Simple editing

Learning goal

From the dozens of clips you shot, you will be able to build a short half-minute video that the viewer will watch from start to finish. You will carry the culling and story structure knowledge you used when building a photo sequence into video, and line up your clips on a timeline as an opening, details, a climax and a closing. You will calculate the average duration per shot from a video's total length, and build an editing rhythm with short, varying shot lengths. Instead of transitions with effects, you will use plain cuts between shots, and make the edit flow with sound bridges that carry sound from one shot to the next. You will make sure the same person's skin looks consistent in shots filmed in different light, not change the meaning of what a person said when cutting their speech, and show them the finished video before publishing it.

The question

The footage gathered for the bakery adds up to twelve minutes on the hard drive, scattered across forty separate files: the bakery door in morning light, hands kneading dough, flour tossed in slow motion, what the baker told, the walk to the window with the tray. What the baker wants, on the other hand, is a piece of no more than half a minute that will loop on the screen behind the glass. Your friend first lines up their favorite shots one after another; the result is a four-minute video that never seems to end.

The task is clear: a 30-second video from 10 clips. But which ten clips, how long each, and in what order? How is the story preserved while bringing twelve minutes down to half a minute?

Context

You worked on building a sequence from an opening, details, a climax and a closing with photo sequences (Lesson 23.2); you also saw sifting out the frames to be used from among many in the culling lesson (Lesson 17.3). Editing carries these two skills into time: shots are chosen instead of frames, and it is also decided how long each shot will last. The room tone you recorded in the sound basics lesson is useful here too (Lesson 24.4).

This lesson closes the module and the third level. A photographer's knowledge of light, composition and sequence comes together most clearly in editing: a good photographer already carries the eye a good editor needs.

Simple explanation

How does editing start?

Editing is turning filmed shots into a video by choosing, shortening and ordering them. A timeline is the horizontal area in the editing program where shots are lined up from left to right, in the order in which they will be played. Editing starts not by dropping all the clips onto the timeline, but by first watching and choosing them. Watching the forty clips once from start to finish and marking the best few seconds of each is the video counterpart of culling photos.

Dividing thirty seconds among ten shots leaves an average of three seconds for each. This looks short, but two or three seconds are usually enough for the viewer to understand a shot; each shot needs to show a single thing and show it at once. From a long walking shot, only the moments when the tray leaves the door and reaches the window remain. That is why the hardest job in editing isn't choosing, but throwing away most of a shot you love.

The ten chosen shots are lined up by task, as in a photo sequence: the bakery door in morning light is an opening; the doughy hands and the flour are details; the baker's face and a single sentence they say is relationship; the slow-motion flour cloud can be a climax; the warm bread placed in the window is the closing. The structure makes the half minute watched not as a scattered heap of clips but as a story.

How is rhythm built?

A cut is the joining point where one shot ends and the next begins at once, without any transition effect. It is editing's most basic and most used tool. The rotating, sliding or dissolving transition effects programs offer often distract; a plain cut, on the other hand, keeps the viewer in the story. A cut is best made in the middle of a movement or after a glance: in one shot the baker lifts the tray, in the next the tray comes out of the oven's mouth.

Editing rhythm is the tempo given to a video by varying shot lengths. If all the shots are the same length, the video moves forward with a monotonous tick. A longer, calm shot following fast detail shots lets the viewer breathe. The slow-motion flour cloud's effect, too, comes from the short, fast shots before it. Rhythm can also be built with music or a sound: lining the cuts up with the beats of a rhythm makes the video flow by itself. Having permission to use the music is a matter to be settled before publishing a video.

A sound bridge is a shot's sound starting before its picture or continuing after its picture has ended, connecting two shots. The baker's voice starts to be heard over the doughy hands before their own face appears; the viewer hears the voice, then sees the speaker. This softens hard cuts. Room tone placed in the cut gaps also keeps the sound from breaking.

What is the responsibility toward people in editing?

When shots filmed in different light come side by side on the timeline, the same person's skin can change from shot to shot: orange in front of the oven, cool in front of the window, yellow in the shop. This difference makes the viewer feel it isn't the same person, or that something has changed. Adjusting each shot's white balance and brightness to the others in the editing program keeps the dark-skinned baker's warm brown the same in all shots. Having locked the settings to the face during the shoot makes this correction much lighter.

