We defined editing as taking existing material and creating a meaningful and engaging product using the range of techniques available. This is a basic and exact way of looking at it, but it does not address the real importance that editing has. Editing can create the narrative, present ideas in very specific ways and change the tone of the video completely. The choices made in editing can be the difference between a good video and a failed project. Talking about it made me think of my own editing experiences, both recently and long past.
Throughout all of Year 12, I used a piece of editing software called ‘Movie Studio Pro’, which was in basic terms a beta form of Sony Vegas. This meant it was missing certain functionality, but overall, it was a pretty accessible and high quality program for what I needed. I produced my first major video project in the form of my Year 12 SAT using this software, manually editing individual shots for a consistent sound level across the board, as normalising sound was not a feature that was available to me. I even had to dub over a shot for this. This took some time to get right in the post-production stage, but it was satisfying to see the project reach its completion.
Just before my classes for Uni began, I lost this software in a full wipe of my laptop, along with all of my other programs. This lead to a fair bit of stress in the lead up to Project Brief 2, as I had planned for a large amount of shots cutting in fast succession. Of course, this was easily achievable in most freeware video editing software, but unintuitive and difficult to get exactly what you wanted. It actually took me upwards of 4 hours to edit this one minute video for this reason. My experience with Windows Movie Maker made me value the freedom in choice and the ease of use that a full editing suite gives you.
Now, leading into my post-production stage for project brief 3, I have finally purchased my first real high level editing software in the form of the adobe creative suite. I’ve had to use a couple of tutorials to brush up on some of the key skills that I’ll need in the future, but it is a relief to have software which allows me to more easily reach my creative intention.
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