Editing Theory

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I wrote this in 1988. Some of it seems a bit dated now but I have resisted the temptation to re-write it or try to bring it up to date. What I wanted to do was to articulate an 'atomic' approach to editing theory by looking at what editors actually do when they are editing.

The Ideal Editor: Notes Towards a Theory of Editing

Richard Seel

Part One—The Ideal System

Over the last twenty years I have often heard both film editors and videotape editors affirming that their medium is “better” than the other. I have always found such assertions rather meaningless (although I confess that my prejudices were, rather naturally, in favour of film).

Over the last four or five years I have had the privilege of talking to many people from VT about the nature of film editing. I have also tried, in my talks, to take fresh look at the old question of whether film or tape is a better editing medium. To this I end I tried to develop a more rational and objective way of comparing the two.

I believe that in doing so I have made it possible to take a fresh look at the strengths and weaknesses of both media, and to look ahead to new developments which will supercede them both. I know that in the course of this I have certainly learned some surprising new things about film editing which had not really occurred to me before. It is this approach which I wish to present in this paper.

Basically, my approach is to lay down a design specification for an ideal editing system which might be applicable to any editing operation. In fact many of the concepts are drawn from the design philosophies of a number of computer editors, but I hope that they are of sufficient generality to apply widely.

Preliminary considerations

In this paper I am not only going to adopt an ‘ideal’ approach, but also one which some might characterize as ‘idealistic’. This is because the perspective will be editor-centred, rather than manager-centred.

Hence, criteria such as cost of installation, and length of useful life will not be of primary importance. Reliability, though, would be more important because it impinges directly on the editor’s ability to work at his or her own pace. (In recognition of the fact that editing—film editing at least—has always been a craft pursued by both men and women with equal distinction, I shall use masculine and feminine pronouns indiscriminately.) The justification for this approach seems to me to lie in the concept of ‘de-skilling’, used sometimes to characterize the introduction of some forms of new technology. When de-skilling occurs, the operator is obliged to fit in with the machinery, rather than vice-versa.

By focusing on the needs of the editor, I hope to be able to expose some of the compromises and inadequacies inherent in current film and videotape editing systems, and to point the way towards greater flexibility for the future. In this way new technology may prove to be enabling, rather than disabling.

With the preceding proviso in mind, I present the following as a list of essential requirements for an editing system.

Table One - Editing Ideals

Interactivity

Define a block of any size in the medium

Instantaneous access to any block

Source & target:

    a) Copy

    b) Move

Block operations:

    a) Append block

    b) Replace block

    c) Insert block

    d) Delete block

    e) Merge block

    f) Transform block

Multi-medium independence

User interface

Retrieval of intermediate stages

No quality loss

Reliability

Ancillary support systems:

    a) Search and/or replace

    b) Macros

    c) Libraries

    d) Help

    e) Error checking

 Interactivity

Having started with high promises of objectivity, it may seem ironical that I immediately back-pedal, and make the first element on my ‘wish list’ a concept as subjective as ‘inter activity’. Yet it is crucial to any editing operation.

A good editing system will allow the editor to experiment; it gives her the opportunity to make tentative judgements, try them out, and then amend them, with the minimum of effort. In computer jargon, a good user interface is essential if the editor is to work efficiently.

The ideal editing system is like an organic extension to the editor herself. Anything which interferes with this harmonious relationship should be considered as a design flaw. Much of the specification which follows is intended as an attempt to define some of the features necessary to achieve true interactivity.

Incidentally the term ‘editor’ should properly be applied to the person who uses an editing system, and not to the system itself (not-withstanding the usage in amateur movie making which once led to the delightfully evocative headline, “Motorize Your Editor for £4.50”!).

Define a block

Any editing system must be fitted to the medium in which it operates. In particular it must be able to operate upon the ‘atomic’ elements of that medium. For instance, a word processor which did not allow access to individual letters would not be very useful (especially if your typing is as bad as mine.

This may seem a trivial point, but in fact, it might have some quite far-reaching implications as we shall see later.

Instantaneous access

My third point is “instantaneous access to any block”, but it is important to note that I am asking for psychological instantaneity rather than some specific data fetch time. The important thing is that the system works at the editor’s pace, never requiring him to wait when he wants to work.

