Cutaway

It breaks away from the main action to show something else, and the audience reads a connection between the two. A clock, a window, a person somewhere else in the building.

It is also the most practical shot in an editor's kit. A cutaway hides a jump in the footage, covers a missing line and shortens a scene without anybody noticing the join.

Any framing, as long as the subject sits outside the action the scene is following. Light and time of day have to agree with the scene, or the cut reads as a different day.

Sound is what usually holds it together. Keeping the scene's audio running under the cutaway tells the audience that the main action has not stopped.

Use it to buy time, to hide a cut, to show a consequence happening elsewhere, and to put two things next to each other so the audience connects them.

Avoid it during a rising moment. A cutaway releases tension by definition, so one placed badly deflates the scene it was meant to serve.

A cut-in stays inside the action and magnifies part of it. A cutaway steps outside.

An insert delivers a fact the plot needs. A cutaway is often about mood, time or consequence instead.

Steven Spielberg cuts to the surface of a glass of water in Jurassic Park (1993) while the people in the car are still talking. Nothing in the main action has changed, and the rings on the water tell the audience what is coming.

The model delivers the main action again from a new angle, which is coverage rather than a cutaway. Say the subject is somewhere else and name it.

The second failure is a shot that does not match. State the same time of day and the same weather, or the cut will look like a different scene.