Editing Techniques (Unit 16)

- Research
- Camera converting light into electrical signals which is recording onto a magnetic tape.
- A tape is a linear system
- Digital is recording digital information that records a set of numbers onto tape/SD card.
- Film is a collection of photos, each frame has a clear information, you can manually cut and
glue film, and you cant do this with a magnetic tape because it has to be a continuous flow
of moving images.
- With analogue video, you had two machines and one would play and the other record so
that you could keep the bits you wanted, this process was called linear editing.
- Codexs is when you record data, camera/video systems compress what you are recording.
The different ways of compressing footage. A particular mechanism for compression, but
can be bad for editing. Programmes are created for this problem. E.G: Apple Mac High Res.
Editing technologies:
- Moviola: A device that allows you to view the film while editing, it was invented by Iwan
Surrurier in 1924. It was the first editing device to allow editing of motion pictures. In
1917 it was originally planned to be a home movie projector. The first one sold was to
Douglas Fairbank as an editor in the company suggested that it be equipment used for
film editors rather than a home movie projector.
- * It allowed the study of individual shots in their cutting rooms, it focused on where the
best point was for cutting when editing.
- * When more popular editing devices came in, editors still preferred this method and
was still used by director Steven Spielburg and he still used this editing device in his
productions in modern day.
- Steenbeck Flatbed editor: this was the process where picture and sound rolls were
loaded onto separate motorised plates. The plates moved forward, backward and
separately. Or they were in movement together in order to maintain synchronisation
between the picture and the found. It works through a prism that reflects the film image
onto a screen to view, when a magnetic playback head reads the magnetic audio track.
The most common plates that were used is the six-plate, which is where one picture is
a transport and the other two are sound transports, the other common plate is the
eight-plate, where there are two picture and two sound transport models.
- * The picture is shot of film and the sound is recorded separately. The sound is
transferred onto a magnetic track known as mag. Sprocketed recording film, which is
film stock with magnetic oxide, instead of using photo-sensitive emulsion. The magnetic
film is usually edge-coded: sequential numbers are stamped on the edge of every few
frames to facilitate locating particular frames or scenes.
- * When editing, the editor finds a point to cut one of the shots into the other, they mark
it on both picture and sound rolls, then cut and splices into the next shot.
- * The two most common flat beds were Steenbeck and K-E-M (Keller-Elecktro-
Mechanik), were both invented in Germany in the 1930s.
- CMX600 non-linear editor: This was the very first non-linear editing system and was
created by CMX Systems in 1971. This equipment was referred to as a RAVE, which
was short for Random Access Video Editor. The equipment worked by the right monitor
which played the preview video, was used by the editor to make cuts and edit, by using
the light pen to select and edit features of the film, the left monitor was used to display
the edited film.
- * It recorded and played back in analogue on a specific modified disk, that were
commonly used to store data on mainframe computers at the time, but they were the
size of washing machines. The audio was recorded digitally using pulse-code modulation
(a system where it digitally represented sampled analogue signals. The audio was poor
due to the jitter occurring from the signal coming from the playback of the disk packs.
The quality of the video was not very clear, due to it being recorded in black and white,
but the main purpose of this equipment was for off-line editing, in order to create a Edit
Decision List for later on-line editing.
- The editing side of it was controlled by two equipment racks of support equipment,
these were located in another from the console. The first rack contained the electronics
for the system including a Digital PDP-11 minicomputer with 32 kilobytes of RAM, this
controlled the system. The second rack contained all the audio and video electronics,
and the Skip-Field Recorder (black and white recording) which took editing from a VTR
and then recorded one or more disk pack drives that was interfaced to the CMX600.
Each disk pack recorded up to 5.4 minutes of NTSC video or 4.5 minutes of PAL video.
- Digital editing software (Avid, FinalCut, Premier): These were all programmes that were
installed onto computers that allowed anyone to edit footage, majority of branded
computers owned their own software e.g.: Apple Mac: FinalCut, Windows: Premier. It
introduced secure non-linear editing for editors with colour and the audio being clear
and not jittering. It allowed the RAM to excel when editing opening doors for editors, it
was generally the quickest and cleanest version of editing that was offered to editors,
allowing often to relocate clips that had been removed off the editing suite and then
repasted back into the programme and was allowed to be reused. A lot of the
programmes that exist allow high definition import so therefore the quality becomes
almost perfect.
- * To use this programme, all that is needed is for a camera of some sort (can be
anything, even a mobile phone), is connected to the computer and then opening the
programme and then importing the footage that you want over to the programme and
using their custom editing systems to what you choose. They offer the simple transitions
and editing techniques that is needed in order to edit footage. This is the most effective
version of editing that is known, and there is no doubt that footage will continue to be
edited on computers.
- Linear/Non-Linear Editing: Linear Editing is where you select, arrange and modify images
and sound in chronological order. Regardless of what it was recorded on, the content
must be accessed in chronological order, video editing software has replaced linear, this
type of editing was introduced and it was used with ferrofluid and it was cut with a razor
blade of a guillotine, and splicing it with other ferrofluid, in a manner that was similar to
film editing. When this method was used, the two pieces of tape to be joined was
painted with a solution of fine iron filings combined with carbon tetrachloride, a toxic
and carcinogenic compound. Non-linear editing is the most common type of editing
used, and it has been since the sources were released for this type of editing was
introduced.
- Online/Offline editing: online editing is a linear video editing process that is used in the
final stages of production it occurs after offline editing. Online editing has been replaced
by digital editing software that operate on non-linear editing systems (NLE), some post-
production companies still use NLE offline - online editing workflow. Video quality on
Avids media composer in 1989 was incapable of producing visible quality images due to
computer processing limitations. The term online comes from where pictures are re-
assembled at full or online resolution. An EDL is used to carry over the cuts and
dissolves during the offline edit. Offline editing is where raw footage is copied and
edited, without affecting the original footage. Essentially, its the planning off the final
edit (online) editing, once this process is achieved, they will make final decisions and
begin the online editing process.

Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear_editing_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_video_editing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_editing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviola
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbed_editor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMX_600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_editing_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_editing_software