What is editing?

As editor of a film it is your job to take all the footage, and choose the best and appropriate parts, and put it all together, but most importantly, make sure it all flows in terms of continuity.

"When it works, film editing – which could just as easily be called ‘film construction’ – identifies and exploits underlying patterns of sound and image that are not obvious on the surface. Putting a film together is, in an ideal sense, the orchestrating of all those patterns, just like different musical themes are orchestrated in a symphony. It is all pretty mysterious" - Walter Murch

There are two types of editing, offline, and online.

Offline editing is the basics, there tends to be a pretty simple structure:-

1. Start off with loads of footage

2. Watch all the footage

3. Watch all the footage again but make notes on what the best footage is or what footage you're going to use

4. Create your 1st edit

5. Create your 2nd edit

6. Consult the director/expert

7. Make alterations

8. Walk away

9. Create your final edit 1

10. Create your final edit 2

11. Consult the director/expert

12. Online editing

Online editing is the editing after you have got your specific footage all on a timeline running smoothly, online editing is the effects and mastering, in a nutshell.

One of the most basic rules of editing is always cut to motion/action. When cutting always look for motion, this will distract the eye making the edit seem more seamless and more realistic, resulting in good continuity.

Surf:-

https://ds4d3zl5uvpbf.cloudfront.net/videos/JVHG3tLb2_640.mp4

37 seconds into this video we are shown a male walking down the street, jump cuts are used to speed up time, but they are cut to motion, so they work very well together and the continuity is good. One excellent use of cinematography and editing within this video is 48/49 seconds in when we are shown a close of up of the mans hand softly scraping a metal gate, this then cuts to the same man in a totally different environment but the same shot, a close up of his hand but this time softly touching the grass, this works really well as there is once again a cut to motion and because of the similarities of camera angle and positioning, the cut almost seems seamless, even though they're two completely different images. The music works really well with the images, during soft, slow parts of the music, the images consist of him walking, but when the music becomes really dominant and loud the images we see are of him surfing, which work really well together.

180 Degree Rule:-

The 180 degree rule is another basic rule that needs to be applied when making a film. It teaches us to think like the viewer, say if we were filming a scene in which two characters were sat at opposite ends of a table and were engaging in conversation, the 180 degree rule reminds us to make sure the camera does not cross the 'axis of action' otherwise the conversation does not look realistic and doesn't look like they are talking to one and other as each cut takes place as the angles are all wrong.