Jump Cut

A jump cut is a film editing technique in which two shots of the same subject, filmed from very similar camera angles or at only slightly different points in time, are cut together so that the subject appears to jump abruptly within the frame, breaking the illusion of smooth, continuous movement that conventional continuity editing tries to preserve. Long treated as an editing mistake to be avoided in classical narrative filmmaking, the jump cut was adopted deliberately as a stylistic device by French New Wave directors, most notably Jean-Luc Godard in Breathless (1960), to create a restless, fragmented rhythm and to draw attention to the film's own construction rather than hide it. It has since become a common device across narrative film, music videos and online video for compressing time or signaling a deliberately jarring, energetic pace.