Cut by Cut - A visual breakdown of a Gold Cannes Lion winning edit
Cannes Lions is a 5 day festival showcasing the best of global marketing creativity. Their award ceremony highlights the most creative work from across the world in categories that include Film Craft, Experience and Engagement. Editor Amanda James won the Gold Lion for Editing Craft for her work on the Tokyo Paralympics ‘Super.Human.’ TV ad and it’s not hard to see why! Amanda has had an incredible year having recently had a film she cut, ‘The Long Goodbye’, win an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. This article gives a visual breakdown of every shot and cut in the 3 minute long piece and shows just how incredible this edit is.
“I worked hard to give space to the sound fx around the music and lyrics so that each would frame and support the other, otherwise it could have been a confusing mess with so much going on.”
We open on darkness and the low rumbling sound of crowds. An extra wide shot emerges as we see the pulsing of stadium lights timed perfectly with the overlapped, dream like commentator audio. Paralympian Kadeena Cox stands, focused, on the track, a triangle of colourful lights ahead of her. Rhythmic piano notes drone as the camera pushes towards Kadeena’s face… and BANG a starting pistol abruptly cuts to the sound of an alarm as Kadeena wakes up awkwardly, two shots cut perfectly together with a matching movement of her body rising.
The lyrics kick in ‘so you wanna be a boxer?’, as we see tennis player Jordanne Whiley emerge from her sleep, a baby cries, she rubs her temples out of stress and exhaustion. We cut to Boccia player, David Smith, eating his breakfast as he turns to a drum kit, the words ‘PLAY ME’ pulse to the beat of the lyric ‘south bound freight train’. He turns, back, shaking his head. The pace picks up and we cut to a montage of Paralympians begrudgingly preparing to take part in their sport, grunts, heavy breaths, cyclist Jody Cundy pulls on a sock, athlete Kylie Grimes tears tape and wraps her arm. The lyrics ‘so you might as well quit’ play over powerlifter, Ali Jawad as he pulls himself towards his weights. We cut to a quick succession of two shots of weights being pushed into place. Clink. Clink.
Bells sound. A moment of quiet, as we catch our breath from the fast pace of the previous scene. Tensions builds as Paralympic swimmer, Ellie Simmonds, stands at the edge of an Olympic pool, facing a symbolic image of herself, wearing her medals, feeling the weight of pressure. She expertly places her goggles over her eyes. She prepares to dive into the pool. An engine roars in a descending tone as we cut to black and white stock footage of a diver jumping from a great height. Then thump! One of David’s Boccia balls misses, he groans.
The beat of a drum shows we’ve picked up the pace again. We cut between Kadeena training with an exercise band , David swinging his arms readying himself to throw, and in another set up at his drum kit. All this rhythmically intercut with archive footage of soldiers marching we hear ‘1, 2, 3’, and a sergeant close up as if bellowing commands to the athletes. David throws, and in the next shot Kadeena’s exercise band snaps. The lyrics ‘can you pass the test’ are expertly matched with Kylie Grimes being passed a ball by her team mates.
In this section we’re swept from left to right and back to left with some perfectly matched moments. Kylie Grimes’ wheel chair is smashed into mid game and she begins to fall. The moment is emphasised with a cut to a stock visual of two heavenly bodies colliding in space. Snapping quickly back to a body rig camera shot of Kylie as she pushes herself up from the ground. The ratio changes to a 9x16 Facetime call of a child celebrating her birthday, looking rather miserable, as Jody sings ‘Happy Birthday’ whilst pedalling his training bike.
Jump cuts of Ali Jawad lifting weights, perfectly show the passing of time and the commitment to training. The shots are matched first on the down lift and then on the up lift. A locked off wide of David throwing balls in his training, the jump cuts of balls dropping is in time with the lyrics ‘so you might as well quit’.
