Cut

What is it?

The cut is the instant switch from one shot to the next — no effect, no overlap, frame A then frame B. It is the atom of all editing: the default, invisible transition that audiences have been fluent in for a century. When people say a film "is edited," they overwhelmingly mean it is cut.

Practical example

Watch sixty seconds of any news broadcast or interview show and count: anchor → guest → two-shot → graphic → anchor — perhaps a dozen transitions, every single one a plain cut, and not one of them noticed. The audience experiences a flowing conversation, never "the picture changed." Now imagine the same minute with a dissolve or star-wipe on each switch: instantly unbearable. The cut's superpower is that it doesn't exist for the viewer — it transmits the change and leaves no residue.

Key things to know (non-technical)

• Cut on action or on speech: switching as someone starts talking, or as movement happens, hides the cut inside the audience's shifting attention.
• Rhythm is the craft: fast cutting reads as energy, slow as gravity — the pattern of cuts is the show's pulse.
• The professional default is cut-unless-reason: every non-cut transition should have to justify itself.
• In live production, "cutting" is the literal job of the switcher — each tap of a scene is a cut performed in real time.

In Tupic Live

Every scene-switch tap in Tupic Live is a cut — which is why switching must be instant and frame-clean: any lag or stutter between tap and switch breaks the one transition whose entire identity is being imperceptible.