screen. So here because the audio cut precedes the video cut, this is equivalent to a J-cut even though it's harder to visualize in this case. But edits like this do tend to make really nice scene transitions.