HNC Unit 31: Development and Techniques of Film and Video Editing
11th Jan 2018

Course overview
• This unit aims to develop learners’ understanding of the
history of moving image editing, and provide you with
the skills needed to edit film and video to professional
standards
• The unit will be delivered alongside fiction production

Assignment 1
Assignment 1 illustrated report on the development of film and video
editing Technology and practice
The report has three sections
• Task 1. Write a report to account and show an understanding of the history
and development of editing technology in fictional films and TV dramas’.
• Task 2. Write a report to account and show an understanding of the history
and development of editing practices in fictional films and TV dramas’.
•
• Task 3. Write a report to account and show an understanding of the history
and development of genre-specific editing techniques in fictional films and
TV dramas’.
Approx 2500 words

Assignment 2
• Be able to organise an edit environment
• Task 1
• log footage efficiently using appropriate methods and paperwork
• Media records: label media and reels; log media and reels; create shot lists.
• (Provide screen shots of library browser to show how clips were labeled).
• Task 2
• (Paper edits: log appropriate footage; prepare edit decision list (EDL)
• Provide an EDL of your fictional production
• Task 3
• Prepare material for editing, organise video footage; organise audio material; import clips;
arrange bins; arrange timelines; storage and folder management.
• (Provide screen shots to show how your work was managed in Premiere)
• Task 4
• Contribute as an editor to a moving image production working to a standard acceptable to an
employer or client.
• Provide a written comment about how you managed the different headings listed above
• Task 5
• Technical decisions: high definition; standard definition;
• and mixing; track laying; syncing dialogue; sound levels
• ( Comment on the relevant headings listed above if they were used in the editing of your
production and Provide a H264 version).
•

Assignment 3
• Produce an edit of the production acceptable to your
team/client
• Supply a film in an acceptable format (H.264)

Assignment 4
• Critically evaluate your own finished edit and make
recommendations for improvement
• Critically evaluate your own editing skills against agreed
criteria and make recomendatons for improvements
• Write up your evaluations
• Approx 100 words
• Final project deadline THURS 28TH MARCH

1. 1 History and development of editing technology in fictional films and TV dramas

Lesson Objectives
• Editors were originally called cutters
• Film was originally put together using scissors
and glue
• Film had to be held up to the light in order to see
your place in the story (often with a magnifying
glass)
• large array of jobs in the editing room

• Motion picture film operated on a negative film system
• Two prints made – positive (work print) and negative.
• The positive was cut the negative preserved

Once the positive cuts and edits had been made. The cutters returned to
the pristine negative and cut it in the same way before making the final
Positive prints for exhibition

• Cutters were mainly lower class women as the job was seen as similar
to stitching or sewing

Cutter/Negative
conformist
• Screened dailies with the director to decide which
footage would be used
• Helped determine if there was more footage that was
needed.
• Assembled the footage, consulting with the director
along the way about the edit,
• Cut the negative to conform the edit.
• Part of test screenings, to determine what was and
wasn't working in the film.

Margaret Booth
• First cutter to be called an editor
• Worked as an editor for 70 years
• Editor for DW Griffith
• Supervising editor at MGM
• Helped to develop the
language of film editing
"If I was cutting a march of soldiers, or anything with a beat to it, and I wanted
to change the angle, I would count, 'one-two-three-four-five-six', and I'd make a
beat for myself. That's how I did it when I was cutting the film in the hand”.

Moviola
• Early editors were unable to watch the
film as they edited
• Created difficulty in creating rhythm and
pacing between scenes
• 1917, Dutch electrical engineer Iwan
Serrurier, created a machine called the
Moviola, so that people could watch films
in their homes.
• Not popular as expensive, but a re-
worked version was used by all the major
studios (Warner Bros, MGM, Universal,
Charlie Chaplin Studios).

Moviola Industry
standard
• Increased speed and efficiency
• Developed editing techniques.
• Once silent films were replaced by talkies in the late
1920's, Serrurier built sound heads for optical sound, as
well as turntables for disc recordings.

