The usual way you'd do this is to cut to something else, right? Some other scene taking place at the same time, then when you cut back to your digger the grave is miraculously dug-- dude's leaning on his shovel wiping sweat from his brow. In screen-time you've only spent, let's say less than 1-minute, away from your digger on the other scene, but because you've made that cut and shown some other action, it's okay to cut back to the finished hole. This is standard practice for condensing time in film language.

If you don't have another scene to cut to, you can simply cut to a static shot of whatever you want-- maybe something that indicates time has passed. Given that he's outside(?), could be something as simple as the sun, or sunset. Doesn't need to move, don't need more than one shot. Just a simple cutaway like that would work. A series of shots like that might be better: sun, tree branch blowing in the breeze, fly on a rock, empty road, back to digger and the hole is done.

My personal favorite in this situation however would be to jump cut. Just a series of shots of the digger digging, hole getting deeper. Doesn't have to match, doesn't have to be continuous in time, but the audience gets it and doesn't care-- it's film language and we know how to "read" it. This might be a good way to go if the idea is that there's some time pressure that the digger is under, if he's frantic to get it done-- just chop it up in editing with wide shots, mediums, close-ups, all fast-paced.

A classic example of this kind of editing would be that ubiquitous dinner scene where someone has prepared a nice dinner for someone who never shows up. We see a woman setting a table and sitting down. Cut to her checking her watch. Cut to her twiddling her thumbs. Cut to her halfway done eating the now-cold chicken a la king. Cut to her blowing out the candles. Cut to her clearing the table. 1-minute of screen time has passed, 1-hour of movie-time has passed, and all the cutting was done within the same scene.

Whew, that's all for now. Best of luck.
Hal

Thanks Hal Great info Going to use swaying trees, sun and a shot of him sweating.

randall

You might also thrown in a shot of a clocktower or a watch (either the diggers or on the body) showing a drastic move of the hands between two cuts. This can be particularly nice if you have the clocktower or watch in the same frame. Say watch in the extreme foreground or the clocktower in the extreme background.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA