Editing involves decisions about which shots to include, the most effective take of each shot, the arrangement and duration of shots, and the transitions between them. Editing can produce meaning by combining shots in an infinite number of ways. One shot is selected and joined to other shots by the editor to guide viewers’ perceptions and emotions.

A cut describes the break and common border that links two different pieces of film and separates two shots. Other types of editing transitions between shots—known as optical effects—include fade-outs, fade-ins, dissolves, the iris, and wipes.

In both narrative and non-narrative films, editing is a crucial strategy for ordering space and time. As mentioned above, continuity editing is a system that uses cuts and other transitions to establish verisimilitude and to tell stories efficiently, requiring minimal mental effort on the part of viewers. The basic principle of continuity editing is that each shot has a continuous relationship to the next shot. It is also called invisible editing. Spatial patterns are frequently constructed by the use of an establishing shot, generally an initial long shot that establishes the setting and orients the viewer in space to a clear view of the action. The standard practice of filming a conversation involves a close shot of both characters, and following that with a shot of the person speaking before cutting to the other person in the conversation.

The 180-degree rule is a conventional rule of continuity editing in which the camera must film the action of a scene from one side of an imaginary line called the axis of action.

The 30-degree rule specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than 30 degrees from that of the first.

Other common devices or techniques of continuity editing include shot/reverse shot, eye line match, point-of-view shot, reaction shot, and cutaway.

Editing is one of the chief ways that temporality is manipulated in the time-based medium of cinema. Story chronology can be manipulated through flashbacks or, more rarely, flash forwards. In the classical model of Hollywood filmmaking, the temporal relations among story segments are usually clearly indicated. However, in certain art cinema practices story temporality can be purposely ambiguous to suggest subjective or psychological conceptions of time.

Duration denotes the temporal relation of shots and scenes to the amount of time that passes in the story. In addition to temporal and spatial narrative patterns, editing may link images according to more abstract similarities and differences that make creative use of space and time. Here we distinguish among three abstract patterns in editing: graphic editing, movement editing, and rhythmic editing. Often these patterns work together to support or complicate the action being shown.