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Monday, August 29, 2011

Film editing: Then and Now

Films have always attracted every individual. Be it the people from past or today’s generations, everyone like films. But the one we enjoy is the hard of many people who are behind the making of these films. Experts say, “Films are made two tables; one is writer’s table and second in Editing table”. Writer has to run his brain through various situations to make story. But the same film can be turned upside down at the Editor’s table. The editing has always been difficult.

Editing has always been a crucial part of film making. Editing can make a bad script into a good film and vise a versa. With the technological advancement, editing might have become easy but it still holds that crucial part. In older days, it was job of pain and hard work. During old days, editing was carried by cutting and fixing the original reel of the film.

The editor used to go through every reel and then used to examine them under the microspore to see the scenes. Then he used to cut those and then join them again forming a storyline. They need to create the story again on the table. This was the tough job as there were no technologies which can help them in editing. There used to be various assistances that looked after the work of the editor.    

The editing rooms used to be full of reels all over and that process used to take lots of time. One those reels are edited, and joined, they were used to resend for the copies. Then those copies used to go to the different part of the world. But with the coming of technologies, everything changed.

Before, the editing was done on the reel itself, with the technological advancement, the reels were converted into the digital format and then they are being edited. There are many software that are available in the market for the editing purpose. The terminologies that Editors use for today’s editing process are ‘Non-Linear’ editing. This means, the editing can be done by just selecting a scene and putting it in different place without being actually cutting and pasting it.

‘Linear’, on the other hand means, putting the entire reel on a table and actually cutting and pasting it. During older days, editing being a tough job was not much recognized with the audience and people. Choosing Editing as a profession was much difficult due to the involvement of such long and time taking process. These days, with the help of user friendly software’s, editing has actually become easy and anyone can do it now.

Professionals carry out editing in Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Avid. These are the editing software which are normally being used in the industry. Apart from it, there are many that are available and being developed day-by-day. As far as the software for normal people are concerned, Microsoft’s Window Media Player is the one which are being used by anyone.

The films which see is being made with so much of effort. There are many people who are involved in the making of it. In industry, it’s being said that pre-production and post-production is where people actually pay effort, shooting time is party time. To some extent it’s true. Writing a story which would be like by audience is not easy. Defining a character, involving emotions and situations is something which needs lot of time. And after the shooting is done, understand the original story, editing it beautifully that would help audience to relate to it, is another difficult job. A story is always writer and later on shot, but the Editor faces the main challenge to maintain it as it is and at the same time, making it presentable. He is the person, who can make bad story line into a best film and can convert best story line into the worst film. All the power lies in the hands of one person, who is working day and night in a dark room, seeing, listening and understanding the movie to make it best.

The job of the Editor never would have changed, if technology would have not come up with software to make those jobs easy. With the technological change that came in the process, has made out movies better and has lighten the shoulders of the Editor’s. This has also attracted many young people who are interested in editing. During older days, there were not many who were interested in editing due to the hard work it requires. Technology in every means helps to improve the work and make it better. 

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