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Inside
the Cover Book Reviews Cut
By Cut: Editing Your Film or Video We’ve heard it so much it’s almost become cliché, but in my case, it’s absolutely true: I fell in love with filmmaking because of my dad’s Super 8 movie camera. Okay, maybe not because of it, strictly speaking-- its presence was more of a catalyst than a cause-- but if I had not had that clunky little Bauer at my disposal, I might not be where I am today… which is to say, sitting at my desk and exploiting, for fun and profit, my filmmaker’s passion. Why do I mention this? Because when my friends and I, at the tender age of 12, set out to make our first short film, it was my grand introduction to the world of editing. In case you’re wondering, the film was a 15-minute opus whose name I’ve forgotten-- something like “The Magic Formula”-- and it was a campy rip-off of one of my favorite TV shows at the time, “The Six Million Dollar Man.” In our version, the hero received his super strength when he ingested an experimental formula that had been accidentally tainted with, um… well, let’s just call it “bedpan water.” Hey, what do you expect from teenagers? Perhaps it’s best that no copies of the thing are known to have survived. I still remember the thrill of getting the three-minute rolls back from the film lab, watching the “dailies” on my dad’s mini-Moviola, and learning to use the splicer and film cement. All of these memories came flooding back as I read Gael Chandler’s excellent textbook on film and video editing, Cut By Cut: Editing Your Film or Video. Chandler’s book is a comprehensive, well-organized, and incredibly detailed how-to book on film and video editing written by an experienced professional editor. The author takes her readers from soup to nuts, covering everything from how to prepare the cutting room before an editing project starts, to technical descriptions about the processes and equipment used by editors in their daily work, to an in-depth discussion of how a project is “finished” onto tape, disc, or film. The author uses pictures, diagrams and charts often, and effectively. That’s good, because she really gets down into the nitty-gritty of editing-- esoteric things like film stock coding, digital field and frame specifications, and cut marks-- and without visual aids, the material would be hard to follow. As it is, I only got lost in the weeds a couple of times, with some of her more detailed procedural explanations… but she succeeds in being clear far more often than not, and given the nature of the material, that’s a tremendous accomplishment. The book also includes an excellent “additional resource” list, glossary, and bibliography, for those who want to pursue further study. If Cut By Cut is not being used as an Editing 101 textbook in film schools around the country, it should be. It’s that good. It’s certainly going on my shelf as a permanent addition to my personal filmmaking reference library. And, oh yeah-- since my heyday with Super 8 celluloid, I’ve done a lot of editing, but only on analog and digital video systems. I kind of miss the feel of real film… so I’m thinking I’ll go out in the garage and dig around for those Super 8 reels. Who knows, maybe with editing help from Gael Chandler, even bionic urine can look good! Patrick Beltran is a screenwriter, independent producer, and freelance writer who works as an IT professional during the day to pay the bills. He lives in Virginia with his wife and three daughters. |
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