The French film director Jean-Luc Godard called cinema truth 24 times a second. For the film editor, the moment of the truth is choosing which 24 instances in a second to change the image from one to another. In the case of a video editor, that moment of truth comes every 29.97th of a second. An edit is that precise, that fraction of a moment in time, which may not seem that important, but a moment that has a fundamental effect on the way the viewer perceives the scene. We re going to spend this lesson looking at the moment, how to find it, and how to use it. You have by now learned the fundamentals of how to use this application. Now we need to hone those skills. The moment of the edit is nowhere more clear than in the classic question of where to cut on an action. We ll look at that later in this lesson.

The moment of the edit is dictated by rhythm, sometimes by an internal rhythm the visuals present, sometimes by a musical track, more often than not by the rhythm of language. All language, dialog or narration, has a rhythm, a cadence or pattern, dictated by the words and based on grammar. Grammar marks language with punctuation: commas are short pauses; semicolons are slightly longer pauses; periods (full stops, as they re called in England) are the end of an idea. The new sentence begins a new idea, a new thought, and it is natural...