The ending sequence in Steven Spielburg’s Duel is a good example of editing for continuity, which I’d like to break down for this blog. The shots are all kept focused on and don’t deviate from the general environment of the crash, that being the desert cliffside. Even as it’s cutting between shots of the truck, the main character, and so forth, it all remains the same location and it’s obvious when looking at the shots. With the continuity maintained, the scene has the space needed to let its climax play out. Notably, the shots of the truck tumbling down the cliff, getting decimated, the shots are frequently of a larger scale, with many wide shots and long shots. Meanwhile, many of the shots showing the main character often being close-up or medium shots. It helps to emphasize the scale of each perspective, with the scale of the main character in that space being rather narrow while the scale of the truck and its destruction was rather large. It helps bring continuity to the work by keeping the backdrop and the scale consistent with each perspective.