Motivated Edits

A motivated edit or "cut" as it is commonly known, is when a scene is cut to another scene or introduces other objects and people that were people that weren't in the previous frame. This is done very discreetly so the viewer is unaware that it is happening. Motivated edits are sometimes justified and allowed by narrative, so someone will talk and talk there way into a flashback.

You can see it a lot in horror films particularly, somebody hears a startling sound and looks in that direction and there is nothing way, it creates tension just through an edit from the camera turning towards that direction.

An example is shown below

The first clip in this video compilation hits perfectly what point I'm making. From 00:32 - 01:40 we see an entire scene that is created around the idea of motivated edit, we are completely led on to build tension, the camera following a noise down a hallway till we can see a blurry figure.