Cutaway Shot is a shot that cuts main action to another shot that adds visual information to first shot and then returns to first shot.
A Cutaway Scene is the interruption of a scene with the insertion of another scene
Example:
A Man eating in a restaurant and there will be a background stage singer singing.
The first shot will be man eating with sound of singer singing and then 2nd shot will be singer closeup or wide shot and the next shot will be Man eating and only few amount of food left in the plate – it conveys the time passed and also it will be used to cover-up the mistakes in the main footage and used B-rolls or other than main shots to cover it or to show what the main character is thinking.
Cutaway shots helps to build context, subtext & helps the editor to work freely
Example of Cutaway Shot
Additional reading
- Wikipedia – Cutaway