What Is Editing?

As a transitive verb, “to edit” can mean to review, refine, modify, eliminate, or assemble components into a new, acceptable form. It was first used broadly with the written word and is now also applied to moving picture and sound creations. For our purposes, the term “editing” (a noun) is the act of assembling individual clips of picture and sound into a coherent story of some kind. So an “editor” is a person who takes a bunch of picture and sound material, and reviews, refines, modifies, eliminates, and assembles those picture and sound components into a new, acceptable form or story.

FIGURE 1.1 Initially, editing motion picture film required very basic technologies.

FIGURE 1.2 The head of the film clip for Shot B is edited onto the tail end of Shot A.

An edit (also a noun) is the place where you join together those clips, and transition from one shot to the next within that assembly. Put simply, an edit is a cut point: a place where one shot ends and another separate shot begins. The term “cut” stems from the days when motion pictures were shot and edited on very long strips of celluloid plastic emulsion film. Looking at the individual still frames on that strip of film, the editor would determine where to physically cut the film between pictures. A pair of scissors or a razor-blade “splicer” was used to actually cut the film at that point (Figure 1.1). Glue or tape was then used to join the different cut strips of plastic film together again (Figure 1.2). The cut or join becomes the point of transition from one shot to the next. The straight cut described here is just one way to move between shots. How, when, and why you choose to transition from one shot to another depends on many variables.

Tools

The first factor you may wish to consider is what medium you are using to perform the actual edits: film, tape-to-tape video, or digital video-editing software. Each medium, and the devices that are used in the editing processes, can often dictate physical, time-related, or, certainly, financial limitations. At the time of writing, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who, on a large and consistent scale, still splices emulsion film prints or runs linear tape edit suites. The majority of editing, for all kinds of motion media projects, is now done almost exclusively on computers (desktops, laptops, tables, or even mobile smartphones).

If you only have access to very basic editing software, then do not worry; you are still able to effectively edit picture and sound elements to create a good story. More advanced tools can allow new editors to play with more bells and whistles, but at the core, you need to maintain good storytelling (or story-showing) methods, regardless of the type of project you are making. Don’t believe the hype: the “latest and greatest” technologies do not automatically enhance the quality or value of your project. You may find, however, that it is necessary to have a recent operating system and a recent version of editing software in order to actually decode and play the video files generated by the many different digital video cameras in use today.

However, having some access to a decent computer and the video-editing software of your choice is actually very important to anyone’s progression as a practicing video editor. If you do not have the tools, you cannot practice, and you cannot do the work; therefore your skills will not improve. Luckily, several of the major apps do allow for free trials or “limited-use” free versions of their fully functioning software. Certain apps, with rudimentary features, are free or relatively inexpensive for download and do a fine job at providing you the tools you will need to complete basic and intermediate video projects. Audio-editing applications are similarly available.

In this book, we will purposefully keep the discussions of editing grammar as generic as possible. We will do very little in the way of mentioning specific hardware or software, tool names, buttons, menu items, or keyboard shortcuts. There are, quite frankly, too many, and they are being modified or removed with each new version of each device or app. The general working practices presented here should apply to any medium or genre and to most editing devices or applications. Just be aware that certain terminology used in one medium may have its origins rooted in another and may vary from one software application to another and even from one country to another.

Project Type and Genre

A second factor that may affect your editing choices can be the kind of project that you are editing. Are you assembling picture and sound media for a documentary, a fictional narrative short film, a news package, a website’s how-to video, a music video, a television commercial, a cousin’s wedding video, or even an animated cartoon? Each type of motion media project may have a differing duration, call for certain editing styles, and use particular visual elements, transitions, etc. For instance, you may wish to use long, slow dissolves from one shot to the next in a moody music video, but you may not find it very beneficial to use them in a hard-hitting, factual news package. We will discuss dissolves in more detail later, but the example illustrates the importance of understanding the traditionally accepted guidelines of style for differing program types and for genres within those distinct kinds of programs.

The project’s budget, scope, purpose, quality of resources, and turnaround time also play into the approach an editor can take. Personal or “no-budget” productions may require that you own your own computer and software and have access to a large number of available media file storage hard drives. Larger shows are edited in more professional editing facilities with very complex signal flow and shared network storage. Often, a project’s budget also affects the scope (the length of the desired final edit), the quality of resources, and the time frame for completion. Short news pieces with only a few images and soundbites need to be cut together quickly to get to air. A feature film, especially a grand epic saga, may have tens or hundreds of hours of footage to comb through and assemble into a rather complex, multi-character storyline. This kind of project may take months of your life to finish.

