Wipes: Film Editing Technique

Wipes are a editing technique used to make a gradual transition between two different shots. Essentially, one image is replaced by another with a distinct edge. Such edges can take the form of a simple edge (giving the impression of one image wiping another off), an expanding circle or the turning of a page.

Wipes are often regarded as going against golden rule that the underlying illusion of the film should be maintained at all times, as they draw the audience's attention to the mechanics of the film, rather than depicting a story. Other film makers use wipes for this specific reason. George Lucas made the famously used wipes to mark transitions between sequences in Star Wars. Lucas has cited his inspiration as coming from Akira Kurosawa, for his use of wipes to evoke similar feels of pulp sci-fi novels and comics.

Still 1 - Luke in the desert. Pre-wipe.

Still 2 - half way through the wipe transition.

Still 3 - after the wipe, and Luke is now in the next scene inside.

One of the very first uses of the wipe was by George Albert Smith in his 1903 film Mary Jane's Mishap.

As well as being used for stylistic purposes, wipes have also become part of the grammar of the film language. However, their use for these purposes is often looked down upon.

Iris wipes are realised as a growing or shrinking circle. Often used in animated shorts, such as the Looney Tunes, to signal the end of the story. The wipe focuses around a certain area of the frame to highlight a certain subject for certain significance, as a fourth wall-breaching wink by a character or some other use.

Star wipes take the form of a growing or shrinking star, whilst heart wipes are the same, but in the shape of a star. It is not uncommon to find heart wipes used in wedding videos to signify love and happiness. It is also exceptionally tacky, and should only be used in irony :)

In a matrix wipe, the transition is performed in a grid of stars. And a clock wipe, as the name suggests, is a wipe that sweeps a radius around the centre of the frame. Clock wipes are typically used to suggest the passing of time between the shots.

The "invisible wipe" is one of the most common used wipes in cinema. Using carefully constructed tracking shots, editors are able to move between shots as the camera tracks parallel to the actor and they enter another room. When the wall passes in front of the camera, it is possible to use the wipe to match with another take of the same scene. Invisible cuts can be made in action scenes where the camera is moving quickly as the rapid movement can hide the transition from being visible in the final film. Wolfgang Petersen used this approached when panning the camera between two u-boat pens during the filming of Das Boot, despite their only being one u-boat available for filming.

In the low budget Laurel and Hardy short, Thicker Than Water, each of the scene transitions in the film would be marked by Laurel and/or Hardy grabbing an object and moving it from one side of the frame to the other. Using optical printing, the opening frames of the next scene wiped relative to the object they were dragging across the frame. Pretty cool for 1935!