For instance, there is no requirement that any word processor should be able to input more than 300 words per minute from a keyboard (and considerably fewer when I type), but it is still possible to find programs which cannot keep up with even a moderate typist. These are very difficult to use because they interrupt the ‘flow’ which is so important to a writer.

In fact, though, what is required is more than simple access. All editing operations should be carried out as fast as possible. Again, the reason for this is simply the editor’s need to keep the flow going. Editing is a process which takes place in the head as well as on the editing system; ideally, the physical editing should take place at the same pace as the mental operations.

Block operations

After the essential preliminaries, we come to the core of the editing system, the block operations. These operations are fundamental to the editing process; without them (or their simulated equivalents), editing will be a crude and stilted affair.

Editing involves the selection and arrangement of elements from a field containing many elements. Sometimes the editing task involves all of these elements, but at other times the ‘work in progress’, only concerns a limited number of elements, selected from the wider field. As editing progresses, elements may be transferred from the wider field to the work in progress or vice versa.

Source and target

All of the block operations are concerned with the movement of blocks: new blocks may be imported into the work in progress, existing blocks may be removed from the work, or blocks may be combined with one another. When considering a block operation it is necessary to distinguish between the source block, the target block and the resulting block. The source is the block before the block operation has taken place, the target is the block which will be operated on. The result will depend on the nature of the block operation chosen.

As far as the source is concerned, there are two possibilities: it may be moved, or copied. A ‘copy’ operation leaves the original material intact in its original position and makes the source block a duplicate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A ‘move’ operation removes the original material from its starting point to a new location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Fundamental operations

There are six fundamental editing operations, which correspond to the five ways in which the source block may be combined with the work: append, replace, insert, delete, and merge, together with the transformation of the source itself..

1) Append. This is the simplest of all the editing operations. A new block is simply added to the ‘end’ of the work in progress, This should take place without affecting the rest of the work. (In general, the only time an append operation causes difficulty is when there is not enough room for the source block.)

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2) Replace. The simple append operation is not sufficient to provide any kind of sophisticated editing. It is often desirable to place the source block at a target location ‘within’ the work in progress. In the replace operation, the source obliterates the target material which was previously present at that location. It should not affect any other material in the system.

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3) Insert. Although replace can be useful, it is more common for the editor to wish to insert the source block without destroying the material already present. The insert operation allows him to do this. The editing system should permit a block of any size to be inserted at any point in the work being edited. The block may come from within the work in progress, or be imported from outside. The insertion should not have any adverse effects on the material already present. Furthermore, the editing system should take care of any consequences of the insertion.

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 To continue with the example of the word processor, I should be able to insert a block of several standard paragraphs in a form letter or a single letter in the middle of the word “editr”. And if I do insert the letter “o”, it must not overwrite the “r” and this implies that all the characters after the “t” must be moved down towards the end of the document in order to make way for the “o”. I do not expect to have to do this myself, but rather, I rely on the editing system to do it for me—and to do it ‘instantaneously’.

4) Delete. The ability to remove blocks from the work in progress is just as important as being able to add them. The editing system should permit a block of any size to be deleted from any part of the work being edited. This should not have any adverse effects on any other material in the work. Furthermore, the editing system should take care of any consequences of the insertion.

 

 

 

 

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If I delete a letter from “edditor”, I do not expect any of the other letters to be affected. I also expect the gap left by the removal of the extra “d” to be closed up by the editing system. I should not have to do it myself.

5) Merge. The fifth of the fundamental operations is the merge. In this, the source block is combined with the target block already existing in the work. Depending on the nature of the blocks and the editing medium, there may be several different ways in which this combination can take place.

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6) Transform. Finally, the editing system may permit a transformation of the target block (which is also the source block). An example might be when a word is changed from one font to another—bold to italic, say.

Not all editing systems permit all of these operations. This may be because they fall short of the ideal, and would be improved by moving closer to it, but it may also be because they are not all necessary. For instance, it is hard to think of a use for a ‘merge’ operation in a word processor. Would merging “film” with “edit” produce “efdiiltm”—and if so, what for?

On the other hand, a graphics editor which allows me to create and alter pictures on my computer will find the merge operation very important. Indeed, it offers me several different ways of merging two graphic images so that I can produce a wide range of effects.

