Abort Cource of Film and Television Editing

Excellent film and television works are inseparable from three basic elements: sociology, poetry and technology. Sociology focuses on the artistic value of film and television work, technology is to explore the means of film and television content. There are many courses and books on these areas that we are familiar with. However, there are limited discussion and courses on poetry, which is in between the other two elements in the art of editing. I have been teaching video editing courses for more than ten years, knowing that even with the availability of many editing software, many people still don’t know how utilize them. It’s just like knowing Microsoft Word and having a good dictionary, doesn’t make you a litterateur.

This is a basic course on film and television editing, introducing the ideas of ​​editing methods and processes, summing up editing experiences and skills for beginners. The course helps them to improve the efficiency of editing and make less mistakes. There are four modules in the course. The first module is to understand the basic unit of a shot, including the scene, angle, views and length. These are the basic units and preparatory knowledge for film and television editing. The second module is to group the shots, including editing, matching directions, grouping individual shots and transition. These are the basic practices and general rules of film and television editing to narrate and express the story with shots. The third module is implemented into the process of the second module on how to operate the camera, precautions to take and important points to note during filming. The fourth module is paragraph editing, including motion editing, sound editing, type editing and montage editing. Type clips include several typical scenes such as comedy, thriller, eroticism and musical performance, concentrating on the structure of content, and focusing on the performance of art.

What needs to be emphasized is this “Film and Television Editing” course does not teach the ABC of non-liner editing software. Students need to enroll into “Video Editing" and other courses in advance to master Final Cut Pro and other mainstream non-linear editing software skills before selecting “Film and television Editing” . This course is the medium to converge both the art and technology of film and television, presenting the general rules of film and television editing in an comprehensive, systematical and hierarchical way. It has also summed up the editor's editorial ideas, operational ideas and industry experiences, suitable for beginners with limited experience in editing.