What is Pacing In Film? Meaning, Examples & Elements That Set The Pace

Published: November 6, 2024 | Last Updated: December 5, 2024

That’s the short version. In this article, you can read more about the elements that influence the pace of a movie and see some examples.

The Function and Consequence of a Film’s Pacing

Pacing determines how quickly or slowly information and emotion are delivered to the audience, how tension builds and releases, and how the overall temporal experience of the story unfolds.

While often discussed in terms of “fast” or “slow,” pacing is more accurately understood as the filmmakers’ ability to create appropriate rhythmic patterns that serve the story’s emotional and narrative needs at any given moment, whether that means building suspense through prolonged sequences, creating urgency through rapid progression, or varying these approaches to maintain engagement.

To understand how pacing works in practice, think about the last time you felt tense watching a film. Maybe it was during a car chase or a quiet conversation where you could feel conflict building. The techniques that created those feelings are what we’ll explore – from editing patterns that quicken your pulse to camera movements that make you hold your breath.

Editing Rhythm and Time

At its core, editing shapes how we experience time in film. While you might instinctively think of editing as determining whether a film feels “fast” or “slow,” its impact on pacing is far more sophisticated. For example, consider how the perceived time vastly differs in a long, slow single-take compared to a montage or timelapse.

Let’s see how different films use similar editing techniques to create different experiences.

Cross-Genre Analysis: Action versus Dialogue

Consider two sequences that demonstrate the versatility of editing rhythm. In the Moscow car chase in The Bourne Supremacy (2004), editor Christopher Rouse uses rapid cutting while maintaining spatial coherence:

Each cut propels the action forward while ensuring you understand exactly where the cars are in relation to each other. The sequence builds momentum through kinetic editing and careful attention to movement and screen direction.

Now, let’s look at the opening restaurant scene in The Social Network (2010). You’ll find similar rapid editing, but it serves a different purpose. Instead of tracking physical action, the quick cuts follow the verbal sparring between characters:

The editing rhythm mirrors the aggressive pace of dialogue, turning a simple conversation into something as intense as any action sequence.

In other words, the two examples above show how similar technical approaches (fast cuts) can create different forms of tension.

Temporal Manipulation in Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk (2017) provides one of cinema’s most sophisticated examples of editing’s relationship to pacing. The film interweaves three distinct timelines:

• Land sequences spanning a week, using longer takes punctuated by sudden action
• Sea sequences covering a day, maintaining a rhythm that mirrors the waves
• Air sequences compressing a single hour, creating tension through consistent cutting

What makes this structure remarkable is how these different temporal rhythms eventually converge. Notice how the accelerating editing pattern creates mounting tension and emotional impact when the three timelines intersect near the climax.

Aspect Ratios and Temporal Perception

The shifting of aspect ratios has become a sophisticated tool for controlling pacing and temporal awareness. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is a great example of how changing frame formats can signal different periods while affecting the viewer’s perception of pace.

Anderson uses three distinct aspect ratios:

• 1.37:1 for the 1930s sections, where the squarer frame creates a sense of formal precision and period authenticity
• 2.35:1 for the 1960s sequences, with the widescreen format suggesting a more expansive, modern perspective
• 1.85:1 for the 1980s bookend segments, bridging past and present

Each transition between ratios marks a temporal shift—it affects how we process the pacing within each timeline. The tighter, more confined 1.37:1 frame makes movement feel more immediate and compressed, while the wider 2.35:1 format allows for a more deliberate, lateral progression of action.

Camera Movement and Visual Flow

How a camera moves – or doesn’t move – shapes our time experience in a scene, often independently of editing. Understanding these movements helps us recognize how filmmakers control pacing through purely visual means.

See also FilmDaft’s comprehensive guide to camera movements, shots and angles.

Creating Tension Through Movement

Watch how the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems (2019) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007) achieve tension through opposite approaches.

The Safdie brothers often use restless, handheld camerawork that mirrors their protagonist’s anxiety. Even in simple conversation scenes, the camera’s constant motion creates a state of perpetual agitation.

