Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Video Biography Viewers Should Not Feel a Pebble in Their Shoes

Editing video is not finished when you've put the audio and video together. "Rough cut" is a great term for it because there are usually some jagged edges that need smoothing after the first edit. Just like a pebble in your shoe, you might not notice it first, and, once you do realize it's there, it might not bother you that much. But walk a mile and that pebble will be the only thing you can think about.

Real editing is walking miles in your viewers' shoes. You watch the piece over and over until you find all the pebbles and get rid of them.

And then you do it again.

Something less obvious will pop up when you watch again with fresh eyes. You fix that. Repeat as necessary. Then you know you're giving someone a documentary video that they can watch over and over and never notice any flaws because they will not watch it as often, or as carefully, as you did before you let them see it.



This is a re-edit of the documentary video I did about my own parents, adding music and other production elements not featured in the original. The interviews were done in 2004 in standard definition, which is why they don't fill the screen. The photographs are much higher resolution than hi-def video so the majority of the video will adapt well to Blu-Ray, even with some old SD video included.