Introduction
Today’s world seems to be filled with screens, both large and small, that stream moving images. From the IMAX theater to the billboard near the highway to your UHDTV, laptop, or tablet to the smartphone in your pocket: all are capable of displaying motion pictures. And every moving image that you see on these screens has been edited. Movies, television shows, commercials, music videos, and web videos of all kinds have been cut down, re-ordered, padded out, massaged, sweetened, and tweaked to some degree or another – by an editor.
A writer creates the story, a director coaches the actors, a cinematographer creates the visual style of each shot, and an editor puts all of those pieces together. Being one of the last creative people to touch a motion media project, the editor truly is the final storyteller. That final version may be exactly what the creators set out to make, or it may be very different in mood, tempo, information content, or emotional effect. It is the skill, craft, and gut instinct of the editor that help to form the over-arching visual style, pacing, and coherence of story that are ultimately experienced by the audience. Editing is where you get to figure out how to make it all work together.
This book, Grammar of the Edit, Fourth Edition, continues the series’ long tradition of introducing a beginner to the world of motion picture editing. The suggested guidelines, and general practices presented herein will provide a new student of this craft with a solid understanding of the established techniques and methodologies associated with the what, how, and why of the video-editing process.
The updated fourth edition has been thoughtfully redesigned, enhanced, and expanded. Many of the figures that illustrate the concepts have been replaced or refreshed. Each chapter begins with an outline of that chapter’s contents, and ends with a detailed review section highlighting the main concepts covered by that chapter. Value-added sections called Exercises and Quiz Yourself conclude each chapter. They present ways in which you can immediately put into practice the techniques and guidelines discussed in the chapter, and offer a gauge to see how well you absorbed the information. Many new topics have been added throughout and most recurring topics have been rewritten and restructured for clarity and flow.
Regardless of the career direction in which the fledgling editor wishes to go, everyone needs to learn how to walk before they can run and this book should help to define the basic terms and clarify the common practices of editing. It does not mention specific video-editing software but it does discuss some issues inherent to the digital video medium. The terms “motion picture” or “motion media piece” may be used liberally to encompass a variety of live-action and animated project types, whether produced for the web, television, or movie theater. A particular genre of film or a specific type of television programming may be called out in an example to help to illustrate a unique point. The goal of this book is to inform a person who is new to editing about the accepted practices of the craft, the reasoning behind those practices, and how the audience interpret meaning, on several levels, from the edited piece. Good technique and not-so-good technique will be discussed and illustrated. In the end, you will find that there is no 100% right and there is no 100% wrong; there is only what works and what does not work – and why.