Amateur movie making (1928)

CHAPTER NINE EDITING THE HOME FILM We all talk glibly of film editors and cutters, yet how many of us really understand the first principles of film editing? Film editing is analogous to literary edition. Superfluous parts of the film are removed, errors are corrected or removed, the component parts of the whole are rearranged to the best advantage, and in short, the film is assembled in its most coherent form by the editor. To this end, many parts of the original will be entirely removed, and quite often certain lengths of an entirely different film will be introduced for the purpose of making the original more interesting or more intelligible. The first, and most general purpose of edition is the removal of the poor frames at the beginning and end of scenes. These will almost invariably show slight traces of fog, the action of the scene itself will probably not be of great interest, and we nearly always expose a foot or so after the action of interest has stopped. These uninteresting portions are removed. This is not merely a matter of choice, as such portions, if allowed to remain in the film, will cause an interruption of the continuity of interest on the part of the spectator and your friends will find your films rather a bore instead of being of great interest. It is a fact well known to those who have had professional experience, that an experienced film editor could take the usual amateur film library and by editing each film make the entire series so interesting that they Avould be used constantly and projected repeatedly until worn out. This is quite different from the present usual case where a film is projected two or three times and then discarded. 213