Editing Lessons from the Oscar-Winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

By AJ Sta. Maria

Hot off the heels of its’ Oscar win, the now Academy-Award winning animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, utilizes unique editing techniques to give it a comic book-esque style and intensity. Let’s take a look at a few of these techniques and see what you can learn from them to apply to your own movies. (SPOILER ALERT)

Split Screen

The use of comic book panels as a split screen is probably the most noticeable editing technique of the film. It is the signature look and style that sets it apart from other superhero movies. Aside from emulating a comic book aesthetic, the split screen serves to control the pacing of information relayed on screen. It’s also used to show multiple subjects, sometimes from different angles, at once without having to cut to an insert.

THE “FILMMAKER’S VAULT”

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In the clip above, the split screen shows three different panels. The left panel focuses on the biker tumbling over, the middle focuses on Peter Parker being flung across the sky, and the the right shows Miles Morales pulling on the web before being yanked away. The biker panel is the first to pop up, then it freezes mid fall, which allows the audience to shift their focus to the right panel, which has Miles swinging into frame. After Miles is fully in the shot, it freezes and the final frame of Peter pops in the middle and plays out in its entirety before the Miles shot unfreezes. Following this, the biker shot finally unfreezes.

There are several choices made in this four second stretch of time.  The editors establish a chronology of events via the order the panels pop in and when the freeze frames start and end. First, the biker gets launched into the sky, then Miles pulls on the web mid-air, then Peter is flung up in the sky before being yanked to screen right, then Miles follows Peter’s action by also getting jerked to screen right, and finally the biker crashes to the ground. In addition to the use of freeze frame and panels to indicate the order of events, screen direction and scene geography is also being manipulated by the split screen.

We know all of the characters’ exact locations despite the close-ups shots. The framing subconsciously tells us that the biker is on the left, Miles is on the right, and Peter is between the two before being yanked to the right and towards Miles.

The sequence conveys so much information without the use of fast cuts. Speaking of which, how would that exact same scene look with fast cuts instead of split screen?

Without the split screen layout, the scene becomes confusing and lacks flow. The audience doesn’t get enough time to process the information since the freeze frames are gone, and the shorter length with rapid cuts makes it harder to figure out where the characters are in the space of the location.

Scene Transitions

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s editing guides the audience from scene to scene and shot to shot using slick transitions. Match cuts, diegetic wipes, and the like are not new techniques, but Into the Spider-Verse utilizes them in creative ways.

The shot above is not quite a match cut and not quite a wipe. The scene doesn’t immediately cut to another scene with similar graphical elements (like a match cut), but Spider-Man doesnt wipe entirely across the screen to reveal a new location. Let’s watch that transition in slow-motion:

For three frames when Spider-Man enters the frame, he’s rotoscoped out from his background before the environment pops in at the moment of impact (when Spidey’s head hits the wall). This use of rotoscoping makes the cut seamless, as Spider-Man’s head aligns with the ice cream head, providing a graphical match without needing to immediately cut away from the picture of the ice cream.

You can even do this in your live action films! It would take a bit of work to rotoscope the character or object, but you would only need to cut out your character/object for a few frames before bringing in the background and completing the scene transition.

BURST CARDS

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse uses burst cards, which are quick flashes of a stylized graphic. They can be used to emphasize a moment, slow down the pace of a scene, or to reveal new information, such as in the scene below:

Here, Miles Morales falls down from the roof of a building and lands on a flash drive in his pocket, breaking it. To show the flash drive shattering inside Miles’ pocket, the filmmakers used a burst card to see into the pocket and quickly reveal new information without using a cutaway or an insert.

This burst card is only on screen for a fraction of a second, yet we as an audience know what is going on without being confused. So how does this flash of an image manage to be brief, yet legible? The secret lies in visual contrast. The colors and amount of detail of the burst card are completely different than the colors and detail of the actual scene. Those differences let the eyes of the viewer distinguish details of objects more clearly and quickly. If the burst card were similar in color and detail to the scene it was cutting away from, it wouldn’t work and the viewer wouldn’t be able to digest the information clearly.

This illustration by artist Greg Smallwood demonstrates this:

AUDIO AS A FRAMING DEVICE

Let’s say you have a character who is having a flashback to his darkest moment.  How do you show this on film? Slap on a hazy filter to imply that it’s a flashback? Put on an echoey audio filter? These tricks work, but what really makes the Kingpin scene is the use of the pen clicking as a metronomic instrument. Not only does it serve as a framing device to tell the audience that Kingpin is deep in thought, it also lines up perfectly with the beat of the score.

The pen is what starts and ends the flashback scene. It is a clever visual cue for the audience that adds an emotional stake to the scene, whereas simply cutting or fading into the flashback sequence would not have been as effective. The clicking implies the obsessiveness and the seething rage of the character. The sound also adds a sense of irritation to the flashback.

Film is a visual and auditory medium, so filmmakers need to make use of both of these areas in conjunction with one another to set a mood and tell a story. The visuals and the sounds must be able to coexist on screen. As an editor, you need to not only consider the visual aspect as a way to move from scene to scene, but you must also keep in mind the audio as a means to transition as well.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has been called many things: a visual splendor, a narrative marvel, an innovative piece of animation and cinema. I think the most important thing you (as a filmmaker) can call it is a learning experience. Next time you go see a movie, or a tv show, or even a commercial, be sure to study it and analyze it. Go frame by frame, shot by shot. Be obsessed. There’s always something to learn from everything, and that’s how you grow as an editor, as a filmmaker, and as a storyteller.