So now you are ready to edit. Methods of capturing, organizing and editing footage vary greatly from project to project and filmmaker to filmmaker, but the basics remain the same.
NON-LINEAR, NON-DESTRUCTIVE
All digital editing software is non-linear and non-destructive. This is a huge improvement on the old methods of cutting film stock with a razor and dubbing magnetic videotape from one deck to another.
"Non-linear" simply means that you can edit scenes in any order you like on your timeline. If you want to edit the last scene first, go for it. If you want to start with the opening credits, or the special effects shots, or anywhere in the middle, you can. Non-linear systems allow you to drag and drop scenes and sequences anywhere you like on the timeline.
"Non-destructive" means that no matter how much you chop up your original footage in the timeline, the original files stay exactly as you shot them. How can this be?
Non-destructive editing software isn't actually deleting the footage at the beginning (head) of each shot and the footage from the end (tail). It's creating an EDL, or edit decision list, with timecodes that reference in and out points in your original footage. You might have trimmed the first four seconds off of a take, but what your editing software is really doing is telling the project to start playing your video four seconds in, rather than at the beginning.
Non-destructive editing also means you can re-use a shot, or parts of a take, over and over again in a timeline without having to copy the original footage even once. You can even apply special effects (slow-motion, for instance) to a take in one part of the timeline while keeping the original, regular speed take in another part of the timeline.
CAPTURING vs. IMPORTING
There are two methods of getting your footage from the camera and into your editor. The most common form of grabbing footage is called capturing and involves connecting your camera to the computer by FireWire or USB and allowing your computer to control the camera. That's right, when you tap the "record" button in your editor it will actually send a signal to your camera to begin playback. Most editing software cuts off capture automatically at the end of a tape, or when your software detects there is no more footage.
Some editing software has an option called automatic scene detection that attempts to organize your footage for you based on abrupt changes in color in the picture. Apple's iMovie has very good automatic scene detection, but whether you wish to have the computer do the work for you or separate scenes yourself manually is up to you.
If you do decide to roll without automatic scene detection, it's probably a good idea to stop the capture every ten minutes or so. That way, you won't be having to slice up a sixty-minute chunk of video into individual takes. This will also help your editor work more efficiently it will be referencing timecodes from multiple chunks of source material instead of one, gigantic hour-long chunk.
Importing usually refers to moving footage as video files from one digital source to another. For instance, a tapeless hard-drive camera already has all of your footage in digital files on its internal drive. Instead of capturing this footage in real-time, you would connect this type of camera to your computer and move the files from the camera to your computer's hard drive. This is a lot more efficient (you don't have to rewind and cue tape and capture it in real-time), but the files typically have names like PRG004 and need to be organized after you have imported them.
Many types of imported files will need to be converted into a format that your video editor can easily read and access. There is a freeware program online called MPEG Streamclip (available for both Mac and Windows) that is ideal for this. MPEG Streamclip can also read DVD's and convert video from one format to another.
VIDEO FORMAT
So why are there different types of video format at all? Well, in order to save space on your computer's hard drive, video files are often encoded and compressed, which can have a huge impact on the quality of your finished video.
In general, Mac-based platforms will default to the QuickTime format, which usually carries the file extension .mov.
Windows-based platforms will default to Audio Video Interleave, or AVI format, which usually carries the file extension .avi.
MPEG Streamclip can convert video files back and forth between these and other popular video formats including MPEG-1 (.mpg), MPEG-4 (.mp4), and others. Tapeless camcorders often save in the MOD (.mod) format which will not work with editors in either platform. You will need to use MPEG Streamclip to convert these files to QuickTime or AVI files in order to work with them.
TIMELINE
The key visual element of all video editing software is the timeline, a scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen which indicates where pieces of video, audio, titles, stills, music and other media are located in the timeline.
The timeline can be scaled up and down to see the entire timeline or zoom in on a single frame.
LAYERS
The timeline in most video editing software also includes multiple layers (or tracks) where you can put more than one layer of video and audio on top of one another. Adobe Premiere Elements, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, Avid Media Composer and Pinnacle Studio all allow multiple layers of audio and video on the timeline.
Audio tracks on different layers will play simultaneously (for instance, background music over dialogue) and have volume bars that can be adjusted up and down to control the sound mix.
