For the uninitiated, film and video editing seems like one of those quite technical subjects, perhaps only interesting to people with very logical and pragmatic minds, like engineers. Visions of darkened rooms and sterile studios filled with all manner of inexplicable mechanical equipment, where rolls of film negatives are poured and examined by serious-looking people, then cut and spliced back together, somewhat complete the overall mental picture. My bed is stark and accurate. But in reality, film and video editing is much more than celluloid surgery or electronic photo surgery. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
I think it is this way; Someone is shooting a video of your favorite cousin’s wedding. The end product is a bland, mostly continuous documentation of the event, with abrupt starts and stops here and there when the main activity changes or moves to a different area or location necessitating a different ‘shot’. The end result is a compilation of pictures and sound that’s much better and hopefully more filling and satisfying than still images, but still leaves a lot to be desired.
However, if the same raw video is put into the hands of a skilled editor, the end result will be very different. The resulting piece will tell the culmination of your cousin’s three-year romance, as told by several key family members. It will capture and convey to the viewer the feelings of love, joy and appreciation for each other and the family on their wedding day, the anticipation of the new life that the couple intends to create together, a little bit of sadness for the life they left behind forever, and so on. In other words, the video in the hands of a skilled editor becomes a “story” with a beginning, middle, and end; A coherent summary of the couple’s romance. Day in the life…
What most people who are not in the film or video industry don’t realize is that film and video editing is an art form. Editing is arguably the most important component of film or video production. In editing, the art of arranging images, dialogues, and sounds, the final film product is able to communicate a story first conceived by its writer, and then by the director and producer, to its target audience. The days, weeks, and even months of footage captured on film or video must be studied, interpreted, analyzed, and eventually distilled into a story that lasts a fraction of the time it took you to capture it all.
People outside the film industry have little or no idea what “post-production” is and the critical role it plays in the production of a film or video work. Due to the high importance of this stage of film and video production, the process takes a long time to complete.
Much more than snapping and cutting cellophane together or simply arranging a video sequence, editing is an amazing combination of technical knowledge and skill combined with the artist’s creativity and craft. They move, add, delete, line up, sights, sounds, and images to develop film and video footage in a specific context, create specific images and timing, evoke a specific emotion, and create and shape specific images into a story.
Film editing as a craft began in the late 1890s in the very early days of motion pictures. In the years between then and now, anyone interested in learning about film or video editing usually attends university courses or one of the reputable film schools to learn the craft.
In his book Film and Video Editing Technique, considered one of the best teaching and training tools for directors, Ken Danseger sheds light on the history of film editing since its inception. Speaking specifically about editing great cinematographers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he takes a detailed look at the basic principles of film and video editing. It discusses the ideas, practices, methods, and choices of editors in the context of the theory, history, and practice of film and video editing. It also discusses new technology and its impact in terms of the art of editing.
One of the biggest changes in film and video editing occurred with the introduction of computer editing. Manual film cutting and splicing, as well as the complex, mechanical, and “linear” process of video editing, became tedious and obsolete with the advent of computer editing in the early 1990s. Editing on computers has given rise to a whole new creativity appreciated by film editors, as well as lower costs and increased efficiency in terms of video editing.
Whether for movie or video, the editing process takes place in three basic steps. This includes capture, the editing process itself, and putting the product into a distributable form. During the capture phase, the actual “snapshots,” or photo images, are compiled into a format from which they can be edited. During the actual editing process, the set of shots is organized into the desired sequence and audio is added through “audio mixing” until it forms an overarching story. Once done, the movie or video is finished in the desired format whether it is a high quality movie or video for distribution.
As technology continues to advance, film and video editing methods will continue to evolve and advance. As it is today, computers and user-friendly video editing software as well as the Internet have opened doors for editing to not be limited to only professional film and video editors. Now budding film, video, and filmmaking students, as well as journalists, writers, and the general public, have unprecedented access to video editing tools. Several popular video editing programs make film and video editing possible for professionals as well as novice editors, including Avid Express Pro, Adobe Premier Pro, Sony Vegas, Final Cut Pro, and Apple Final Cut Studio 2.
With today’s technology and advantage of personal computers, digital camera equipment, and the availability of knowledge from new and increasingly powerful software, almost anyone can learn to edit film and video, produce commercial productions, and even feature films from their home or personal studio.