Multi-medium independence

Many editing systems allow the manipulation of different kinds of material. An example of such a system is the fashionable desktop publishing program. Most DTP programs allow the editor the chance to edit both words and images. I use the clumsy term multi-medium independence to describe the property of being able to edit one kind of material without having to make any changes to any other kind. So, for instance, I should be able to edit the text in a document without this altering the graphics in any way, and vice versa.

User interface

The editor has to interact with the editing system through what is known in computer jargon as the user interface. A great deal of work has been done on the design of interfaces for computer programs, but I do not intend to cover any of that ground here. For the present all I want to do is to stress the supreme importance of this category, and to suggest that it is vital that we do not give in to complacency or tunnel vision.

For instance, a word processor which gives the user the option of using a mouse as well as a keyboard may offer a better user interface than one which uses a keyboard alone. But this should not blind us to the fact that a voice-actuated word processor may be significantly more flexible than any so far existing—or that the ideal interface may be one which allows the option of direct control by the mind.

Retrieval of intermediate stages

Editing is a process which does not always progress in an orderly or linear fashion. It is often desirable to backtrack to a previous stage. One editing system I use (it allows me to edit type faces) has a ten-stage ‘undo’ facility which enable me to cycle backwards and forwards through the last ten editing operations I have performed.

All computer-based editors permit the work to be ‘saved’ in a permanent form. As a consequence of this, it is possible to save as many intermediate forms of the work in progress as is desired. However, this is not normally a specific feature of the editing system, although many will automatically save the previous version as well as the current one.

No quality loss, reliability

These are both obvious criteria. When manipulating the medium, we do not want it altered in a random or non-controllable way. There should be no ‘noise’ in the system.

Reliability is also important because it can directly affect the editing process. By its very nature, a breakdown will normally only manifest itself while editing is in progress, and so it is bound to interrupt the creative flow. In extreme cases, such as a computer system crash, it may cause the loss of already completed work (indeed, the previous version of this very paragraph was lost when my word processor crashed before I had a chance to save my work to disk!).

Ancillary support systems

I have detailed a number of possibly useful ancillary support systems which a good editing system might provide. Strictly speaking, these are not concerned with editing, but they can make the job much easier.

Search and/or replace. If there is a large amount of material, it can be a major task to keep track of it. Some kind of indexing becomes necessary. If the editing system can provide automatic search facilities, this can speed the editing process, and thus avoiding one more frustrating which might impede the editor’s creative flow.

Macros. Some editing jobs require the editor to perform the same sequence of operations several times. In such a case, a ‘macro’ facility which will allow this repetition to be automatically performed may be helpful.

Libraries. There are times when the work in progress needs material to come from outside the general work field. It is helpful if the editing system can maintain the libraries and arrange for the introduction of new material. If it does not do so, then the strength of the links between library and editing system become important.

Help. The more complex the editing system, the more likely the user is to forget how to use some of its more obscure functions. In such a situation the system should provide assistance—preferably in what is known as ‘context-sensitive on-line help’. In other words, when I press the ‘Help’ button (assuming such a thing exists) the system should immediately respond with helpful information about the task I am currently undertaking.

For complex assistance, it is common for off-line help to be available (normally in the form of an instruction manual), but with the development of CD-ROM systems it will soon be possible to have on-line complex help integrated with the editing system.

Error checking. It has been suggested that even editors make mistakes occasionally! As artificial intelligence techniques develop, it may be possible for the editing system to operate some sort of error checking. Perhaps the best known example of this at present is the spelling checker in a word processor.

This concludes my specification for an ideal editing system. Doubtless it can be criticised and further refined, but I believe that it does provide a valuable starting point for discussion. In part two I will use it to compare and contrast film and videotape as editing systems.

