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The term 'editing' is often used in two slightly different ways. Sometimes it is referred to as the process of selecting and re-recording just the good footage, eliminating the bad. Sometimes the term is used for only a part of the post-production process, including titling, effects, etc. For the purposes of our study, we shall consider the second. Editing is only a minor part of post-production because post-production does not stop with editing the video but also includes promotion, distribution, etc.
A number of considerations go into making edit decisions during the post-production phase. However, some of the reasons why we would want to edit the footage available after shooting are to
- Join a series of disjointed shots to create meaningful scenes and sequences and, in turn, a film in totality
- Omit portions of the footage that we would consider as unwanted, irrelevant, or even distracting Increase or decrease the duration of a Programme/film
- Shift the audience's interest from one aspect of a scene to another
- Emphasize or conceal information
- Reveal information in stages
- Deliberately change the significance of an action
We will see all these points come into play when we actually sit down to edit our footage to make a film.
Before we go on to understand the grammar of editing and its associated aspects, let us first learn how a video tape recorder (VTR) works. After all, rushes mostly come from tapes and once a programme is completed, it is dumped back on tape-a master tape. The master tape is the one on which the final programme is recorded. If we use a tapeless video camera (ones that use disks for video storage instead of tapes), our footage will be in the form of files. We will need a computer to edit the footage and dump the completed film on a tape or a CD/DVD.
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