A sequence that takes up 2-minutes and 44-seconds of film and is one long un-cut tracking shot.
Wright’s prolific quick-cut close-up style and technique is not to say that’s all he does, in the sequence after the first bank heist in Baby Driver where his main character ‘Baby’ walks from a building to a coffee shop and back to the building. This type of editing style keeps the audience’s attention throughout the scenes and sequences, keeping them entertained. Furthermore, Wright is prolific in quick-cut montages of characters tooling up for an action scene or to super-stylise mundane events, when talking about the editing in Hot Fuzz (2007) Wright talks about his style of editing “…taking the most boring parts of police work, like paperwork, and making it super stylised.” (Chen, 2014). Wright enjoys quick-cutting in action moments to get through a sequence and keep the tempo in the scene. Wright has a unique editing style and technique where he does close-up quick-cuts of action moments, something he has been doing since Shaun of the Dead (2004) and beyond. The cut is used to quickly jump to the next action in the story.
The music used in this quick-cut creates a feeling of anticipation and adventure, telling the audience that they are going on a journey of discovery. In the example below, it cuts from a gun deal planning meeting to the group driving in a car on the beat of the music. Throughout Baby Driver Wright and Machliss delight in cutting from one scene to the next on the beat of the music. It may happen to be on the beat, but we don’t want you to think we are waiting for that moment.” (MAHER, 2017). We didn’t want you to notice that someone puts a bottle down on a chair. Machliss is quoted saying “…not make it feel like a musical where everything is heavily choreographed. Furthermore, Edgar Wright had the vision to make Baby Driver seem like a music video, yet not feel like one.
The editor Paul Machliss edited the movie whilst on set which is different from the common practice of editing a movie in a studio with a full editing deck. The editing in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver (2017) is closer to the editing made in modern music videos than a film, the movie is heavily influenced by the soundtrack, every piece of the action is built around the chosen song.