Computational Video Editing Systems output video generally follows a particular form, e.g. conversation or music videos, in this way they are domain specific. We describe a recent development in our video annotation and segmentation system to support general computational video editing in which we derive a single generic editing strategy from general cinema narrative principles instead of using a hierarchical film gram-mar. We demonstrate how this single principle coupled with a database of scripts derived from annotated videos leverages the existing video editing knowledge encoded within the editing of those sequences in a flexible and generic manner. We discuss the cinema theory foundations for this generic editing strategy, review the algorithms used to effect it, and goon by means of examples to show its appropriateness in an automated system.