One of the most rewarding and exciting aspects of creating a short film or video is editing. The narrative truly comes together at this point. Your movie will be greatly affected by the choices you make regarding the shots you utilize, how you assemble them, and how you use sound.
Film editing is the art and craft of cutting and assembling finished film. This work is done by a film editor who helps complete the director’s vision of the movie. The creative choices of an editor are usually a combination of what they think is best for the film and what the director (and producers) want for the finished project. Mostly done during post-production, aspects of film editing can involve physical strips of celluloid film, digital files, or both.
The editing system – Consists of a computer with editing software, a fast processor,
high storage capacity, external monitors for easier viewing, and audio listening and
mixing capabilities.
Non-linear editing (NLE) – is an editing process that enables the editor to make changes to a video or audio project without regard to the linear timeline. It’s non-destructive editing. In other words, you can work on whichever clip you want in any order. It doesn’t matter if it lands in the beginning, middle, or end of the project.
Linear Editing – Linear Editing is the process of making cuts and edits on film. It is destructive and must be done sequentially in order to create a final film print of an edited piece. Essentially, you start editing the project at the beginning and finish at the end, with everything staying in order.
The basic principle of editing is file management.
The Stages of Film Editing
Logging
Logging is the process by which the editor watches the raw footage from production, taking note of key moments such as shots that are out of focus or unusable, or moments that are particularly relevant to the story. Logging inside of the editing software usually involves syncing the footage, labeling it with a proper naming convention and color coding as requested by the editor.
Assembly
The editor is cutting footage that comes in, daily, so that by the end of day 2 all of the footage from day 1 is cut and assembled. This allows the director and producers to watch an assembled version of the scene they shot yesterday.
Rough cut
The first cut of a film that is complete, with all of the production materials filmed, is known as the rough cut, or editors cut.
Fine cut
During the creation of the fine cut, many small steps occur. The editor, director, and assistants all begin collaborating with the various collaborators on the film. This includes the composer, the post production sound department, the visual effects team, and the colorist.
Final cut
This can include sending revised scenes to the sound mixer, bringing in music cues from the composer, and cutting in new VFX shots.
Shoot for editing tips
You should be thinking about editing as you plan and shoot your film. The pages about continuity and coverage have advice on how to film shots that will edit together.
Select just what the story needs
Don’t be precious about your footage, however proud of it you are. The finished film is the important thing. You may need to leave out some really good stuff if it doesn’t fit. (But don’t delete any clips unless you’re absolutely sure they’re unusable.)
Select the important action
Choose the clips that show the essential action. You can leave out anything that doesn’t help tell the story. Use just the part of the clip that has the action you need.
Show something new with each edit
Show a different subject, or a different view of the same thing: a different shot size or camera position.
Vary the shot size and angle
Don’t cut between two very similar shots of the same thing, unless you really want a ‘jump cut’ for effect.
Step between shot sizes
If you cut straight from an extreme long shot to an extreme closeup, viewers won’t understand where the closeup fits into the bigger picture. Use an in-between size like a mid shot to bring the viewer with you.
Use cutaways to hide jumpy edits
If you have to cut similar shot sizes together, use another shot to hide the join. Add it as a ‘cutaway’ above the main clips.
Use a master shot for an overview
Long shots and extreme long shots remind viewers of where everything fits into the scene.
Get the pace right
A shot should stay on screen long enough for people to understand it, but not so long that they get bored. Closeups, simple shots, and shots without any action or movement, can be short. Long shots, extreme long shots, and any shots with detail will need to be on screen for longer.
Check that the pace is consistent. Sudden changes of pace look really clunky, whether it’s a shot that out stays its welcome, or one that flashes by too fast to grasp.
Use the right transitions
Transitions are the ‘joins’ between shots. Does your scene show continuous action, or one short space of time? You should use cuts, where the shot goes straight into the next one. If you use fades or dissolves, you’ll confuse people.
In a cross dissolve or cross fade, the shots dissolve into each other (one image gets weaker while the next shot gets stronger). You can use these to show that you’ve left out a short space of time, or part of a journey. You can use a fade out (usually to black) at the end of a scene.
Fade out followed by a fade in means that a period of time has passed. Wipes and other elaborate transitions don’t usually contribute to storytelling.
Edit on the action
If you edit while an action is happening, rather than at the beginning or the end, it’ll look smoother. Viewers will concentrate on the movement, not the edit.
Don’t cut moving shots to still shots
It’s jarring if you show something moving in one shot and it’s not moving in the next shot. Let the movement come to an end before you cut to a static shot.
Pay attention to the sound
Don’t have sudden changes in sound level, or dead silence, unless you’re deliberately trying to shock people. Build your soundtrack carefully. When you have more than one audio track, you need to balance the sound levels. You don’t want background sound, or music, drowning out dialogue.
Use sound that carries across the edit
You can use ‘wild track’, ‘room tone’ or ‘ambience’ – background sound from the location – to avoid silence and keep things smooth. For dialogue scenes – where you cut between shots of each character – try using split edits where the sound changes at a different time from the picture. These are also called J-cuts (where the sound changes first) and L-cuts. You can use a J-cut as a sound bridge between separate scenes, where you hear the sound from the new location before you see it.
Keep track of the bigger picture
Don’t get so bogged down in one edit that you lose track of how it fits into the sequence. Play several shots together – or the whole sequence – to check how it all works together.
