Effects of Continuity or Discontinuity in Actual Film Editing

The film editor’s task in refining film edits by frame-by-frame matching is an important undertaking in perceptual precision. This article investigates whether the failure of a few frames jeopardizes the perceived continuity of a film. Thirty-three Swedish students were eye-tracked while watching two versions of the same documentary film sequence; one version was completed to continuity satisfaction by a film editor, while the other had some frames altered toward discontinuity. Gaze hits in Areas-of-Interest appointed by the film editor, saccade frequency, and pupil dilation after edit points were measured. No significant difference was found for hits in Areas-of-Interest, whereas saccade frequency and relative pupil size increased after edits in the altered version of the film sequence. Results indicate that the altered film sequence constrained viewers with possible cognitive effects, implying that frame-by-frame matching of film edits achieved by film editors is crucial to film continuity