‘We dream in dissolves, we think in cuts’

Posted on July 5, 2007 by Melissa Worden

In the latest Poynter Centerpiece (Blurring Boundaries: What Print Journalists Can Learn from Video Editors), Regina McCombs, multimedia producer at StarTribune.com and former TV photographer, asked four TV editors (Ram Guzman, John Hyjek, Jonathan Menell, and Jim Douglas) to review some newspaper audio slideshows and offer tips on what principles of video editing might be applied to improve our storytelling.Their reactions:

>> Watch your pacing — many were too slow and seemed to scream “Look at my photo!” (Personally, I’ve also seen some that are speed demons with photographers trying to cram in too much of their work.)

>> Watch your transitions — choose the right tool for the right moment:

A concept that has stuck with Menell is something he heard Hyjek say once: We dream in dissolves, we think in cuts. “It means that when you think during your day, thoughts come into your head instantly. You experience pow! — this is happening — pow! I feel like that. Dreams fade and come and go, and it’s a gentler process. The way it applies in storytelling, the point of editing, is the juxtaposing of one idea to the next.

“Cuts make pieces feel more urgent, more powerful and more precise, too. And more experiential, because people watching it are in their awake mind.”

A dissolve, on the other hand, does something else entirely, taking you a step back from the story. “You’re leaving the world of the immediate and entering a more thoughtful place, a more contemplative place, a more painterly place …”

>> Watch your sound — um, well, you know what I mean.

“The importance of sound is to bring the viewer a much more intimate sense of reality, to take the viewer where we went.” His [Jim Douglas, NPPA photographer of the year in 1985] recommendation: “Listen, listen and listen some more. Close your eyes and hold your breath and hear.”