The Light Bandit: How The Love Of Video Landed Me Behind Bars

After months of film-to-video transfers, junior high school play recording and dog show documentation, you finally have a chance to do your own thing. Monsters Among Us--that's the title of your planned epic, and you're confident that your knowledge of scriptwriting, camerawork, directing and editing will get you that Hollywood contract you've long dreamed about.

When you've finished your masterpiece, you shop it around to all the various buyers of unsolicited material, but nobody wants it. This is a mystery to you, because your technical knowledge of videomaking is without parallel--you know how to use every TBC, DVE, CG and DTV PC out there. What's more, your onscreen talent is without compare, all the camerawork is technically perfect and the audio is crystal clear. Yet still nobody wants it. What could be missing?

Art.

You knew shots weren't fitting together like some precise, oversized jigsaw puzzle. Transitions were a little jumpy. Shot order didn't always flow. But hey, it's your first original effort. The finished product may be flawed, but at least it's finished, right? You stayed within budget, paid the cast and crew, and even managed to stay married throughout the whole thing. So who has time for "art," anyhow?

It's easy to forget about the artistic side of a production, especially in the editing stage, when it comes time to put the whole thing together. Most video production literature concentrates on getting things done, while ignoring the art, or aesthetics, of cutting a video.

This is perhaps because editing aesthetics are hard to describe. In textbook terms, you can define aesthetics as the manipulation of various shots to affect the audience's response to the program. Some people like to say that aesthetics are what makes a show easier to watch. But even that is misleading because many artists use aesthetics to shock or disorient the audience. My own humble definition goes like this: aesthetics are what gives your video a cohesive feel, and the way you cut your production will often influence the audience's sense of visual and aural "correctness."

Though people often talk about aesthetics in airy, ambiguous terms, there are several hard-and-fast techniques you can use during the editing process to increase the aesthetic appeal of your productions. Let's examine some of…