The particular type of project you are editing can also demand and/or influence many of the nitty-gritty editing choices you get to make. If you are cutting for an established TV show, it probably already has a template or formula to be followed. Watch enough “reality” and non-fiction TV and you’ll quickly see the sections, patterns, and timings of each episode. A slow-moving drama may call for uninterrupted long takes of really strong performances by the actors. A promotional video for a motocross racing team may benefit from very fast cutting of short, action-filled clips accompanied by hard driving music and many visual effects (sometimes called VFX or DVE). Your own experimental film or a music video project could allow you total freedom when it comes to how you treat the visual and aural elements. For the purposes of clarity and simplicity, we will often focus on the grammar and practices associated with fictional narrative motion picture storytelling, but the general guidelines may apply to all forms of motion media.

Degree of Audience Manipulation

It is safe to say that almost all edited motion media projects are destined to be viewed by some kind of audience, whether on a social media stream, in a large movie theater, or along the aisles of a “big-box” store. The editor is the person who crafts that particular viewing experience for the intended audience. Often tied directly to the purpose of the project, the level of manipulation (and we mean this in a good way) invoked by the editor is variable. It’s like taking the audience on a ride at an amusement park. Are you going to create an adrenaline rush like the corkscrew coaster? Is your project calm like the “kiddie karz?” Do you want to construct a mysterious and complex story full of false leads like the hall of mirrors or frightening jump scares like the spooky haunted house?

The pacing and rhythm you provide to the edited shots, scenes, and sequences help to control the audience’s experience and their mental, physical, and emotional reactions to the story. If you present certain information in a certain order for particular durations on screen, you will get certain kinds of responses from the viewer. The need for and degree of audience manipulation comes from the content and purpose of the motion media project.

Are you editing an informational process or how-to video? Not so much direct manipulation of emotions needed there. Are you editing a short, funny video for a website? You might construct a set-up/pay-off scenario with comedic timing. A dramatic, action adventure story has all of the ups and downs of a roller coaster ride. Sustained tension needs a release. Suspense must end to feel completed. The script, the direction, and the performances (whatever the project might be) all add to the degree of audience manipulation that the editor constructs while assembling the picture and sound elements. Whether the goal of the project is to inform or to entertain, or a combination of both, the quality of the edited content allows the audience to engage with the material during the viewing experience – to think and to feel – in ways that you, the editor, want them to think and feel, when you want them to think and feel in those ways.

Other Factors

Another factor involved with over-arching editorial choices is your own level of creativity. Experience can help to give you speed of execution and some well-developed problem-solving skills, but any editor, regardless or age or time in the editor’s chair, can come up with bold, fresh, and innovative approaches to stitching together a very effective final product. The right editor can breathe new life into almost any old, tired, or boring content, but an editor, no matter how skilled, may still have to deal with those potential limiting factors discussed above.

Additionally, if the project is not your own, then you may have to consider the viewpoints and input of other parties. The vision of the director and the not-so-subtle suggestions of a producer can (and will) influence the direction in which a project, or certainly portions of projects, may go. Yes, an editor performs the task of editing, but she or he does not always have control over the many variables that are at play during the post-production process. The goal, however, should always be to create the best and most genre-appropriate viewing experience for the audience, regardless of any limiting factors or challenges that may present themselves. Getting your next job may depend on it.

Acquisition

Simply put, you must acquire the visual and audio media recorded by the production team and any other sources required for completing the edited project (i.e., still photos, music, graphics, etc.). Motion picture and sound elements, whether on emulsion film, analog tape, or digital tape, or as digital media files, must be gathered together for the duration of the post-production editing process. As almost all editing is done on computers, any source material not already in a digital format must be converted. If you are using a digital non-linear editing system to perform the edit, then you will have to import, capture, or “digitize” all materials as media on your storage drives. These media files must be protected and remain accessible by your editing software for the life of the project.

Organization

All of the minutes, hours, feet, reels, or gigabytes of picture, graphics, and sound elements should be organized in some way. If you do not have a clear system of labeling, grouping, or sorting all of the material needed for your project, you will eventually have a difficult time finding that particular videoclip or that special sound effect, etc. when you really need it. Having unique bins or folders for material arranged by date, subject, scene, etc. is wise on both short-term and long-term projects. Organization of source materials is not the most glamorous part of the editing process, but it can certainly make the difference between a smooth post-production workflow and a slower and more frustrating one. Many of the better editors and assistant editors are also highly prized for their organizational skills. Tame the chaos into order and craft the order into a motion picture.