Frame sizes
Viewers were built for all types of film. 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter,
65 millimeter, 70 millimeter.
There was a projector added, synchronizers, rewinders, sound readers, and
preview machines. The upright Moviola was extremely popular, until the 1970's.

Flatbed editor

Flatbed Editor
• Introduced in the 1970s
• Editors changed from standing up to sitting down to work
• Invented in the 1930s by German Wilhelm Steenbeck
• Greatly improved in the 1950s and became known as The Steenbeck
• Alternatives included the K.E.M. (Keller- Elektro-Mechanik)
• Film and magnetic sound reels were fed through the machine

Sound
• Sound and picture had to be synced together by the editor on these
separate Reels
• Interlock Mode – sound and image synced together
• The Steenbeck was faster, quieter and offered better sound and image
quality for editing

Other editing tools: Trim Bin
• Folders in premiere are still called
• Bins today
• Originally this is where the editor
organised shots and frames
• Shots were hung up and labeled for
easy access

Other editing tools: Splicer

Other editing tools:
Splicer
The splicer was used to mark and
Join sequences of the film
Tape and ‘cement’ (glue) were used
To join the pieces of film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
oRy0J7Mf4Wg

Video
• 1928 first US broadcast
• 1950s saw the proliferation of Television
• US adopted the NTSC format and Europe Pal for broadcast

Video Vs Film
Colour video was introduced in 1953

Switcher
Early Television was all live so the only form of editing was performed through
the switcher

Videotape
• First broadcast recorded on
videotape in 1951
• Poor quality image
• The image quality improved
over time
RCA Chairman David Sarnoff 1954 first video tape
Recorder machine

Ampex
• 1954 First commercially available
video taper recorder
• The price was around 300K in
todays money
• By 1959 TV companies were using
the Ampex to pre-record and edit
TV shows

• The Kinescope was used to film from a video
Monitor.
• The film was then edited in the old way
• It was not possible to edit video directly

1970s Linear editing
Source deck (monitor and player) contains the raw video footage and the record
deck is where you record your editing decisions

Linear editing
• Shots are built up in a linear way to create sequences and ultimately shows.
• In and out points had to be marked carefully
• The source and record players had to be carefully synced

SMPTE Timecode
• Developed around 1967
• SMPTE timecode is a set of cooperating standards to label individual
frames of video or film with a time code defined by the Society of
Motion Picture and Television Engineers in the SMPTE 12M
specification.
• Assigns a specific address to every frame of video (hour, minute, sec
& Frame)

Linear Editing
• Linear editing using SMPTE timecode became popular
in the 1970s
• It was limiting as shots had to be well planned to aid
editing
• Difficult to make changes only overwrites are possible
• Quality loss in recording from tape to tape

Co-existing systems
Film editing Linear video editing

1980s Non-linear Video
editing

• With the development of faster processers editors were able to utilise computers
• And benefit from the freedom of non-linear editing
• Film and TV were still supplied on tape, but the tape could be imported and
• edited through a computer and editing software
• Edits could be assembled in any order
• Virtual/Non-destructive editing was possible
• No generation loss

Assignment
Unit 31 Development and techniques of Video Editing
LO1: Understand the development of film and video editing technology and practice
Assignment 1 Part 1 Critically review the development of editing technology
Research and review the key developments of film and video editing technology from the beginning
of motion pictures to digital non-linear editing
You should research, summarise and critically review the following;
In-camera editing, cutters and cut and splice system, Moviolas & Steenbecks, the introduction of
sound and its implication for editors, video technologies, linear and digital non-linear, resolutions
and picture format (Pal, NTSC, SD, HD, 4K), A and B rolls, SMPTE Timecode, blacking the tape,
basic picture mixing, resolution of edit, offline/online process, copying to tape, copying to disc,
exporting.
Consider what were the difficulties and issues for film editors with each new technological
development
Approx 500 words
Submit next Thursday