A montage is an editing technique that assembles a series of short, often rapidly cut shots into a sequence that conveys the passage of time, builds emotional momentum, or communicates an idea through the cumulative effect of images rather than through linear narrative continuity. Rather than showing events in real time, a montage compresses or contrasts them, letting the relationship between shots carry meaning.

The concept has two distinct traditions in filmmaking. The Soviet montage theory pioneered by Eisenstein and Kuleshov in the 1920s explored how juxtaposing two unrelated images creates a third meaning in the viewer's mind, a psychological response that neither image alone could produce. In contemporary Hollywood usage, montage more commonly refers to a condensed sequence showing progress over time - a training sequence, a journey across many locations, a relationship developing across seasons - using music and rapid cutting to communicate what would take much longer to show in real time. Both traditions share the core principle that the meaning of a sequence emerges from the relationship between shots, not from any single image alone.

In AI video workflows, planning a montage means thinking in terms of distinct, purposeful clips that will be assembled together rather than generating a single continuous scene. Generating short clips designed to cut together rhythmically, with varied framings and consistent thematic or visual elements, and sequencing them in Compose on Morphic gives creators the building blocks to construct montage sequences that would be difficult to capture in a single generation.