Review and Selection

Once you have acquired and organized all of your elements, it will be necessary to review all of this material and pick out the best pieces that will work for your project. You will “pull the selects” and set aside the good stuff while weeding out the junk that you hope you will not have to use. Some editors place the “selects” (or copies of the good stuff) in their “working” bins or folders, while others might color code their clips according to usability. Labeling, in some way, the shots you would like to use will be important as you proceed with the edit. You would also be wise to not actually throw anything away (trash or delete) because you never know what might come in handy a day or a few weeks into the editing process. That one shot of the flag waving in the breeze may just save the entire edit, so keep it readily available even though you know it is not one of your original selections. Some editors create “master footage” sequences out of all of the good material so that they have a single source through which they can more easily scrub. This is faster than loading each individual clip in the source viewer.

Assembly

This process calls for assembling all of the major pieces of the project into a logical sequence of picture and sound elements. If you are editing a scripted story, you may initially try to follow that script as a blueprint for assembling the best selections of the various shots of the scenes that make up the motion picture. Some editors start off by following scripts with production notes or storyboards. If you are creating a documentary or even a music video, there is always some story that needs to be shown to an audience; assemble those raw parts into this skeleton version. Some editors even string together all of the good takes of a performance at the appropriate point of the assembly sequence in order to get a better feel for which take may work best, eventually keeping just the chosen one. No matter what genre the project, the story, in its longest and most rough-hewn form, takes shape now.

Rough Cut

This is the stage of the project’s development where the majority of the “visual fat” has been trimmed and you are left with a presentation that is a long but functional version of the narrative, with many rough edges. Not every cut is perfectly timed; there are no finalized titles or graphics; effects, if any, are more or less placeholders; and the audio mix certainly has not been completed. You do have the timing of the main elements down to a good pace, however, and you, and others to whom you show the developing work, like how the story unfolds, although major restructuring of scenes may still occur if the flow does not feel right.

Fine Cut

You have worked, re-worked, and massaged the material of your project into a tight and finely tuned presentation. You like the order and timing of shots in each scene, the overall pacing fits the story, and the various elements work together as best as they can. There will be no major renovations from this point forward. You, and the majority of the people to whom you show the piece, all agree that only minor tweaks are required. This cut is fine.

Picture Lock

You have reached picture lock when you are absolutely certain that you will not make any more changes to the picture track(s) of your edited sequence. The timing of all picture elements (shots, titles, black pauses, etc.) is set. Once you have locked the picture tracks (sometimes literally but mostly figuratively), you are then free to address your audio-mixing needs: final sound effects (SFX), level/panning tweaks, music scoring, etc. In the olden days of actual emulsion film “work print” editing, the picture track had to be locked at a precise duration so that each separately constructed audio track would sync up from the start frame. All computer editing software is so much more flexible that there is no longer an absolute need for picture lock, but keep in mind that any alteration to overall duration of picture tracks must still be altered on all corresponding audio tracks as well.

FIGURE 1.3 The common stages of the editing process.

Finishing

This stage is sometimes called the online edit. If the offline edit has been done with low-resolution or proxy files, then these are swapped out for the highest-resolution video clips possible. Finishing is the stage where the color correction (also known as timing or grading) of the image is accomplished. Every clip of video is made to look as good as necessary according to the needs of the project (i.e., appropriate colors, saturation and contrast levels, etc.). The final mixed audio tracks are also in place in your timeline along with these “finished” video tracks.

Mastering and Delivery

All of your efforts in creating a well-edited piece will mean very little if you cannot deliver the show to the audience that need to see it. These days, this process may mean rendering everything and recording your finished sequence onto a master HD videotape, creating a cut list for an optical film print for projection in a movie theater, exporting and converting your story into a computer video file, or authoring onto a DVD or Blu-ray disc. Each medium would require a unique process and supporting hardware, software, and media. The end result is that you have a fully mastered original version of your show that you can then convert into other media formats and upload and/or distribute to various viewing outlets for audiences to enjoy.

You should now have a pretty good idea of what the basic editing or post-production workflow is for any project, whether large or small. You certainly may encounter projects that do not call for all of these stages of editing to be executed in a clearly delineated manner, but, for the most part, you will touch upon some combination of each of these stages as you work toward your finished sequence.