Video tracks on different layers are used to mix images together. In Adobe, Avid, and Apple products, only the highest level of video will be seen. For example, if you have a person speaking on video track 1, and you put a title on video track 2, the title will appear over the person speaking.
MONITOR
Video editing software always includes a master window where you can play back the timeline. Premiere, Avid and Final Cut platforms also include a monitor window (usually to the left of the playback window) to play with footage before adding it to the timeline.
This is a throwback to the days of editing between two video decks one the source deck with the unedited tape of raw footage, and the other the record deck with the edited project tape.
In lower-end software platforms there is either a pop-up monitor window (Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio) or the main window toggles back and forth between being a monitor or playback window depending on where you click (iMovie).
Let's say we captured a five-minute chunk of video that includes three good sound bites from an interview. Rather than drag that five-minute clip to the timeline three times and trim the heads and tails three different times, we can open the same clip in a monitor window. The monitor window has playback controls that allow the editor to set "in" and "out" points for each sound bite.
To use the monitor, play the clip until you get to the beginning of the first sound bite. In Premiere, Avid and Final Cut you can mark the clip with an "in" marker by pressing the I key. Play the clip until you get to the end of the first sound bite, and mark the clip with an "out" marker by pressing the O key.
When you drag the clip to the timeline, it will not drag the entire five-minute extravaganza. Rather, it will drag your first sound bite! You can still trim it further in the timeline. Best of all, the clip remains in the monitor, ready for you to set in and out markers for the second sound bite.
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
A lot of editors like to create what is called an assembly edit, which is simply the raw footage assembled in order on the timeline. It may still include alternate takes, the director calling "action!" and may be missing special effects, music, and other details. The purpose of an assembly edit is to see approximately how long the project is, and identify any rough spots that will need special attention.
The next step in the editing process is to work towards a rough cut, which is much more watchable but may still include some extraneous material and run a little long. Any good editor looks for creative ways to make a project shorter and tighter. A good rough cut helps to illustrate areas of the project that drag or seem overlong.
The rough cut may have temporary ("temp") music or special effects in order to illustrate for the viewer the general mood and pacing of the project, even if the sound mix and visuals are not complete
TITLES and TRANSITIONS
Editing for the first time can be exhilarating thanks to the exhaustive library of titles, transitions and effects available to the editor.
Titles allow the editor to place text on screen, either over black, over a still image, or over video. All editing software platforms allow you to modify the font and size of your titles and may include some basic animation (such as iMovie's infamous spinning titles). The higher-end platforms allow you to control the titles with Photoshop-like precision and even create your own title styles (saving your colors, fonts, sizes, etc.) for use elsewhere in the project and even in other projects.
Transitions are the smoothing visual effects that you can drag between shots to create various moods and impressions. It is tempting, in your first project, to include one of every kind of transition. This can be fun for a goof, but it is important to limit your use of transitions and understand how transitions are used in Hollywood films. That 3-D spinning cube transition may look good on MTV's "Cribs" or on "Inside Edition," but will look comical in your serious expose of teenage angst.
Most filmmakers still limit their use of transitions to those that can be recreated optically, in a film lab dissolves, wipes and fades. These transitions are part of the language of film and have their own connotations in popular use.
A dissolve, or cross dissolve, is where one shot fades out as another is fading in. You can set the length of the dissolve by clicking on the transition most default to 1 second, but you can set very quick transitions (half a second, or 14 frames) and very lengthy ones (3 seconds seems like an eternity). Lengthy dissolves are commonly used to show a character lost in thought, contemplating their next move, and gradually introduce the next thing that happens.
Fade-ins and fade-outs also have their own connotations in the language of film. A fade-in, particularly in the middle of a narrative, usually indicates that some time has passed. It is often used to indicate that a chracter is waking up from sleep just as the character opens his or her eyes, the camera also opens its "eye" to the action. A fade to black in the middle of a narrative is used to indicate a particularly momentous development. This is akin to the drama of the curtain dropping between acts of a play that's all you get, you won't see any more.
Fades in and out from white have their own connotations in particular, a fade out to white usually means that something supernatural or dreamlike has just occurred. In some films and TV shows it is used to indicate a character's death.
Wipes (also known as pushes) are a little trickier they're more cartoonish, so you are more likely to see them in adventure films (George Lucas is a big fan of old-school wipes) and comedies. In a wipe, the outgoing shot is literally wiped or pushed off the screen by the incoming shot. Again, this is best used to dramatically illustrate a change in location the cinematic equivalent of the word "Meanwhile
" in a comic book.
