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How did editing make the cliff-jump scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid appear real?

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Director Steven Spielberg and camera operator Michael Chapman film next to a large mechanical shark on the set of the 1975 movie Jaws. — motion-picture technology Director Steven Spielberg holding the movie camera, assisted by camera operator Michael Chapman, during the filming of *Jaws* (1975).

In the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the cliff-jump scene achieves its sense of realism through the editing process, which allows filmmakers to create a seamless narrative from disparate footage.

While the scene depicts the characters making a single, continuous leap from a high cliff into a river, the actual production was far more fragmented. The shots featuring the lead actors on the cliff and the shots of the actual dives were filmed weeks apart, involving different crews and even different locations. By skillfully piecing these separate elements together, the editor constructs an illusion that the audience perceives as a single, natural occurrence. This technique demonstrates how editing serves as a system of substitution, enabling filmmakers to stage dramatic sequences that would be impossible to capture in a single, uninterrupted shot.1