Writing can be confusing at times because the way things were done at one time are not always the best way to do them, it is just all they had back then. At one time novels were the highest form of storytelling technology. Anything you can think of can be done in a novel, but often not well. Films were originally single long takes and at that time the idea of film editing was already used in books. Filmmakers stole these ideas from novel writers and they turned out to work better in films than words.
Change POV
Films at first were from the very obvious perspective of a camera operator who could also double as audience in the traditional sense of a proscenium. As things progressed it became apparent that images shot from the perspective of a character had power. Soon films switched between what one character sees to what another sees as fluidly and elegantly as prose.
Location Change
Early films were disposable product. Made quickly, shown soon after being shot, and then forgotten. The time and energy needed to physically travel to a far off place to get some shots of a different location were not worth the effort. The concept won out it in the end as films now routinely hop from one location to another miles away, a concept they might not have contemplated had novels already used it as a staple device.
Time Period Change
Films first started out as documentaries of a sort, shooting people as they are in the street and only now in retrospect do they seem period. Filmmaking was a low budget exercise in the early days and the expense of costumes and set design was not something that could be afforded. As more filmmaker competed for the same audiences they again adapted another of the novel's methods and made movies set in, and even changing between, time periods.
Cut To Closeup
Movies were originally thought of as a way to film action like it was staged in a play. Novels can move your attention to any object in a room much like your eye can. Though the format of movies as filmed plays remains, many filmmakers have taken to the idea of using the novelistic device of closeups to direct attention. In novels a closeup would be a detailed description of a small object, whereas in a film it would be cutting to shots of an object taking up the majority of the frame.
Clearly novels have influenced filmmaking for the better. In fact some devices that movies have integrated turned out to be better done in movies than in prose. Given the back and forth between any number of media, there must be something novel writers can learn from movies.
Have you taken anything from movies that you think works better in prose than in films?