Video Editing : The Kindest Cut of All (page 2)

Contributing Editor Bill Davis owns and operates a video production company.

Most current editing software has facilities for both of these editing options as a part of their toolkits. In Roll editing, as you drag your tool along the timeline, you simultaneously extend one clip while shortening the other. So the edit affects only the transition point between the two clips themselves, nothing else up or downstream from the edit.

In a ripple edit, as you drag your tool along the timeline, you extend or shorten one clip while keeping the "edit point" of the other clip constant. So ripple editing moves not only the clip you've selected, but also all the clips upstream from that clip as well. Ripple editing is very useful, but be careful! Particularly when you're editing against a fixed soundtrack like a music video -- a ripple edit can fix one problem -- but throw everything else "down stream" off the beat.

In life, we link movement with expectations. If there's a hand reaching for a doorknob, for example, we expect that the next action that will be the door opening and the person entering the room. Cutting from an exterior to an interior at the reach makes sense. Cutting to the interior of an airplane wouldn't make sense, but sometimes you want to momentarily confuse your audience.

If the hand reaching to the door is the killer threatening the family at home, and the cut to the airplane interior is to the hero, miles away stuck in an airplane, the "disjointed" cut may add some needed dramatic tension to the story. The bottom line is the best cut is one that successfully helps your story.

• Digg This!
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit