The Rule of Six

Few editors have put as much painstaking thought into answering the question “When should an editor cut?” as Walter Murch. In his book, In The Blink of an Eye, Murch has compiled a list of priorities from when and where to create a transition from one shot to the next. In his book Murch states that the ideal cut is one that satisfies all the following six criteria:

1(1)      It is true to the emotion of the moment.

2(2)      It advances the story.

3(3)      It occurs at the moment that is rhythmically interesting and “right”.

4(4)      It acknowledges what you may call “eye-trace” – the concern with the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame.

5(5)      It respects “planarity” – the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two (the questions of stage-line, etc.)

6(6)      Respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in the room an in relation to one another).

Murch also has his own personal take on the rule of six, he weighs the importance of the criteria listed above with the following percentage values:

1(1)      Emotion (51%)

2(2)      Story (23%)

3(3)      Rhythm (10%)

4(4)      Eye-trace (7%)

5(5)      Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%)

6(6)      Three dimensional space of action (4%)

Murch states that “the top two on the list (emotion and story) are worth far more than the bottom four and under the most circumstances; the top of the list (emotion) is worth more than all five of the things underneath it.”

Bibliography

Murch, W. (2001). In The Blink Of An Eye: A Perspective On Film Editing. LA, Silman-James.