Film editing

New film editing course

This course replaces the old film editing course and should be a lot more fun.

As a test, you must edit an extremely short and very simple (11 second long) scene.

A complete editing workshop disk

This is a complete scene of two people talking. This is probably the shortest scene you have ever seen. Yet, it is good practice.

This NTSC DVD-Video disk includes a rough edit, highlights of the film dailies, a spotting session for a special edit of the scene which is in the data section of the disk, as well as the six film dailies which you will edit.

For more details, see the instructions for this super simple Editing Workshop DVD-Video disk.

Open Source

A typical scene

This CD-ROM contains a typical scene from a television drama. It is a long conversation. The first part of the scene helps tell the story for the episode and the second part a running joke for the first season which was cut from the final release of the scene.

The good news is this is the only disk which has instructions.

The bad news is the quality of the video is not good and the images are only half size. Yet, currently, this editing workshop is the best on the market for beginning filmmakers who want to learn film editing of dramatic conversations.

Requires QuickTime Pro 3 or greater.

Two people talking

This is a typical scene from an episodic television drama. Two people talk back and forth. Who do you watch? The person who is talking? Or the person who is listening?

Both actors give powerful performances so their reactions are just as interesting as when they are talking. But the audience cannot watch both at the same time. How do you edit this?

This is like a tour of the movie studios (about 20 years ago) in Hollywood. You get to see the raw film footage from scene after scene. To see this many unedited scenes, you would have to go to Hollywood and become a production assistant (for little or no pay) and work for one year to observe everything that you see on this one disk.

Most of this film footage is very tedious to watch. It is only after the scene is edited and the film scores (not included) are added that the scenes come alive. There is a separate section on the disk which has an overview (highlights) of the film dailies. That is much easier to watch than the raw film footage. Still, if you do not have a burning desire to become a filmmaker, you will never get through all of this disk.

An overview of film dailies

This is for people who do not live in southern California and have not seen lots of scenes being filmed. These scenes are from old and long forgotten television dramas and movies. About half of the scenes might be interesting to film students and the other half are good for practice of film editing.

Sorry, but the quality of the video is not good and the images are only half size. Requires QuickTime Pro 3 or greater.

Fun and simple scene

This is just a fun scene to edit. Good practice of editing a dramatic conversation. Requires some musical sound effects or a musical score.

The theory of "L-Cuts"

When two people talk back and forth without stopping, totally new rules of film editing apply.

This disk explains the rules of (1) editing for sound, (2) locking the picture, and then (3) rolling each the picture edits to find the best visual transition.

This disks clearly demonstrates how "L-Cuts" change the impact of a scene. However, this is very subtle so you will have to watch this demonstration a few times before it sinks in. Once you understand this, it is amazing!

Challenging scene

In real life, filming and editing a scene can be challenging. This is a short and simple scene but deciding how to edit it is not simple.

The DVD-Video section shows how the scene can be edited three different ways... even though the audio is edited the same way for all three edited. "L-Cuts" and insert shots make the difference.

Creating more room for music

In "Follow Dave?" and some of the other scenes, you see a long edit of the scene where extra room has been added between words to allow for a film score.

In this scene, you finally see a real example of how this is done.

Requires QuickTime Pro 7.

A long yet simple scene

Here is another practice scene for you to edit.

Requires QuickTime Pro 7.

A long, long scene

Here is yet another scene for you to edit. It is long and it is your final exam.

Requires QuickTime Pro 7.

More disks are available

There are additional disks for use by students depending on the age and maturity of the student.

• Your instructor for this class is Robert Elliott. To email me, you simply Click Here.