Why do we edit?

"If I can't picture it, I can't understand it."
-- Albert Einstein--

Video production is now in the hands of everyone. In the U.S. alone, there were more than 32 million camcorders at the end of last year and over 3 million more are sold yearly.

With all those camcorders, you'd expect to see a lot of exciting home video productions. Yet, most homemade video tapes sit on the shelf, unwatched because their quality is poor and they're just too darned long!

Editing is the process of selecting the good footage and eliminating the bad. Film is edited by literally cutting out the bad pieces of footage and splicing the good parts together. Video is edited by copying the good segments from your original tape onto your editor. While editing video, you can use these parts:

Video only: moving video, titles, still pictures transferred to video tape
Audio only: speech, music, sound effects, background noise
Audio and video: A choir concert, public speaker, the family at a reunion

So why Do We Edit?

It is said that the difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that a bad one shows you ALL of their pictures. We edit for that reason, among others. Use editing to:

Tell a story
Show only the most important parts of the story (cut out the garbage)
Draw attention to details (with cut ins, close ups)
Set a mood
Present a point of view.
Share information, such as an instructional or training video