In the film 12 Years a Slave the editor, Joe Walker, makes use of a couple of techniques and styles that adds to the film in its own way. Long shots – Joe kept the long shots as long as he thought was necessary to add to the subject matter and the feeling he wanted to bind with the story. At the end of the film there’s this extremely long shot where Solomon is practically staring at the camera for about a minute and a half. The timing of that shot is so perfect because it’s not too short so you don’t have enough time to think about what just happened or too much time to overthink the situation. Closer to the end of the shot he lets the sound fade slowly and rapidly gives you a wakeup call when the next shot starts off where Solomon and the rest of the slaves are busy working in the field. Jump cuts – Just before the long shot I mentioned above we can see that Joe compresses time when Master Ford cuts down Solomon, we don’t see him falling to the ground, it just cuts straight to another shot where it’s at a different time than the shot before and he’s on laying on the floor on a sack in a luxurious hallway. The cut to him resting in the hallway substitutes him falling down when Master Ford cut him down Cross Cutting – The use of cross cutting plays a big role in the beginning of the film where he is being captured as a slave (even though he’s a free man). It starts off where Solomon is having dinner with the two gentleman he met in the park right after he greeted his wife