The Art of Film Editing

Film editing is the art of storytelling and is unique to cinema. An editor is responsible for the cohesiveness of the story, the mood each sequence creates, the pacing of the story, and is one of the most leading people in the final movie-making process. The editor oversees the final product to make sure the viewer is seeing the director's vision.

In the early days of movie making, an editor using analog film would manually edit it, physically cut each frame and hot splice them together to make a whole. Edwin S. Porter, a pro filmmaker at the starting of the early 1900s, is concept to be one of the first in the commerce to utilize and organize the art of editing. He was one of the first to use activity editing, the piecing together of distinct shots and scenes, to make the movie more visually engaging. Today, with the advances in technology, film, and with the addition of digital and Hd cameras, filmmaking has come 180 degrees since the days of Edwin Porter.

In the 21st century, movie editing has industrialized far beyond the cutting room floor and the bodily splicing of film. Now it can be digitally edited by professionals and amateurs alike using industrialized software programs. The art and music hubs of Nyc and La are being wide to many areas of that nation through the ease of high tech resources that are ready to even the most amateur of filmmakers. Now the art of editing, once a profession little to a few, is ready to whatever with the ambition and drive to become the storyteller of cinema.

On 12:38 AM | 0 comments

The Role of Film Editing in Film production

Do you still remember the stories your grandma or mom used to relate when you were a child. The very surmise of telling a story is to relate a definite message or moral. Remember how the person telling a story expresses the separate characters and emotions by acting differently or changing the facial expressions or tones. We by all means; of course used to enjoy that and get complicated in the story and start picturising ourselves in place of some character in the story. We start picturising more and more in our mind as we get complicated more into the story. That leads us to believe more and more in the fiction. The same conception applies to the films or movies. The population making the film are trying to express or let's say relate a definite message to the audience. Of course the medium is rich and it becomes a bit easier than the grandma's process but the essence remains the same, to tell a story in the best possible way.

So what exactly is a film? Well a film or movie is again a story told with challenging images, hence the term appeal picture applies to films. This is achieved by capturing photographic images with cameras. Most of us would have used a camera to capture images in our daily life. It's the same thing. The only discrepancy is in a film the images are captured in sequence. Like a horse galloping captured in a series of photographs to show the full movement. This experiment was done by Eadweard Muybridge in 1877, the first ever appeal picture.

He used manifold still cameras to capture how a horse gallops. But It was Edison who invented the first ever film camerato employ challenging images called the Kinetograph. In 1890 the first film strip made was dubbed "Strongman Sandow" which was just a guy flexing his muscles. Although before that Edison experimented with two films Monekyshines No. 1 (1890) and Monkeyshines No. 2 (1890). None of the them were meant to be seen by the social as Edison was just trying to test the cylinder of the Kinetograph.

Phew! that's adequate of the history for now:D

Computer Animation is also used for making a film or appeal picture. The series of images captured by camera or created via animation or optical effects are called frames. Commonly it takes about 24 frames to capture or originate one second of plane motion. 24 frames/second is the suitable video format for non linear video editing.

The whole process of producing a film is called Film making or film production. This process involves a lot of population to deliver the film from the first story or idea to a full length appeal picture.

Some of them are Scriptwriter, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Actor, Editor, Compositor and many more. As I said it's a huge team effort and not a piece of cake. Unlike many other art editing is the only one that is unique to film output separating film making from other art forms if compared to photography, theater, directing etc.

So What is Editing?
Editing means "correcting, revising, or adapting" in general. It's very much the same in film making. In film making the process of selecting good shots and later combining them to produce the final film or movie is called Film editing. Editing is the only art that is said to be invisible because when it's done properly the viewer or the buyer gets engaged so deeply that s/he can't even consideration the editors work. Film editing can do miracles with a shot. Straight through film editing we can slow down a scene, speed it up, change the mood, change the point of view anyway in which we want to present. Total control, now that's awesome.

Who is responsible?
The person responsible for the editing job in a movie is called a Film Editor. He Commonly works with other asst. Editors and junior editors to complete the task. Although the whole editing team works for the film storytelling the film editor or the chief editor is the one with huge responsibilities. S/he is approximately the second director of the film because s/he is the one who ultimately decides which shots to keep and which to omit. The first assembled film in case,granted by the editors after editing is called the Editor's cut. It's the very first cut before two more cuts(Director's cut and Final cut) producing the final version. The editor works very intimately with the film directors to understand what the directors want and deliver the same.

Why is it necessary?
Well there are many reasons. Let's say, if you got a plate full of separate items to eat but you don't like any of them because let's say they are not spicy and you like spicy food, don't you? Now say what will you do? Will you eat it? nothing else but not. No matter what kind of food it is you will just keep it aside. It's the same here, if you will not find a movie challenging adequate to you than you will naturally not see it. The poor producer and financiers will suffer. Editor adds that minute bit of spice in needed amount to make the whole film making curry spicy or challenging to the viewer. So that's the kind of responsibility a editor possess and that makes an Editor nothing else but requisite to a film making process.

