Cutaway Shots Explained: Purpose of Cutaways in Film and TV

In film and TV shows, a cutaway is a shot that focuses on anything other than the main subject or action of a scene. For example, a sequence will begin with the main shot, jump to a cutaway shot, and return to the main shot. Cutaway shots are useful in visual storytelling and cinematography because they allow filmmakers to “cut away” from the main action to a secondary action or response.

Cutaway shots are also useful for subverting the audience’s expectations in comedy. The long-running animated TV series Family Guy often uses cutaways for visual punchlines.

Related shot types include match cuts (a scene transition in which the action or composition matches the previous scene), cross cuts (two scenes spliced together to show their simultaneity), and jump cuts. Other shot types include establishing shots, medium shots, reverse shots, and wide shots.

The use of cutaway shots can serve several purposes, including:

• Offer internality: The primary use of a cutaway shot is to create a sense of a character’s internal thoughts by jumping from their face to a cutaway shot of the object or subject about which they’re thinking. Daydreams and flashbacks are prime examples of extensive “cutaway scenes.”
• Build tension: By nature, cutaway shots delay the action of the main shot because they spend time showing something else. In this way, cutaway shots are like a temporary pause in the storyline, building additional tension and anticipation in viewers by intercutting a single shot with a cutaway.
• Avoid continuity problems: Continuity is the principle of ensuring that all details in a film or TV show are consistent from shot to shot and scene to scene. In some cases, editors insert cutaway shots as a continuity editing technique to establish continuity or avoid continuity problems.

Here are ways that editors may use cutaway shots:

1. 1. Cutting between the character and an object: Cutaways can show the object of a character’s attention to get at internality. For instance, a main shot of a character looking up, then cutting away to a close-up shot of a ticking clock, before cutting back to the character, who now appears excited, for a reaction shot. These cutaways lead audience members to assume that the clock shot is from the character’s point of view (POV) and that they are looking forward to something about to happen.
2. 2. Cutting away to show the passage of time: Let’s say the filmmakers shot two main shots of a character going to bed and awakening to communicate to the audience that they had a regular night’s sleep. The editors may not want to place these shots successively because they’ll create a jump cut—in which two shots are different only by a few frames or a small camera movement—that can disorient audience members. Instead, the editors may insert a cutaway shot—of the moon or a clock—to band the two main shots together and suggest that time passes before the character wakes up in the next main shot.
3. 3. Cutting from a character to a location: Building tension is one of the primary uses of a cutaway shot. For example, if a horror movie cuts away from a main shot of a terrified character to a cutaway shot of a dark alley, audience members will eagerly anticipate the camera’s return to the first shot to see what will happen next.

Main shots and cutaway shots are two types of camera shots in filmmaking that serve different purposes. The main shot focuses on the main action or subject of the scene, keeping viewers apprised of the current story.

On the other hand, a cutaway shot shows the opposite—something other than the main action. Filmmakers may use a cutaway to show a character’s thoughts, delay the main action, or create a sense of continuity between main shots.

Nearly all cutaway shots are composed of B-roll footage, or secondary video footage shot outside of the primary (or A-roll) footage. For great cutaway shots, on-set cinematographers should capture B-roll of the surrounding environment so that editors can use it for interesting and relevant insert shots.

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