Sound of a next scene starts one moment earlier than video

bash_bob

I saw this several times in different movies, but I don't understand what is this supposed to mean. The main idea is when the scene is about to change, for one second or so we still see the picture from the old scene, but the sound is already coming from from the upcoming scene. Why do they do this? What's the purpose of this technique?

Originally asked by Max on Stack Exchange (movies) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Cameron Christopher has a nice short article on the technique at Vimeo; J-Cuts & L-Cuts . In short one have J-Cut and L-Cut J-Cut aka audio advance, audio starts before video. L-Cut aka video advance, video starts before audio. It can advance the story in itself by moving the viewer ahead. It also can give a smoother transition, or many other effects. Find the two examples in the article by Chrisopher to be nice examples. Waltz for One from INTELLECTUAL PROPAGANDA on Vimeo . Handmade Portraits: Liberty Vintage Motorcycles from Etsy on Vimeo . For example in second video, the packing of the cigarette packet is smoothed out by the J-Cut, rather nicely.

Full answer by user13500: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/18692 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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