There are many different types of video editing: simple cutting, based on a theme, reduction editing or compilation. Choose the best type of editing for you.
Linear Video Editing
The examples of editing below fall into what we call linear or timeline editing, working with the horizontal time axis, often reducing the overall length. Linear editing is as opposed to layer editing in Adobe After Effects where you’re dealing with the z-axis, from front to back. The objective for us in linear editing is to make a video more palatable more digest, shorter yes.
We are often dealing with video of not necessarily the best quality, so the minimum is to remove the flagrant errors and the best case is to create an interesting short.
The higher the budget, the more time one can take, the better the image, the higher the quality, the better the storyline. But here we are often talking about re-editing an amateur film. Embarking on a professional short or feature film is another matter entirely. When a film is shot specifically for a montage, scenes can be reshot. Editing is a different ball game when it’s shot one-time.
Simple Cut Video Editing
Editing digitally transferred Super 8 is different from bespoke editing, since the accent on cutting is different. First, the film is generally more valuable as it’s older and there’s less of it, although the quality of filming may not be so good. The first objective is to cut out the joins between the reels, generally every 3 1/2 minutes, and then probably to do some colour correction.
We take out the worst of the transitions following VHS transfer. This becomes bespoke editing when it’s more than simple cutting. The first pass, simple cut, may remove whole sections so that only say the wedding is retained, remove poor quality or unneeded sections such as snow, the floor, ceiling, inside a bag or where the film is just unusable for video or sound.
Bespoke Video Editing
We can take any source in any format and put it on a timeline. There can be as many different sources as you like, but generally, 4 or 5 is manageable. This enables you to collect multiple recordings of an event and edit them together. But by its nature, bespoke editing means made-to-measure. There are as many types of edit as there are types of event. And the type of edit depends on the amount of film source and the final objective.
One objective of editing is to reduce the overall duration. Say you recorded 10 hours of film, you might want to reduce it down to perhaps 45 minutes. The technique then is about choosing the bits to leave and the bits to remove. Film transferred from analogue tends to be quite long – something to do with the period, people discovering filming and not always of very high quality. So cutting out the long bits is quite a priority.
Review for Video Editing
We understand that many films have often not been seen for many years. We offer customers the possibility of reviewing the transferred film on DVD and then bringing it back to us for simple editing to reorder the reels if they are out of chronological order. This service may be subject to a charge or not, depending on the scope of the project.
To facilitate this process, we can add a visible time code to the video to enable people to note the position at which edits should occur. This principle is possible for any project. We may record to DVD, add a time code, and then make complex edits based on customer recommendations or requirements. We may supply recorded material to customers either on DVD or on YouTube, with or without time code.
Particularly useful if you don’t know the content of your films before recording to digital.
Video Editing based on a theme
Editing can be based on a theme such as holidays or particular people, so that the challenge is to bring together moments which connect, are similar and related. Say, all our holidays or Aunt Betty. Hand in hand with retaining the best clips is the choice of removing others, and so making choices about what is good and what is not, based on some explicit or implicit criterion.
The most recognizable of themes are perhaps edits based on events such as a wedding or other family event, an outing, a holiday, a biker’s meeting, a jamboree, fête, school, professional or amateur play. Here, reduction editing is about taking generally long events down to something more manageable, highlights, a teaser or summary.
Editing Video Material From the Internet
We were delighted to work for the French John Fogarty fan club (see video editing projects) to create a series of DVDs for personal use. Each DVD contained around 30 numbers from John Fogarty all of which were recorded from YouTube, inserted onto a timeline, image corrected and edited together.
We can record material from any Internet site for use in your private edits, such as music from Deezer or Mixcloud. If there is an audio track that you like, we can include it in your edit. Of course, if you have the original CD, vinyl or tape, we can capture that too to include in your video edit.
Below are examples of what we call composition edits, where we edit together material from diverse sources.
Multi-source Video Editing
We can edit sources in both SD (720 x 576) and HD up to 1920 x 1068. It is not necessary for us to have filmed the material ourselves to edit your video. You can provide your video source to us in any format on any media. This may be of particular interest for those who film events or who may wish to film the event themselves with several cameras. We can then take on just the editing according to customer criteria on multiple tracks, from multiple sources, varying formats, with or without voice commentary or added music.
You Film We Edit your Video
The advantage here is to save expenditure on a cameraman for your private event. Indeed, you can ask your friends to film your wedding for instance, and then we do the editing. We call this 3rd party editing, since the material is filmed by you. It has the advantage that if several people film the same moment, you may benefit from either a better shot or cutting together multiple good shots from different angles.
Extraction From a DVD for Video Editing
It is possible even to edit material that has already been recorded to DVD. We simply extract and decompress it, edit and re-burn to DVD. This makes it possible to extract one or more sections from a DVD, retain them for editing, and author them out to a new DVD. Your video should be of the same visual quality as it originally was on the DVD.
Adding Voice Commentary
You may wish to comment your film edits, either because there was no original sound, as per Super 8 or simply to add another dimension to your edit. We can do this for you, either by recording your voice and editing in at the appropriate moments, or ourselves according to a script.
Adding voice commentary is a nice way of adding colour and meaning to your video and can enhance simply visual titles. Of course, you can also add titles to describe events, state the year of an event or the people present as a reminder, for posterity or simply for information or fun.
Film and Video Editing
Editing may be more complex depending on the theme or objective. For instance, we created a semi-documentary film edit of one hour based on 22 hours of material, filmed on 4 different types of camera over the space of 2 years discussing the changes in the countryside.
The subject was really centred around the person who brought us in, to follow his activities such as digging a well but also to talk about changes in the countryside, how life has changed. All unscripted, filmed on the hoof, without rehearsal, real time. Events took place, and we just captured what went on. However, only later did we realize that there was a message buried in all the dialogue, and so the challenge was to select and retain the important material and make a coherent subject. Not easy on zero budgets.
Video Editing for Art
Artistic editing is quite different again, has a specific objective, is quite probably scripted, prepared and seeks to film footage deliberately as part of a production.
Video editing film from live events
Live spectacles are interesting to edit because of the real-time nature, whether theatre, dance or music, since errors occur either on stage or in the filming. The editor must make choices to maintain flow.
Length Reduction Video Editing
Anti-tedium editing is about time-slicing to reduce the length of scenes, while keeping the essence of the mood, focusing on people, while trying to keep everyone in, reducing the boredom factor, without slash and burn.
For instance, if it’s a holiday film, keeping each place visited, but reducing the time spent there: the shot of the church only needs 7 seconds, not 3 minutes. In a wedding film, similarly, we need to see the married couple, but we might keep just some of a long walk to the town hall, just so that people understand what is going on.
These video edits are about making something new out of something old. The input footage is not planned perfect shots; it is generally a mix of varying quality shots. The idea is to retain only what is good or essential. These edits are about taking souvenirs and making souvenir edits.
Video Editing to Accentuate the Highlights
Highlights editing is a variant of anti-tedium editing. The idea is to mark all the events of interest and cut everything to say 7 seconds. This means that everything decent is retained, but just as a highlight. This can be difficult if the scene goes on, but involved hard choices. It creates a certain style of edit and can be useful when either there is relative liberty to cut and or when the subject has little meaning for the editor. The viewer gets a flavour of all events. The pieces must still be joined and possibly ordered in order to create something reasonably aesthetic.
Photo Slideshows
Photo slideshows are generally about retrospectives about happier occasions. People may focus on years, periods, holidays. We generally display a photo for between 4 and 6 seconds and include anything from paper photos, slides, reverse negatives, screen prints, digitized film up to HD film from phones. Any source is possible. Here once again the criteria are the final length objective of the edit and the amount of material available.
End of Life Photomontage
Sometimes our edits are about sad events, even death. We have done one or two retrospective and photo montages for funerals. While not necessarily sophisticated, for the people concerned they certainly have an effect when played at a funeral or memorial service.
Generally composed of photos and film from the life of the deceased, friends and family, they may well be cobbled together in hurried circumstances. It is obviously a sensitive time for the families in between death and funeral. So they might be quite simple, but just enough to remind people of favourite photos and music. It doesn’t take much to evoke emotion in such circumstances.
Video Subtitling
We add subtitles to video as well, often for business customers but it is possible to add subtitles to any video as long as transcription is possible and therefore that audio is audible.
Subtitles can be in the original language or translated into any language and then re-pasted back into the video or retained simply as an SRT subtitle file to play with an appropriate viewer such as VLC.
Best video editing apps
Our favourite video editing tools are Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut for Mac, but there are many available including videopad by NCH, Power Director and others. For subtitling, we use Subtitle Edit.
Video Editing Projects
See our other video editing projects and translation prices.
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