Craft and CrewCraft explainer
Walter Murch's Rule of Six, in practice
Murch ranks six criteria for deciding where to cut, with emotion first and spatial continuity last. The ranking tells an editor which rules to break when they conflict.
4 min read
Walter Murch is a film editor and sound designer. Apocalypse Now (1979) was the first film to carry a “Sound Designer” credit, and Murch is widely credited with coining the term.[1] He has won three Academy Awards from nine nominations: Best Sound for Apocalypse Now, shared with Mark Berger, Richard Beggs and Nat Boxer, and Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing for The English Patient. The editing award was the first given to a film cut on an electronic system, an Avid.[1]
His book In the Blink of an Eye, first published in 1995, describes six criteria he weighs when deciding where to cut. Editors call the list the Rule of Six.[2][1]
The six criteria
Three secondary sources report the same ordering and the same weights.[3][4][5] The questions in the last column paraphrase how those sources describe each criterion.
| Rank | Criterion | Reported weight | The question it asks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emotion | 51% | Does the cut hold or raise the emotion the scene is built around? |
| 2 | Story | 23% | Does the cut move the story forward and keep the viewer oriented? |
| 3 | Rhythm | 10% | Does the cut land where a thought ends or an emotion settles? |
| 4 | Eye trace | 7% | Where is the audience looking before the cut, and does the next shot meet the eye there? |
| 5 | Two-dimensional plane of screen | 5% | Do screen direction and position stay consistent, including the 180-degree line? |
| 6 | Three-dimensional space of action | 4% | Does the viewer still understand where people and objects are in the room? |
One source describes rhythm as pace, meaning how long and how fast the shots run.[4] Another says good cuts fall at the moments when viewers blink, which is where a thought ends.[5]
The percentages are a ranking
Two of the sources describe the weights as a statement of priority. PremiumBeat reports that Murch himself cautions against fixating on the numbers and that the order is what matters.[3] Orms Direct cites the 2001 edition of the book for the same point.[4] No source reviewed describes any test of the percentages.
What the order implies is stated in a Murch quotation reported by Orms Direct: “If you have to break something, break the ones at the bottom of the list.”[4] No Film School reports Murch’s priority between the top two criteria as “don’t ever give up emotion before story,” and reports that he treats emotion as the item to keep at all costs.[6]
Using the ranking when two options conflict
The ranking is most useful when two takes or two cut points each satisfy some criteria and fail others.
The following illustration is the drafter’s own.
Suppose take A has the stronger performance, but a prop sits on the left side of the table in this shot and on the right in the next. Take B has correct continuity and a flatter performance. The prop is a failure of three-dimensional continuity, which ranks sixth. The performance is a matter of emotion, which ranks first. Under the Rule of Six the editor keeps take A and accepts the continuity error.
The reverse also holds. If a cut would break the story, because the viewer would not understand what just happened, Orms Direct says the cut should probably be dropped even if it looks good.[4]
For viewers
A scene can feel continuous even when the geography changes between shots. The drafter’s reading of the ranking is that such a cut serves emotion and story and gives up the lower-ranked items. A viewer can test the reading by watching a scene twice, once following the characters’ feelings and once following where people stand. The second pass shows which spatial rules the editor gave up.
Limits of this article
The ranking is one editor’s rule of thumb, published in his own book. The book was not consulted for this article, so the percentages and quotations come from the secondary sources listed below.
Sources and notes
Wikipedia, “Walter Murch,” read October 18, 2026. Covers the “Sound Designer” credit, the Academy Awards and the book’s publication history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Murch ↩︎
Walter Murch, In the Blink of an Eye (Silman-James Press, revised edition 2001; first published 1995). Not consulted directly for this draft. ↩︎
PremiumBeat, “Cutting on the Blink: Editing Tips from Walter Murch.” https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/cutting-on-the-blink-editing-tips-from-walter-murch ↩︎
Orms Direct, “How to Create Cuts That Work: Walter Murch’s Rule of Six in Editing.” https://www.ormsdirect.co.za/blogs/cinematography-news/how-to-create-cuts-that-work-walter-murchs-rule-of-six-in-editing ↩︎
FilmDaft, “Walter Murch’s Rule of Six: The Editor’s Formula for Choosing the Right Cut,” December 2, 2025. https://filmdaft.com/walter-murchs-rule-of-six-the-editors-formula-for-choosing-the-right-cut/ ↩︎
No Film School, “6 ‘Rules’ for Good Cutting According to Oscar-Winning Editor Walter Murch,” November 2016. https://nofilmschool.com/2016/11/6-rules-good-cutting-according-oscar-winning-editor-walter-murch ↩︎