Part Two—Comparison Between Film & Videotape

Table two—comparison of film and VT editing systems with the ‘ideal editor’

                                                                                   Film                    VT

Interactivity                                                                6/10                    4/10

Define a block of any size                                         Y                          Y

Instantaneous access to any block                            6/10                    4/10

Source & target:

          a) Copy                                                              N                         Y

          b) Move                                                             Y                          N

Block operations:

          a) Append block                                               Y                          Y

          b) Replace block                                               N                         Y

          c) Insert block                                                   Y                          N

          d) Delete block                                                 Y                          N

          e) Merge block                                                  N                         Y

  f) Transform block                                           N                         Y

Multi-medium independence                                     Y                          8/10

User interface                                                              -                           -

Retrieval of intermediate stages                                 N                         Y

No quality loss                                                            Y                          Y

Reliability                                                                   9/10                    8/10

Ancillary support systems:

          a) Search and/or replace                                  -                           -

          b) Macros                                                          -                           -

          c) Libraries                                                        -                           -

          d) Help                                                              -                           -

          e) Error checking                                              -                           -

 

Before I move to the first major practical point of this essay, which is to provide a rational comparison between film and videotape as editing media, I must stress that there is still a great deal of subjectivity involved. In particular, I feel that my assessments of both media are likely to be too favourable, and that this is especially true of my assessment of film.

I have observed, in both film and VT editors, an overwhelming tendency to be satisfied with the facilities provided by the system they use. In particular, I have discovered this in myself and it is only by performing the exercise described in these pages that I have begun to be able to make objective judgements about film editing.

There was a time when I would have characterized film as being quite close to an ideal editing medium; I now recognise that as being very far from the truth.

Nevertheless, I present my own biased assessments of the differences between film and VT in order to provoke thought, rather than controversy. It is the principle which counts, rather than the exact details of the scoring. Table two repeats table one, but compares both film and VT editing systems with the ideal editing system. My detailed comments follow (in the case of both film and VT I have assumed ‘off-line’ operation).

Interactivity

I have suggested that film has a greater degree of interactivity than VT. I acknowledged earlier the subjectivity of any judgements about interactivity, and am not prepared to defend my scoring with any degree of seriousness here. My subsequent comments may help to explain why I come to this conclusion. What is more important is the realisation that both film and VT fall a long way short of the ideal.

Define a block

The smallest block is the individual frame, the largest is the whole of the work. Film obviously has no problems in this area. VT editing in component form is the same. PAL editing may give rise to difficulties in accessing an exact frame because of the PAL sequence, but this can be got around if necessary. It therefore seemed appropriate to give a ‘yes’ to both media for this category.

Instantaneous access

It may be remembered that I said that what really counts is ‘psychological instantaneity’—I want it when I want it. I have therefore been quite happy to rely on subjective feelings in assessing the two media. I do not know whether it is ‘really’ quicker to get access to material on film, but I do know that it feels quicker to me!

In part this reflects current editing practices, rather than simply being inherent in the media. It is common practice, before starting to edit a film, to break the material down into discrete elements. In the case of a drama, this will normally be individual selected takes. In the case of a documentary, the elements may be longer, but will consist of a few shots—all related to one sequence. This means that once the editing process has started access to the required material is likely to be swift.

Furthermore, the nature of the equipment used, especially the PicSync, further encourages the rapid viewing and reviewing of a number of shots. In theory this could also be possible with offline editing: the rushes could be copied off onto separate cassettes in a process entirely analogous to film’s ‘breaking down’. In practice, I do not believe that this is done at present.

There is a further, purely psychological, factor at work. When I look for a shot while cutting film, I am active and able to remain engaged in the editing process even though it is temporarily halted. When I look for a shot when cutting tape, all I can do is wait. My personal experience is that this is likely to frustrate me, and alienate me from the editing process. Whether this is either inevitable or universal I am unable to say.

Source & target

A major difference between film and VT becomes apparent here. In film the source is moved to the target; in tape it is copied. If all other things are equal (which they are not in this case), the copy operation is more useful than the move, since it permits a wider range of options.

Append

Both film and tape can append material quite satisfactorily. Of course, if they could not, they would be little use for the task, in hand. However, append is of limited use in the later stages of editing. It is essentially concerned with the assembly of the work material from the wider field (rushes, library shots, rostrum, etc). Once an assembly has been made, and new versions are required (even if differing by only one frame from the previous version), append is not usually an appropriate operation.

Replace

Replace is essentially a copy operation, since the source is copied ‘on top of’ existing material. It is of limited use since it requires the source and target to be of the same size. Typically, it is most useful for an operation such as dropping cutaways into a master shot. Equally typically, this tends to reveal its weaknesses, since cutaways rarely match a master exactly, and really require the subsequent alteration of cutting points within the master to shot so that, for instance, hand movements match.

