The cutaway technique is used to compress time or give a visual break to the audience. The purpose of it is that it cuts away from the main action for a short period of time. These types of shots take place at the same time as the main action, showing the audience what other plots are occurring simultaneously. They are also used to fuse two seperate plot lines together, but not too much that its strays away from the main action. The cutaway shots are never too long, because you are only showing the audience a brief look at what else is going on in the film. They emphasize particular details add add more detail and meaning to a scen. Cutaways used in action films for example, could show a car chase scene, and it could cut to shot of a quiet area, little kids playing, and this creates a feeling that somethign bad is going to happen, or a disaster is going to take place. Below is an exmaple video of a clip from Family Guy. In this clip we see the shot of Peter and Lois sat on the couch, and then it does a cutaway shot to Peter being a police sketch artist. It shows that through editing it is showing something else that is happening at a similar time.