ABSTRACT
In reality, sometimes it’s obvious how long to hold a shot. If the shot is of a specifi c action, you’ve got to hold it at least until the action is fi nished. For example, if someone is putting a cake into an oven, you don’t want to cut before the cake is safely on the cooking rack. But everyone knows that. The tricky scenarios involve the length of a cutaway, or how long to hold on a person who is talking, or how long to hold a static shot or a reaction shot. Honestly, there is no one answer, just as there are no rules. But you can, in fact, learn to master the art of timing .