So that's it for now. Will keep posting about film editing and film making on my blog. So the next time you see a movie try guessing the editors job in it, let me know what you found? You can ask questions on my blog too. Till then Take care folks. :)

On 12:25 PM | 0 comments

Film and Video Editing May Be the Most leading Part of production Movies

To the novice, film and video editing sounds like one of those wholly technical subjects, only possibly enthralling to citizen with very logical and pragmatic minds, much like engineers. Visions of darkrooms and sterile-looking studios filled with all types of inexplicable mechanical equipment, where rolls of film negatives are poured over and scrutinized by serious-looking people, then diced, sliced and spliced back together, somewhat completes the total mental picture. Clinical, stark, precise. But in actuality, film and video editing is much more than celluloid or electronic image surgery. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Think of it this way; man shoots a video of your beloved cousin's wedding. The end goods is a nice, mostly continuous documentation of the event, with abrupt starts and stops here and there when the main operation changes or moves to a dissimilar area or location that necessitates a dissimilar "shot". The end result is a compilation of pictures and sound that is considerably good and hopefully more memorable and satisfying than still photographs, but still leaves a lot to be desired.

However, if the same raw video was settled into the hands of a skilled editor, the end result would be quite different. The resulting piece would tell the story of the culmination of your cousin's three-year romance, as narrated by several key family members. It would capture and convey to the viewing audience the couple's wedding day emotions of love, and joy and appreciation for one an additional one and family, prospect of the new life the consolidate intends to originate together, a bit of sadness for the life they are forever leaving behind, and so on. In other words, in the hands of a skilled editor, the video becomes a "story" with a beginning, middle and end; a cohesive synopsis of the couple's romance. A day in the life...

What most citizen not in the film or video business don't perceive is that film and video editing is an art form. Editing is arguably the most prominent element of film or video production. It is in the editing, the art of arranging pictures and dialog and sounds, that a accomplished film goods is able to enumerate a story first envisioned by its writer, and subsequently by a director and producer to its intended audience. Days, weeks even months of shots captured on film or video must be studied, interpreted analyzed and finally distilled into a story lasting a fraction of the time it took to capture it all.

People covering the film development business have slight or no idea about "post production" and the crucial part it plays in the output of a film or video work. It is because of the requisite significance of this phase of film and video output that the process takes an extended number of time to complete.

Much more that cutting and splicing pieces of cellophane together or merely arranging video sequence, editing is a fabulous blend of technical knowledge and skill combined with an artist's creativity and craftsmanship. It is moving, adding, deleting, juxtaposing, scenes, sounds, and images to compose film shots and video clips into a determined context, originate definite imagery and timing, evoke single emotion, originate definite imagery and mold them into a story.

Film editing as a craft began in the late 1890's in the very earliest days of appeal pictures. In the intervening years between then and now, whatever interested in learning about film or video editing, commonly attended college courses or one of a number of reputable film schools to learn the craft.

In his book, "The Technique Of Film And Video Editing", considered one of the best teaching and training tools for directors , Ken Dancyger highlights the history of film editing from its origins. He speaks specifically about the editing of great cinematographers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, taking a detailed look at the underlying theory of film and video editing. He discusses ideas, practices and styles and choices for editors in the context of theory, the history of film and video editing, and practice. He also discusses new technology and the impact it has in terms of the art of editing.

One of the greatest changes to film and video editing occurred with the introduction of computer editing. Hand cutting and splicing of film, as well as the more complicated, mechanical and "linear" process of video editing, became tedious and outdated with the arrival of computer editing in the early 1990's. Editing on computers gave rise to a whole new creativity prized by film editors, as well as lower costs and much more efficiency in terms of video editing.

Whether for film or video, the editing process occurs in three basic steps. These comprise capture, the editing process itself, and putting the goods in a distributable form. During the capture phase, the actual "shots" or photo images are compiled into a format from which they can be edited. During the actual editing process, the variety of shots are organized in a desired sequence and sound is added through "sound mixing" until they form a total storyline. Once this has been accomplished, the film or video is finalized in the desired format whether film or high-quality video for distribution.

As technology continues to advance, the ways in which film and video are edited will continue to compose and progress. As it stands today, computers and user friend video editing software as well as the Internet have opened the doors to editing so that it is available to not only professional film and video editors. Now students of film and video and film development novices, as well as journalists, writers and the normal social have unprecedented passage to video editing tools. several beloved video editing programs make film and video editing inherent for professionals as well as novice editors, together with Avid Express Pro, Adobe Premier Pro, Sony Vegas, Final Cut Pro and Apple Final Cut Studio 2.

With today's technology and the advantage of personal computers, digital camera equipment and the availability of knowledge from new and increasingly fine software programs, approximately whatever with the desire, can learn film and video editing, produce commercial products and even feature movies from their home or personal studio.

On 11:04 AM | 0 comments