Edit Suite: Pesky Edit Blemishes

Little things mean a lot, sings the old song, especially when they�re bad little things in your finished videothings you brushed off as too small to bother with when you first caught them. But every time you screen your program, these trivial pimples seem to swell until you squirm like a teen who feels she has "ZIT" lipsticked on her forehead.
So discipline yourself to heal these video blemishes at once. A few patient minutes now will clear your show�s complexion and make you a hit at parties.

Picture Problems

In assembling visuals, the big temptation is butting shots that don�t quite match. The result is what�s known as a jump cut. In shot A, he starts to put the cup down; in shot B it�s already on the table. You�re missing some action. Maybe you do have a shot of the cup�s descent from the same POV as shot A, only it�s a slightly wider angle. Good enough to cut together? Sure! No one�ll notice, honest. You talk yourself into it because you can�t lay hands on a better shot B.
Chances are, there�s a good alternative somewhere in your raw footage, or there�s a cutaway you could use instead. So take the time to find it now or you�ll hate yourself later.
Another temptation involves shot length. That sunset is so gorgeous with your family silhouetted against it that your audience will really want to study that image, won�t they? Not for 30 seconds, they won�t, even if you�re Ansel Adams; and by the third or fourth screening, even you will wish you�d held the shot for maybe a ten-count instead. Remember: no one else is as interested in your show as you are, no one. So make it snappy.
But not too snappy. The opposite fault is the shot that�s too short to read ("read" in the media sense of recognize or decipher.) "At first we didn�t see the whale spout," you narrate over an extreme long shot of empty sea and sky; and then you cut away before anyone can find that tiny, distant water column.
The moral is that every shot has an ideal duration that you don�t always discover on the first try. So take the trouble to screen it and retime it until it�s the right length.<…