By contrast, Paul Thomas Anderson uses precise, deliberate camera movements in There Will Be Blood, particularly evident in the dialogue-free opening sequence:

Here, tension builds through the steady control of the camera’s slow movements (or lack thereof), accompanied by the lack of a film score and the use of diegetic sounds.

The Shining: Psychological Impact of Movement

Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) revolutionized how camera movement affects psychological pacing. When you watch Danny riding his Big Wheel through the Overlook’s corridors, notice how the Steadicam tracking shots create an unnaturally smooth movement (especially for the time).

This technical precision achieves several effects:

• Creates dissonance between the camera’s smoothness and the scene’s increasing tension
• Uses varying camera height and movement speed to manipulate your perspective
• Establishes rhythm through the contrast between carpet silence and hardwood floor noise
• Builds dread through mechanically precise movements that feel inhuman

1917‘s Technical Innovation

Roger Deakins’ cinematography in 1917 (2019) shows how continuous camera movement affects temporal experience. The pacing isn’t slow due to Deakin’s use of detaching and reattaching the camera to the characters and the action, as well as the insane set construction, choreography, and blocking behind each scene.

The film’s apparent single-take approach has several effects:

• Forces you to experience events in apparent real-time, showing the dread and dangerous marathon the characters have to traverse
• Creates tension through carefully choreographed reveals
• Uses natural obstacles and movement to hide necessary cuts
• Varies movement speed to modulate intensity as opposed to overtly relying on editing

Sound Design, Dialogue, and Temporal Experience

Sound often controls pacing in ways you might not consciously notice but certainly feel. It provides the temporal framework through which other elements are experienced.

Contrasting Approaches: Silence versus Rhythm

No Country for Old Men (2007) is a good example of how minimal sound design can stretch time through pure tension. Watch the gas station coin toss scene – with no score and only essential sound effects:

Each small noise takes on enormous significance. The scene feels longer than it is because silence makes you hyper-aware of each moment.

Whiplash (2014) takes the opposite approach, using its score and performance sequences to drive pacing through explicit rhythm:

The practice sequences show how musical tempo can dictate editing patterns and camera movement, creating a unified approach to pacing that serves both story and character development.

Temporal Architecture in Dunkirk (2017)

Let’s again turn our attention to Nolan’s Dunkirk, but this time from the perspective of sound.

Through several techniques, Hans Zimmer’s score works with the film’s sound design to reinforce its temporal complexity. Especially his use of Shepard tones and the ticking clocks manipulate our sense of pacing and create suspense.

Zimmer’s score and the film’s sound design combine to create one of cinema’s most sophisticated examples of temporal manipulation through sound. The technique centers on three main elements:

The ever-present ticking clock sound serves multiple functions: It creates a constant reminder of time pressure while providing a steady rhythmic foundation that unifies the three timelines. It also builds underlying tension through its mechanical persistence and emphasizes the precision timing required for survival.

The score’s use of Shepard tones creates an auditory illusion of constantly rising tension. This audio phenomenon, where tones perpetually ascend in pitch without ever resolving, mirrors the film’s mounting pressure.

When you listen carefully, you’ll notice how the Shepard tone effect creates a sense of endless climb that matches the characters’ desperate situations. It also maintains tension without traditional musical resolution and complements the visual elements without overpowering them.

Most impressively, the sound design integrates with the film’s three-timeline structure. Each timeline has its sonic character, yet the score weaves them together through varying intensities that match each timeline’s urgency, seamless transitions between temporal streams, soundscapes that connect different time scales, and the strategic use of silence and amplitude to mark crucial moments.

Summing Up

Understanding pacing means recognizing how these elements work together to control your experience of time in film. Next time you watch a movie, consider how editing rhythm, camera movement, and sound design work in concert to create tension, release, or contemplation.

What you might have once experienced as simply “fast” or “slow” reveals itself as a sophisticated interplay of techniques, all serving the filmmaker’s narrative and emotional goals.

Up Next: What is Continuity Editing?