Ten Commandments of Video Editing

1. Thou shalt not screw up thy client’s job.

2. Thou shalt saveth thy project every ten minutes.

3. Thou shalt backup all sources, masters, and EDLs in more than one place so that thy precious video might be saved from eternal loss.

4. Honor thy Almighty Vectorscope and thy Almighty Waveform Monitor, for in Darkness and in Light art thou be guided by them.

5. Thou shalt not covet thy scene transition for the sake of vanity, but shalt thou cut with reason and purpose, and only then, keeping thy transitions modest.

6. Thou shalt have thy proper subject on screen at the proper time, thy speaker when he speaketh, thy reactor when he reacteth, thy glance and then thy object.

7. Thou shalt not cross axis.

8. Before editing thou shalt watcheth every frame of thy footage 3 times and on the third time take notes.

9. Thou shalt be organized in order to quickly find any shot or element.

10 Thou shalt not linger too long in black, lest thy viewer kick his TV set reproachfully, thinking it hath conked out again.

The Art of Film and Video Editing takes you beyond the hardware to the art of editing. This 9-part article is a course in the art and styles of editing. Includes videos. Don’t miss it.