A clock wipe (another Lucas fave) uses the clockwise sweep of a clock's hand to brush one shot offscreen and usher the next one on again, the connotation is the passage of time.
VIDEO EFFECTS
Editing software also gives you an overwhelming arsenal of video effects to choose from everything from adding a grainy, scratched-up "old film" look to more complicated effects that add fog, smoke, rain and other novelties to your footage.
Again, it is easy to go overboard with video effects on your first try. One definite to avoid is applying the same effect to every single clip. If you shot in color and want to make your film black-and-white, for example, wait until you have completed the film at least to the rough cut stage, and export it to a new file. You can then apply the effect to the entire film, and adjust individual shots as necessary.
The most valuable video effect in any editing software is the ability to color-correct your footage, whether that is a simple adjustment of the brightness and contrast (similar to adjusting the picture on your computer's monitor) or a full-blown adjustment of red, green, and blue in the shadows, midtones and highlights of your picture.
RENDERING
When adding titles, transitions and video effects to your project you may notice little pauses and red lines accumulating in your project's timeline. In order to properly complete a transition, or title, or video effect at full quality, your computer needs to monopolize the CPU for a bit to perform all of the calculations necessary to properly display a particular title, transition or effect.
If you adjust any parameters of those titles, transitions or effects (let's say you shorten a dissolve from one second to half a second), you will need to render that segment of your project again. Rendering can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the complexity of your project. Just like you are in the habit of saving your work often, get in the habit of rendering your work often.
After rendering, the titles, transitions and effects you've added to your project will appear a lot smoother in playback though still not completely finished. That's because, upon export, your entire project will render again, frame by frame, to achieve the highest possible quality.
LOCKING IT DOWN
This is a tip you will not find in many editing tutorials, but if you are more or less finished with a particular sequence of your film, you might consider "locking it down" by exporting it to a new file. This is especially useful in low-end editing packages like iMovie and Pinnacle Studio that can crash or hang endlessly while trying to render the same old scenes over and over.
Remember to save a version of your project, however, that you can go back and adjust. If there's a ginormous car wreck in your opening scene, you might "save as" your project to something called Car Wreck Sequence. After you "save as" you can delete all the footage before and after the car wreck. Then, export your Car Wreck Sequence project to a new file called "Car Wreck Lockdown." This will contain all of the titles, transitions and effects you applied earlier, in full quality. If you need to adjust the sequence later, open the project that contains just the Car Wreck Sequence, make your changes, and re-export your project to a new file.
ADVANCED EDITING
Once you get the rhythm and organizational skills of editing (your workflow) down, you can experiment with really fine-tuning your project to make it really shine. Here are some key tricks to making your project stand above the rest.
L-CUTS AND J-CUTS
You know how in a lot of movies and TV shows a character starts telling a story, and shortly after the story begins, we begin to see the story he or she is telling, but continue to hear the actor telling the story? This is called an L cut, because of the "L" shape made on the timeline by a video clip that ends, and a dangling audio clip that continues on down the timeline.
To create an L cut, first you have to remove the video where you'd like the visual cut to begin. Sometimes this involves "unlinking" the audio clip from the video clip so that you can work with each track separately. Then, you can drag the video segment(s) you want to see into place above the audio.
A J cut is precisely the opposite of what is described above a dangling piece of audio that begins long before the video that syncs up with it. This technique is used a lot in TV shows and news programs you hear an actor or interviewee begin speaking before you actually see their face. It has roughly the same effect as using a lengthy dissolve, allowing a disembodied voice to speak over an image, and then suddenly revealing the speaker's face.
CUTTING TO SOUND
Something that both L cuts and J cuts have in common is the technique of covering a well-edited audio piece with appropriate segments of video. This is the technique most commonly employed in TV news, because it is easy to cut the sound together first and then lay video clips over the sound.
This is where the non-destructive aspect of digital editing and creative use of layers can really bring out your creativity in the post-production process. In low-end editing packages like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker. you'll have to guess how long a clip should be in order to fill a gap with no video.
In layer-based programs like Premiere, Avid and Final Cut, you can simply drag your video to a higher layer than the video you'd like to cover, and let the audio be your guide as to where to make the cuts. This allows you to play with a variety of different clips without even cutting the video "beneath" the new layer you are working on.
