Great Shooting Easy Editing

Great Shooting = Easy Editing

Over the years, I've taught some of my friends how to make movies and learned from watching their mistakes and successes. It takes a little while for people to understand how to edit movies, but soon the attention turns to what they shot. As the expression goes: garbage in, garbage out.

Although it's important to learn how to edit, the best advice anyone can give you is to learn how to shoot. This book helps you by providing in-depth shooting suggestions and shot lists. If you shoot well, editing is easier, faster, and more funand the results are a lot more satisfying.

For your first movie, you should choose a simple subject, shoot a variety of shots, and edit them together. What you will then have is a series of edited shots, called a sequence. Sequences are like sentences, which become paragraphs when you string them together. Sequences are the basic building blocks of your movies. When you edit a movie, you create it by connecting each sequence to the next sequence.

Making videos is a lot like writingthere's a simple structure that underlies itand video is a visual language. When you learn how to make sequences and how to make each sequence connect to the next, editing movies becomes easier and faster.

Just remember that mastering two simple skillsshooting well and making great sequencesis the goal, and your movies will be not only fun to watch but fast and easy to edit.

Something to Aspire to

Some projects may not require any editing at all because they are simple or the cameraperson was talented enough to "edit in the camera." If you learn to shoot well enough, you may not need to do much editing of your footage.

My mentor, Bill Jersey, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker who's shot PBS programs around the world for 35+ years, videotaped my wedding so beautifully that I never had to edit it. Every shot was perfect. He simply turned the camera on when he was ready to shoot something that was happening and turned it off when the sequence was done. It was a great wedding present.

If you learn to shoot well, you, too, can make editing your movies a snap!