Jump Cut - Confusion With Other Transitions

Confusion With Other Transitions

In informal contexts the term jump cut is sometimes used to in a loose way to describe any abrupt and noticeable edit cut in a film. However, technically many such over-broad usages are incorrect. In particular, a cut between two different subjects is not a true jump cut, no matter how jarring.

A match cut (a.k.a. graphic match) may also be abrupt, but the viewer is meant to see the similarity between two scenes with disparate subjects rather than experience the discontinuity between the two shots. A well-known example is found at the end of the "Dawn of Man" sequence in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A primitive hominid discovers the use of a bone as a weapon and throws it into the air. When the bone reaches its highest point, the shot cuts to that of a similarly-shaped space station in orbit above the earth. This edit has been described as a jump cut by those unfamiliar with film editing terminology (even on the box of the DVD release of the film), but it is properly termed as a graphic match or a match cut.

Jump cuts are also distinguishable from an impossible match on action (a.k.a. impossible continuous action), where the action of the subject seems continuous and fluid but the background suddenly changes in an impossible way. Several of the cuts, sometimes mislabeled jump cuts, in the "Patricia in the car" sequence from Godard's Breathless are actually examples of impossible match on action. Other infamous examples include Resnais' Last Year in Marienbad, and the "air mattress to Mrs. Robinson" cut in The Graduate.