What is video or film editing?

Good editing can save a bad performance, scene, story, or film. Bad editing can also ruin it. Read on if you're interested in finding out more about the power of editing.

Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was quoted as saying:

"I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking. (…) I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing a film to edit."[1]

He’s not the only one who believes that a film’s ultimate form, shape, story, meaning, and content is derived from the editing process. In fact, people often call it the final rewrite.

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Yet many people don’t think about editing nor can they name any film editors. So, it is no surprise that film editing is often referred to as the invisible art, meaning it is both unrecognised in its importance in the filmmaking process, but also underestimated as the crucial structuring element.

In fact, the most immersive a film is and the more undetectable its construction; the more care, skill, and time has gone into its editing.

So, what is editing and what does it really do?

In its most basic form, video or film editing is the mechanics of putting shots together in a row. However, the craft and skill of editing lies in the way each shot is selected, how and where it is placed, and how this creates a meaningful and emotionally engaging final product.

I try and teach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of editing

In other words, editing is an incredibly versatile and multi-dimensional tool. It has the power to totally transform the nature, quality, and efficacy of a story. Good editing can save a bad performance, scene, story, or film. Bad editing can also ruin it.

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I try and teach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of editing.

In most of my editing classes students start with the same source material and brief. Imagine you are given 10 clips and a brief. Using this, your imagination, and the best of your ability, you are tasked to create a movie.

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Surprisingly, even in the first sessions this can result in hundreds, yes, hundreds, of different outcomes. Each result is unlike the next, and students often comment on the marvel of that.

Of course, the differences can be subtle and that is where the true craft lies. Understanding the subtleties of selection, placement, rhythm, pacing, sound, colour and graphics.

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Sometimes the results can also be spectacularly different, so much so that you may be forgiven for thinking you are watching a different story altogether.

There’s no way of knowing what each student will do with the material, or how they will interpret the brief. The only thing I can rely on in class is that everyone will come up with a unique interpretation of the task, with each result incorporating and reflecting each person’s individual vision and personality.

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Artists and filmmakers are known to re-edit their films, and it is common practice these days to have several versions of one film for short and longform adverts, and various social media outlets and formats.

And with studio politics and commercial interests at stake, several release versions of the same film can happen. Ridley Scott’s classic Blade Runner has no fewer than 7 different official versions circulating.

By IMP Awards, Fair use

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To me, this is the essence of editing:

• Depending on the order in which you reveal the information, a different meaning is created.
• Depending on what you choose to show, different information and emotion is generated.

This can result in stories that are similar in essence, or completely different to and contradicting of other versions. Changing the order of the shot can be instrumental in

• creating or dissipating tension,
• directing or diverting the viewer’s attention, or
• creating or dissolving drama.

And we haven’t even begun to think about the length of each shot, its exact crop, the pace of the entire sequence in which they appear, the sound that goes with it, or the colouration they have etc.

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