concept temporal ◆ established
Internal Music Rhythm
he practice of editing a scene according to an intuitive, internal sense of musicality and tempo, without the use of a temp music track. Editors like Billy Fox and David Wu note that when this internal rhythm is correct, a subsequently added music cue will often align with the cuts as if it were planned. This suggests a mathematical or universal musicality inherent in well-paced storytelling. This is the rhythm that a 'dry cutting' approach seeks to isolate and build upon before any external score is added.
notes
The ultimate test of a scene's internal rhythm is whether it can support multiple, tonally different music tracks, or even no music at all. As one editor put it, 'if you get the editing correct you can actually put any music on it and it's going to work.' The music becomes an enhancement, not a crutch.
visual examples
- Atomic Blonde (2017) — An edited fight sequence was shown to work effectively with multiple different music tracks, demonstrating the strength of the picture cut's inherent rhythm.
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