J cut is a variant of a split edit, film editing technique in which the audio from a successive scene overlaps the picture from the preceding scene, so that the audio portion of the later scene starts playing before its picture as a lead-in to the visual cut. Also called an audio lead or audio advance.
L cut, on the contrary is a variant of a split edit, film editing technique in which the audio from preceding scene overlaps the picture from the succeeding scene, so that the audio cuts after the picture, and continues playing over the beginning of the next scene.
J cut and L cut are both film editing techniques, in which audio and video are sequenced in a way that one of the two starts before the other, the video might start before the audio of that sequence or it is the other the other way around. These cuts are often used in order to give the audience a peek in the upcoming sequence, to incite curiosity, and peek their interest a notch up.
J-Cut and L-Cut are audio-based transitions where cutting is being done with Shape “J” on timeline. The upper portion of J shows the cutting of the video element and the lower portion is for audio.
For example, when taking two shots (Shot A and B), before the end of the clip, the audio of clip B will start playing to create a certain relationship between both shots. It also helps in the amalgamation.
On the other hand, L-Cut is just opposite to J cut, here the visuals from clip A will end and B will begin but the audio of Clip A will follow in clip B. As letter L suggests, the upper portion of L suggest Video and lower slant of L suggest an alignment of audio.
Achieving J and L cut on the editing table is surprising easy once the concept of both the cuts is clear, one simply needs to detach the audio from video, in Final Cut Pro by right-clicking one can find the option of “Detach Audio” but when using Adobe Premiere Pro then the simple right click will suffice and the option of “Unlink” audio from video would pop up and then it can all be aligned according to the desired result.
Often times it becomes difficult to place two shots together because then there are jerks when placed next to each other or are not even going with the flow of the film, then J and L cut can be useful tools for the editor. The main use of J and L cut albeit is to create a connection between two shots.
If for some reason there are glitches in the video along with the audio then they can easily be fixed. One can fix any sequence even if are not getting any way to synchronize two shots simply by placing the J cut or L cut at an appropriate place.
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