Video Editing - Part of the Game

Steve K

I just finished a short (non-animated) video, and realized how important the video editing step is. With a big (digital) pile of clips and stills (animated or otherwise), there is no video until you edit it into something at least semi-watchable.

I also recalled some of the tips I've read about Hollywood editors. Its worth a Google search if you are interested. One I remember is having the sound/music set the timing: "(John) Williams composed an emotional and sensitive score to Spielberg's 1982 fantasy film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The music conveys the film's benign, childlike sense of innocence, particularly with a spirited theme for the freedom of flight, and a soft string-based, harp-featured theme for the friendship between characters E.T. and Elliott. The film's final chase and farewell sequence marks a rare instance in film history in which the on-screen action was re-edited to conform to the composer's musical interpretation. Williams was awarded a fourth Academy Award for this score."

Amazon has some good books, one I like is "Film Editing: Great Cuts Every Filmmaker and Movie Lover Must Know". I now recognize some of these in movies.

My editor is Magix' "Movie Edit Pro MX Premium", which has some nice "After Effects" type features, but mostly just feels second nature after using it for so long. Review here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1777473,00.asp

My video is here (again, not an animation) - nothing flashy, just documenting a nice day I had:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCwiydtzVE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUlMEK10oWdfqx6NaNAGJtFA

Joepingleton

Cool video.

I would also recommend "The Eye Is Quicker: Film Editing: Making a Good Film Better" by Richard D Pepperman
It's the best book on the subject that I have read. =)

tsarist

Yeah Steve

Editing is where your story really comes together.
The best feeling I get is when I'm in the edit bay and my project starts taking shape.

John Sims

I agree with you 100% in respect of the music and will often do little more than assemble a few clips and cut out some rubbish until I have chosen the music.

I also think doing both animation and conventional video is worthwhile as it helps to give you a feel of camera angles and moves. You might see a different camera angle for video having tried it in an animation but, more helpfully, you better understand the restrictions of camera moves in real life which helps to convey a more realistic viewpoint in animation.

Video editing is very much an art and not easy to learn from books. It is as much gained through watching and reverse engineering what you see and like and what you see and don't like. Not always easy as a good edit will leave you unaware of what happened.

Steve K

joeping said:

Cool video.

I would also recommend "The Eye Is Quicker: Film Editing: Making a Good Film Better" by Richard D Pepperman
It's the best book on the subject that I have read. =)

Thanks, it was a nice, free day in Houston (both the train and the music). They are not all like that.

The book looks great, its in my Amazon shopping cart. There is a lot of content available to read at Amazon ("Look Inside"), and a glowing review in the NY Times.

Steve K

tsarist said:

Yeah Steve

Editing is where your story really comes together.
The best feeling I get is when I'm in the edit bay and my project starts taking shape.

Yup. I recall a director saying if he could, he'd still be editing his movie, years later.

Tarantino maybe? Who said regarding his late editor Sally Menke: "The best collaborations are the director-editor teams, where they can finish each other's sentences". Of course, this is especially true if the director and editor are the same person. Except I can't always finish my own sentences ...
:coolcheese:

Steve K

John Sims said:

... Not always easy as a good edit will leave you unaware of what happened.

Agreed. The same is true of some music for video, you do not actually listen to it, and may not recall it even happened. But the video scene can be boosted a lot. "Silence of the Lambs" has some scenes like that, where Lector gets loose in his cage and kills two guards. It goes from Bach to Chaos and back to Bach. Unless you are told what the music does, you probably don't even hear it.

alecialimle

Nice video. video editing is really the soul of any movie. Most of the times ill prefer to use sony vegas for it

Steve K

alecialimle said:

Nice video. video editing is really the soul of any movie. Most of the times ill prefer to use sony vegas for it

Thanks, and I agree. Happily, I think most of the modern video editing programs like Vegas have lots of features to explore. Just playing around can be a lot of fun.

And BTW, I did get the book "The Eye Is Quicker", good stuff. The author likes "Rosemary's Baby" and uses the Anagram/Scrabble scene as an example. For one thing, it demonstrates showing as opposed to telling (image vs. dialogue, a favorite of mine).

As I've mentioned before, I've read about a simple scene where Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is sitting on her bed talking on the phone. Director Polanski has the camera dolly right so the door/wall block the audience from seeing her while she is talking. The cinematographer tells him that's crazy, you can't see the star. Polanski says its great, leave it. During screenings, the audience was seen leaning left to try to see around the door. Talk about pulling the audience in ...

Here is a BBC documentary with Polanski talking about making movies. Asked if he put the camera closer to an actress to make her nervous, he said he puts the camera where it needs to be (like behind a door?), so that the cuts match up in editing. He says, "Its simple." For him, maybe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIgwwxgq_k

Sci Fi Funk

alecialimle said:

Nice video. video editing is really the soul of any movie. Most of the times ill prefer to use sony vegas for it

I too am a sony vegas user. After a long period of overnight renders it's a relief to work with something much more instant.

I also agree with the above comments on music. It can make or break a piece. Appropriate sound f/x help too. I've seen low quality rendering still work as a story line due to the pacing of the piece and the sound f/x / music.

It's the whole editing package that turns a dream into reality. :-)

Steve K

Sci Fi Funk said:

It's the whole editing package that turns a dream into reality. :-)

Yes. The great director Ed Wood ("Plan 9 From Outer Space") put it best:

Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Why, if I had half a chance, I could make an entire movie using this stock footage. The story opens on these mysterious explosions. Nobody knows what's causing them, but it's upsetting all the buffalo. So, the military are called in to solve the mystery.
Editor on Studio Lot: You forgot the octopus.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No, no, I'm saving that for my big underwater climax.

More Ed Wood brilliancies here (I agree with every one of them):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109707/quotes

P.S. I actually did make a video with just stock footage once. You will never see it, because I ate it.

P.P.S. (SPOILER ALERT - "THE WIRE") Today I watched an episode of "The Wire", toward the end of Season 2. The head of the Baltimore longshoreman's union, in deep trouble with several law enforcement agencies (but has a deal working with them), agrees with his nephew to talk to the Greek crime syndicate who can fix things. "I'll hear them out". The next couple of minutes are a masterful example of making movies - no dialogue, just music, but with many cuts: people talking (unheard), intercepted phone calls, people in unusual places, a file cart rolling through an office, cell phone calls, messages among the enforcement agencies ... Then one more line of dialogue from the Greeks, "It won't work". The union boss walks down under a bridge to talk to them.

The whole story is turned upside down, seven words of dialogue and some great editing. :gulp: