The pacing of edits

One of the story elements that you have total control of as the editor is the…pacing of the cuts. And man,…what a difference that they make.…Here are two clips from "Night of the Living Dead."…Here is the first clip here and we are going to watch this.…Notice how often that we cut from shot to shot. …(Female speaker: 6 o'clock and it's still light!)…(Male speaker: A lot of good the extra daylight does us.)…(Male speaker: Now we've still got a 3-hour drive back. We're not going to be home until after midnight.)…Actually, I'll just go ahead and keep scrubbing this.…But notice there is no cuts yet, no change in clips, no change in clips, and like that's it.…

That entire shot was almost 27 seconds long.…This is before any zombies happen at the beginning of the movie. Nothing scary yet.…So 27 seconds, which is a really long time for a single cut.…Now contrast that with later in the movie when they are getting attacked by zombies.…Notice all the cuts here.…(Music playing)…(Female speaker: I'm going with them!)…