Video editing is the art of controlling and manipulating your viewer’s perception. As the editor you have a goal for your story and selective subtractions or an addition of visuals is the best way to ensure the most impact. Also take into account that the visual is only half of your medium. The audio is the other half, but that is another subject I’ll emphasize later.

At its most traditional level, video editing is used to cover up mistakes like shaky camerawork or someone coughing in the middle of an interview.  Another basic example is editing the proper image to a voice over to give a visual to reinforce the subject.  For example, if your dialogue is about a mountain, we need to see a picture of the mountain. If they talk about the trail going up the mountain, then we should show a map or footage of the trail. This supporting footage is commonly referred to as “B-Roll” (your main footage/audio is the A-roll) and it reinforces your theme, thus enhancing the production. These concepts seem simple but are overlooked by some producers in the pre-production process.

A higher function of editing is to condense events. For example, a wedding ceremony recorded and played without any editing is experienced in real time. If the ceremony takes 30 minutes to conclude, the viewer must endure all 30 minutes. (Whew… yeah, we’ve all been there.) Now if you carefully edit down to the most important parts, such as the walk down the aisle, the vows, and then the kiss. Then compile them together with music and you have a much different product than before. (And you won’t have time for the audience to fall asleep either!)

Another function is to define a different meaning from suggested imagery. For example, if we add to our edited wedding video a beautiful time lapse of flowers opening and slowed footage of doves taking flight. Now our piece is intensified in a certain direction due to the choice of images.  Now what if instead of flowers and birds we insert footage of the atomic bomb or the Hindenburg tragedy etc.? Now the wedding is now perceived as comical, even frightening. You control the viewer’s experience due to the choice of images that were not even part of the actual event.  Your suggested imagery is subconsciously perceived as reality.

The higher levels of editing are where the real non-traditional imagination comes into play.  Slowing or speeding up a clip, changing the color or removing it altogether, editing events out of sequence, etc.  There are no rules and no limits when you start to get really creative. Now this is more suited for the realm of music video and not corporate instructional media. You must use caution in choosing a traditional or non-traditional edit style.

Traditional editing is having the events in sequence with supporting B-roll. There are rules associated with traditional editing, jump cuts, natural sound, the 180 degree line etc. etc. The viewer will perceive the story the way the producer desires. Your local news is traditionally edited. Non-traditional editing is the breaking of the traditional rules. It basically allows the viewer to interpret a meaning based on visuals and audio. Music videos have a non-traditional editing to them.

Motion Pictures like Tarantino’s pulp fiction or reservoir dogs are good example of telling a story out of sequence. It does not follow the linear “beginning to the end” style. Reservoir dogs’ first scene is a conversation in a speeding car, one of them is shot. Now, from here, the rest of the movie is basically an explanation of how/why these characters got to where they are. The point is that the story is told out of sequence. Another great example of using edits to augment your scene is the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. The mental bombardment of the 150+ close-ups creates intensity that drove most of the audience to never shower again. Now that’s the power of video editing.

Today’s viewers expect more due to the ever increasing appetite for media. Add to that the decline in cost of video cameras, lighting, editing software etc. and that’s what’s changed the playing field in recent years. The tools have never been cheaper or easier to use.  What does not come with all this technology is the human storytelling and technical talent. That comes with critical analysis of your production and years of observing other professionals create from scratch.