Shots of training intensify, the cuts come quicker, the shots themselves speed up. A close up of pedals and gears are matched with a hamster racing in its wheel. 'A ‘Puke Bucket’ is thrown down, the athletes retch, the little girl we saw in the birthday scene spits out her food.
We cut to Jordanne, tennis balls are hit in quick succession. Jordanne screams on the court and we cut to her screaming whilst in the hospital giving birth, the scream continues and blends into a baby crying and back to Jordanne on the court. Her little boy, now a toddler, holds his hands over his ears.
A POV shot of cycling round a velodrome, Jody Cundy racing so fast that his pedals and gear begin to spark. The music muffles as we see Jody fly through the air in slo motion through wide open space. His scream echoes. Cut to a cartoon of a little lamb tumbling and rolling across the screen with that brilliant cartoon rattling sound. Then back to Jody as he hits the ground and skids across the track in a shot feels like part of a broadcast on account of the crowd and 4:3 ratio.
This next section is an incredibly quick time-lapse of bruises forming on skin, ending with a blister being popped, and has a real visceral quality, you can really feel the agony and the sacrifice. An added squelching sound for extra ‘ouch’ when the blister is popped.
The music stops abruptly as Kylie Grimes’ wheelchair bumps against the step of a greasy spoon cafe. The owner looks at her blankly and she looks looks blankly back. It’s a moment that makes you realise the ridiculous barriers that occur for disabled people in our society and made all the more absurd by the fact that Kylie is representing GB at the Olympics yet doesn’t have access to get a fry up. She mutters ‘fucks sake’ under her breath and leaves.
The bells we heard over the Ellie Simmonds swimming pool scene begin to ring again as the pace slows down and we see Kadeena back in her dream world running track. Stuck between second and third place Kadeena looks over her shoulder as she runs towards colourful lights.
Ellie struggles under water as she is pulled down by a giant gold medal. Kadeena races to the finishes line and pushes the air, but her celebrations are abruptly interrupted by Channel 4 newsreader, Cathy Newman announcing ‘the Paralympics have been postponed’, the track falls away into empty space under Kadeena’s feet and she begins to fall with it. We cut to a cartoon dog fallen on the ground with stars and planets circling it’s head. The frame itself wobbles up and down to create an extra sense of dizziness.
A sense of hopelessness continues in a series of symbolic scenes; Ali sits in a doctors room as the doctor talks in time to the lyrics ‘so you might as well quit’ and thousands of pills fall from a cabinet, David gazes up at a down pouring of boccia balls raining down on him. Boris Johnson at his now infamous ‘Stay Home - Protect the NHS - Save Lives’ podium appears to be saying ‘so you might as well quit’, the hamster flies out of its wheel, Ellie gasps for breath, Jody groans in pain.
Ali shouts as he pushes his weights above him, the camera travels into his open mouth and downward as we see all the gory detail inside his throat. His shouts muffle. The inside of his throat is quickly matched with a timelapse shot of a red and yellow flower blooming. This next section is quick and is an expertly created series of frames within frames and split screens of blood, bruises, flowers and x-rays. We hear a multitude of overlapping sounds, stretching and pulling, and groaning, a hint of under water sounds. A symphony of visuals and sounds that culminate in a bloody grinning mouth and ‘ting’ SFX. Evoking a sense of the passing of time and the trials the athletes bodies are put through.
The title ‘To be a paralympian, there’s got to be something wrong with you’ appears in hard cuts as the sentence builds to the sound of the beat and with added SFX of bells and grunts.
At the end of the piece we’re treated to a medley of celebratory and silly moments with a quick slow of pace when Jody passes by on a tandem bike. David Smiths boccia ball acts as a final full stop as it crashes into and ‘breaks’ the camera lens.
The texture in this edit is phenomenal, the rhythm, the choice of ratios, the expert use of mixed media and the multilayered sound design it really is storytelling at its absolute best. This is an edit that perfectly represents the efforts and sacrifices of the athletes shown on screen, through a cut of high intensity and visceral energy.
Read Amanda’s career story here.