Editing also gives the power to cut and join what a person says. Bringing two separate sentences of a speech side by side and producing a meaning the person didn't say breaks honesty, even in a short video. Cutting the baker's sentence "I learned it from my father, but it was very hard work" to only "it was very hard work" changes what they wanted to tell. Shortening sentences while preserving their meaning, and showing the finished video to the person before publishing it, makes sure they keep a say in their own story.

Visual evidence

You watch the forty clips once and mark the best moment of each. You choose ten shots and line them up on the timeline by task: the door in morning light, two detail shots, the baker's face, slow-motion flour, the walk with the tray, the bread placed in the window. When you shorten the shots to between two and four seconds, the total comes to thirty-two seconds; when you remove one detail shot and shorten the walk, you get down to half a minute.

You remove all the transition effects and leave only cuts. The baker's voice starts over the doughy hands and continues when their face appears. When you correct their skin, which shifts to orange in the shot in front of the oven, to match the window shots, it looks the same warm brown in all shots. You shorten the baker's sentence without breaking its meaning.

Comparing the finished video with the four-minute first attempt, the difference is clear. In the first attempt the shots were long and monotonous, and transitions with effects distracted attention. In the new video short shots speed up toward the slow motion, settle in the flour cloud and close with the bread placed in the window. The baker watches the video, hears the full version of their own sentence, and puts it on the window's screen.

Common mistakes

Summary

Editing starts by watching and choosing the filmed shots, and lines them up on the timeline as an opening, details, a climax and a closing, as in a photo sequence; in a half-minute video, ten shots get an average of three seconds each, and each shot should give the viewer one thing at a glance. An editing rhythm built with plain cuts and varying shot lengths makes the video flow, and sound bridges and room tone connect the shots. In shots in different light the same person's skin is evened out, speech is shortened while preserving its meaning, and the finished video is shown to the person before publishing.

Mini assignment

In this assignment, as an optional module project, you will build a short 30-second video.

1. Watch at least twenty clips you shot about a place, a job or a person, and mark the best few seconds of each.
2. Choose ten shots and write their places in the sequence, stating which opens, which carries the peak and which closes; plan the total length for thirty seconds.
3. Line the shots up on a timeline with plain cuts, build a rhythm by varying the shot lengths, and try at least one sound bridge.
4. Even out the same person's skin across different shots; if you used speech, check that you preserved its meaning, and show the finished video to the person.

Check yourself

• Does each shot in the video have a task and a single thing it shows?
• Do the shot lengths build a rhythm, or are they monotonous?
• Is the person's skin consistent in all shots, and was their speech shortened while preserving its meaning?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What does editing start with?

• A) Dropping all the clips onto the timeline
• B) Watching the clips and choosing their best moments
• C) Choosing music
• D) Adding transition effects

2. If ten shots will be used in a half-minute video, what is the average duration per shot?

• A) Ten seconds
• B) One second
• C) Thirty seconds
• D) Three seconds

3. Which kind of join between shots keeps the viewer in the story best?

• A) A rotating transition effect
• B) A sliding transition effect
• C) A plain cut
• D) A long dissolve

4. The baker's sentence "I learned it from my father, but it was very hard work" is cut to only "it was very hard work." Why is this a problem?

• A) The sentence's meaning changes and the person ends up having said something they didn't mean to tell
• B) The sound quality drops
• C) The video gets longer
• D) The skin color changes

Answers

1. B — Editing starts, as the video counterpart of culling photos, by watching and marking the shots.
2. D — Thirty seconds divided among ten shots gives each shot an average of three seconds.
3. C — A plain cut doesn't distract; effects pull the viewer out of the story.
4. A — The cut sentence changes what the person said; editing has to preserve the meaning.

Summary card

• Watch and choose first; then put it on the timeline.
• Thirty seconds, ten shots: about three seconds per shot.
• Opening, details, climax, closing.
• Plain cuts, varying lengths, sound bridges.
• Even out skin across shots; cut speech preserving its meaning, show it to the person.

Bridge to the next lesson

When the video started looping in the window, the baker wanted one more thing: a large print of the sequence's favorite photo, the frame where they hand bread to the neighbor, to hang on the shop's wall. Your friend sent the file to a print shop. The print that came back was clearly darker and more reddish than what they had seen on their laptop's bright screen; even the baker's skin looked different from how it is. Why is the color on my screen different in print? The next lesson, as the first lesson of the fourth level, tells why bright, uncalibrated screens mislead, and about monitor calibration.