It is not possible to perform a replace operation in film, although it is quite possible to simulate it by using an insert and then a delete (or vice versa).

Insert & delete

Despite the fact that the term ‘insert editing’ is sometimes used when editing VT, neither the insert nor delete operations can be performed on tape. This is a major disadvantage because once the assembly stage has been reached, it is these two operations which are by far the most useful when editing.

In fact, for this reason alone it is possible to confidently assert the ‘superiority’ of film as an editing medium. Of course, VT can simulate insert and delete by using copying (strictly, replacing blank tape with the previous version of the program) and appending. But anyone who has tried to insert a few frames 30 minutes into a forty minute program will appreciate that this is a far from satisfactory solution.

In my experience, the major strategy adopted by tape editors to handle this problem is simply to try to avoid it—in other words, a prime example of ‘de-skilling’; letting the system dictate the technique.

Merge

Just as insert and delete belong to film alone, so merge belongs solely to tape. It is true that the dissolve and fade can be indicated on film, and executed at answer print stage. It is also true that some marvellous merge effects can be achieved by optical houses. But by the time these effects are observed it is either too late or too expensive to change them. The primary criterion of interactivity is completely absent.

In my experience, the major strategy adopted by film editors to handle this problem is simply to try to avoid it—in other words, yet another prime example of ‘de-skilling’; letting the system dictate the technique.

(Incidentally, the merge operation is frequently performed by the VT editor in respect of the sound in a program. Film editors never mix sound, leaving that part of the process to the dubbing mixer.)

Until I started to analyse the editing process in depth, I too was almost completely blind to the disadvantages inherent in film’s inability to interactively merge, or to be able to copy a source (making interactive use of effects such as slow motion impossible). I simply accepted this as ‘one of those things’ and tried to find an alternative way of solving the problem or expressing the program content. I will have more to say on this topic later.

Transform

Malcolm Maclaren of the Film Board of Canada used to draw directly onto celluloid and was thus able to transform it. In normal practice the film editor has no way to transform the image or sound interactively. The VT editor can do so, though the extent to which this can be done will depend on the range of ancillary equipment available—such as didgital effects boxes or sound mixers and equalisers.

Multi-medium independence

There are two media involved in the production of most programmes: sound and picture. Sepmag film gives the chance to edit each independently. Videotape is a ‘combined’ system, and does not offer quite such a degree of flexibility. Most of the time the problems can be solved quite satisfactorily, but there are occasions which seem to defeat VT.

In particular, I am reminded of a documentary I edited on High Band U-Matic some years ago. I tried to treat this in as film-like way as I could. All went reasonably well until I came to lay the commentary. In my opinion, the ideal way to add commentary is to get the programme to an almost finished state, and then record the commentary to the picture so that the commentator can get the feel of the existing picture and sound rhythms. Then the commentary track is laid to the picture.

This is a complex process because the aim is to get the best balance of three different rhythms: that of the picture (which is itself complex, being the result of the interaction between the internal rhythms of the individual shots and the rhythm of the pace of the cuts between those shots), that of the program sound (which may also be complex), and the rhythms of the commentary words and the delivery of the commentator (one of the principle aims of the commentary recording sessions is to achieve some measure of consonance between words and delivery).

In order to achieve the optimum balance, the editor needs to have maximum flexibility. In practice, this means that she must be able to alter the spacing between the words (lengthening or tightening pauses between phrases, normally) so that the commentary fits the program, and also make subtle picture changes to accommodate the commentary. It is a kind of ‘both ends towards the middle’ strategy, and is very difficult to perform even on a six-plate Steenbeck.

When I tried it using two U-Matic players and one recorder, I nearly wept with frustration. The major problem was the lack of interactivity, due mainly to the fact that I couldn’t insert or delete, but also to the impossibility of laying down the commentary and then deciding to move it back two frames—without making any alterations to the basic programme.

User interface

Some videotape editors find film’s ‘hands on’ approach to editing very difficult, perhaps often because of film’s basic intransigence, and the time it takes to master it. Some film editors find videotape’s ‘control panel’ approach to editing alienating, often because they are unused to anything which smacks of computers or ‘machines’. Because of this, and also because I wish to return to the subject in part three, I have refrained from scoring this categ