Cross cut
Also known as: parallel editing, intercutting
Alternating between two things happening at the same time, so that each one comments on the other and the pair builds more tension than either alone.
Updated
What it means
A cross cut interleaves two threads. Two riders on the same course, a drone view and a mounted view, a wave building and a surfer paddling toward it. Each cut raises the question of the other thread.
The device claims simultaneity. Cutting between threads tells a viewer they are happening at once, whether or not the footage was shot that way. Simultaneity is asserted by the editing, not by the recording.
It differs from a Montage, which collects unrelated images toward one idea. A cross cut has exactly two places and keeps returning to both. The structure is a conversation.
How it works in practice
Two angles of one moment is the common version. Multicam editing with a synchronised Timecode makes it mechanical, and the alternation then becomes a rhythm decision rather than a logistical one.
Thread length should shorten. Longer segments early and shorter ones as the sequence approaches its peak is what makes a cross cut accelerate rather than simply continue. The pattern itself carries the build.
Audio is what holds it together. One continuous bed under both threads removes the jolt that cutting between locations otherwise produces, which is where a Music bed earns its place.
What to watch out for
Too few returns and it reads as a mistake. Visiting the second thread once makes it look like an Insert shot rather than a parallel line, and the structure never establishes itself.
Direction has to stay consistent inside each thread. Crossing the 180-degree line in one of them confuses which rider a viewer is watching, and the whole device depends on telling them apart.
Automatic assembly groups by similarity rather than by narrative. Clips of one rider tend to stay together, so an interleaved structure is something a person asks for rather than something a ranking produces.
How RawClip handles it
Shots covering the same moment from different cameras are recognised and can be cut against each other, which is the mechanical half of this. Deliberately interleaving two separate stories is a structural choice that comes from a brief rather than from the footage.