This page guides you through techniques for editing online Zoom interviews. We show how to edit and cover the inevitable jump cuts in interview recordings from Zoom as well as video files from any single perspective online conversation. Focusing on Zoom, this page shows how to develop interviews into a richer documentary narrative by using multiple visual perspectives as well as audio and video transitions. In addition to focusing on Zoom interviews because they provide multiple video perspectives from the same interview, we use Premiere Pro in the demonstration. Whatever video editor you are using, the concepts we demonstrate are essentially the same though they may be performed differently by your software. After reading our instructions for single interviews, think about the possibilities for combining multiple interviews into a single video!<\/p>\n
For the demonstration, we are using an interview between Skyler Liu (Princeton \u201921) and Carrie Hillebrand (\u201920) about what Carrie has been doing since she has been living in quarantine during the COVID-19 crisis. Skyler and Carrie are friends, having spent time together on the Princeton Women\u2019s Swim team and in courses; they had a deep familiarity prior to this interview.<\/p>\n
Jump cuts are video cuts that \u201cdisrupt continuity\u201d and occur when you start and stop a recording, or when you put together different clips or moments from an interview on an editing timeline. Jump cuts refer to a very specific kind of edit that is made to continuous speech or the same action. For example, let\u2019s say we are editing a film where an entire scene is focused on an orator who is giving a speech. When I edit the orator\u2019s speech to cut out phrases (like \u201cum\u201d or \u201cuh\u201d) or stitch together words, these are jump cuts because they are disrupting the continuity of the orator\u2019s speech in order to create a filmic reality for the viewer. (When I make an edit that adds a different person, location or action to the scene \u2013 this is simply called a \u201ccut\u201d NOT a \u201cjump cut.\u201d In our example, if I make an edit that moves away from the orator\u2019s speech to another setting, this is a cut.<\/p>\n
Jump cuts are very useful for editing around \u201cums\u201d and \u201cuhhs\u201d and other \u201cunnecessary\u201d phrases, to cut out extended silences, or to bring together clips from different parts of the interview into one cohesive scene. You\u2019ll notice in the example below that at each jump cut, the audio cuts out briefly and the visual has changed (i.e. the speaker has changed her facial expression, arm position, etc.). This can contribute to the viewer feeling \u201cjarred\u201d by the jump cuts, because the scene feels discontinuous and non-homogenous.<\/p>\n
In this 30 second video, there is one initial \u201ccut\u201d (that moves the scene from the interviewer to the interviewee) and then three additional \u201cjump cuts\u201d where the editor is trying to stitch together a cohesive narrative from different parts of Carrie’s interview. See if you can spot the initial cut and the three additional \u201cjump cuts\u201d in this video.<\/p>\n