Introduction to TV Production

1. TV Production
Basic Principles of Editing
Chapter 5
Nonlinear editing NLE is: computer-based video edit systems in which clips
of video are positioned as desired, usually by cutting-and-pasting or
dragging-and-dropping along a representative timeline.

2. Where’s the beef?
Ordinary people shot in the most unflattering ways
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FvdGulFeoo

3. Mechanics
The idea is to choose the best shots and
string them together in an interesting
and informative way.
- Adding music to project
• Your timeline is a blank sequence
where you will lay down your project
with many open tracks for video and
audio
• The first step to editing is to arrange
your shots along the timeline by
inserting or overlaying images and
sounds.
You will choose where pieces of media begin and end,
whether they overlap, and how they’ll interact.

4. Trimming, slipping and sliding
You will see the need to rearrange
and adjust the positioning of your
media.
Trimming: Adjusting the boundary between two
shots. You might trim an edit a couple of frames
one way or the other, forcing one shot or audio
clip to end sooner and the other to begin sooner.
Uneven trimming of audio and video will result in a “split edit.”
Moving single clips or groups of clips
along the timeline is called slipping and
sliding.

5. Special Effects
You can change the color of a shot or layer shots
together, mix tracks or audio elements (dialogue,
music and sound effects).
You can also add words or titles to your project, masks,
selective focus, motion tracking and a film look
The Rules
Many of the rules prevent you from making “jump cuts” – edits that defy the
logic and physics of the situation. You want to tell a realistic story.
Avoid jump cuts by allowing the subject to edit the frame: When
we see someone enter a front door and disappear inside, our visual
language allows us to accept the jump cut to any room in the house
by the time the door swings shut.
The 30 degree rule – less than a 30 percent change in picture framing or
camera angle will result in an undesirable cut when the shots are edited back
to back.
If an actor is talking to someone screen left, then the matching shot
should have the other actor looking screen right.

6. Editing: involves art and storytelling in addition to organization
and information management
If you move, remove, trim or add
special effects to clips in the timeline,
the original media is unaffected.
(Nonlinear editing is nondestructive
process.)
Good editing brings order and structure to a scene
and, when the rules are followed, edits become
transparent and allow the dialogue and action to shine
through.

7. Other Rules: Obey the 180 degree rule, which protects continuity
and screen direction by establishing a “horizontal line of action” between
subjects. If all shots are taken from one side of the line or action, when edited
together, the shots convey the correct spatial relationship between objects.
When you’re shooting your own stuff, establish the scene
first with a wide shot. Then move into medium shots and
close-ups. Work out of scenes by reversing this order.
Use close-ups to gain intimacy
Be aware of continuity. If the car is going straight in one
shot, it should still be going straight in the next shot, unless
you show it changing direction. You can also show the
beginning of the action. (Someone is beginning to sit in one
shot and the second shot can show them nearly seated.)
Hold screen text long enough to read it aloud TWICE.

8. More Rules: Try avoid cutting together very bright and
very dark shots. This can leave the impression of extraneous single frame
edits left over from other versions of the cut.
Lead the viewer’s eye to important elements of the frame.
Hold shots of easily grasped objects or symbols only long
enough to grasp them. (If you show the speedometer,
viewers will get it in half a second or less.)
Let shots develop: as long as the subject is interesting, let
the shot run. Unless your editing to the beat of the music
of the lines of dialogue, don’t worry about fixed shot
lengths.
Keep your edits tight. We don’t need to see everything to
know what’s happening.

9. One Last Rule:
Break these rules as often as necessary but not all the time
or you will lose the element of surprise.
Edits aren’t always intended to be transparent or even
logical. The very edit could be a metaphor for the subject’s
lack of connection with the world or foreshadowing an
action to come.
However, it is important to understand the rules of editing
in order to first, keep the viewer on board in traditional
scenes and second, to obtain maximum visual effect when
you do color outside the lines.
On breaking the rules: Don’t break the rules halfway or it could look like
incompetence. And don’t break the rules just to break the rules!

10. Transitions
Cuts are the simple transition where one shot on screen is
instantaneously replaced by another shot.
This implies continuity and chronology, suggesting no time has passed.
A cut between a shot of someone looking at the sky and a shot of the
sky implies the person is seeing the sky.
Intercutting is cutting back and forth between shots and
implies two simultaneous but separate lines of action.
Crosscutting: When you see a woman running down the street, and then it
cuts to a man sitting at a restaurant eating alone. He looks at his watch. Then
we cut back to the woman. We get the sense that these two events are
happening simultaneously.

11. More transitions
Dissolve: When one video image blends with, and then
becomes, a second video image.
Usually indicates a passage of time, a change in location, or
both.
Wipes: Similar to dissolve in that one image progressively replaces
another but the difference is the wipe involves the incremental
replacement of one shot by another. Some wipes have meaning
assigned: a clock wipe means a passing of time.
You might choose a right-to-left vertical edge wipe because it would follow the
motion of a person cutting the frame right-to-left.
A dissolve or wipe could solve your problem by softening or eliminating the
appearance of a jump cut.

12. Transitions Cannot…
- Replace content
- Repeat after me: “I, [state your name], promise not to
produce videos, or stand by quietly and watch others produce
videos, that seam to have no other purpose than to use every
transition ever invented.”
Using a string of unrelated transitions is the same as zooming in and
out simply because you can; it doesn’t help the storytelling and looks
amateurish.
For your editing assignments, outline the
“story,” jotting down plot points, and then look
for shots that fit each point.

13. Pacing
Probe your video for signs of failure, trimming out the
sluggish, inappropriate, clumsy and confusing parts.
You need rhythm in your edit.
Recall the classic story: beginning, middle and end
Take a tip from TV: a quick cut intro highlighting the best
parts of the upcoming program, with just a hint of climax, is
often used to tease a story or tempt the viewer to continue
watching. Apply this style to your own productions.
Open with the best scenes, ending with just a glimpse of the climatic shot at
the end. Dip to black. Start at the beginning.

14. Music
B-roll: In the old days, in order to dissolve between two
shots on the air, each needed to be on a separate source,
an A-roll and B-roll. Now it’s just the second track on the
timeline, or any secondary footage.
I like to maintain the original beginning and end of most music because
it sounds more natural than simply facing the music up and down.
You can find royalty free music online on sites like
Jamendo.com or search for “copyright-free music” or
“creative commons.”
Editing beats – Look at the song’s energy plot. It’s easy to identify the sharp
attack of each beat and even locate the points where other instruments join in.
Watch the VU meters* more on that later