How to Prepare For an Edit

When it comes to preparing for an edit session, there is no such thing as being too prepared…especially when you’re paying by the hour. Saying, “I know that what I’m looking for is somewhere in the middle of one of these 20 tapes,” isn’t going to help save money. I’ve edited for clients who didn’t have time to review their raw footage before the edit session (even though it was scheduled weeks in advance) and they intend on making final decisions as we’re editing and they’re viewing their material for the first time.

First thing you need to do is make sure that all of your tapes are clearly labeled and easily identifiable. You don’t want to put a tape in, spend five minutes fast forwarding to the time code of the spot, spend another 15 minutes looking for the scene and then realize that you have the wrong tape in the machine and have to start the cycle over with another master tape.

During this stage, you should also make sure that all of your tapes are rewound to the beginning to give a better chance that your zero is the same as the editor’s zero. Some editors prefer you to find a particular frame on your tape such as the beginning of a scene and set that as your zero point. This just racks up more time in the edit session because every time you put a tape into the deck, you have to find the frame and reset that frame to zero. The more times you have to put a tape into the source deck, the more frustrating this practice becomes. If you are going by the counter on your VCR rather than a time stamp then you may have two problems: 1) It indicates hours/minutes/seconds not hours/minutes/seconds/frames. This discrepancy may be minor but it could lead to bigger problems the farther along the tape you go because of #2. 2) It records a pulse, not a time stamp, so no frame of video has a permanent address. 00:00:00 is wherever the tape is when it is either put into the VCR or the VCR is reset to zero.

Second, review your raw footage. When you come to a scene that you want in the final edited video, place it in your edit decision list (EDL). View the EDL I use in my edit projects. The edit decision list should include the clip number, the name of the source tape, the in and out time codes of the raw footage, the in and out cues of the scene, the duration of the scene, and where the scene begins on the edited tape.

• Clip number - this is to tell the editor what order the clips/scenes will be in on the final video.
• Source - this is to tell the editor which source tape the scene is on.
• In time code - this is where the scene begins on the source tape.
• Out time code - this is where the scene ends on the source tape.
• In cue - this is to give the editor an audio and/or visual cue as to how the scene begins.
• Out cue - this is to give the editor an audio and/or visual cue as to how the scene ends.
• Duration - this is obtained by subtracting the in time code from the out time code. The duration of each clip and the location are to keep a running tally of how long the final video will be.
• Location - this is the time code of the scene where it’s at on the final video. The location and the duration are to keep a running tally of how long the final video will be.

Before you can make any decisions as to what order the scenes go in on the final video, you must identify all of the scenes that you might use in the edit. You must first identify which source the clip is from. Then you must mark the in time code with a time code indication that includes hours/minutes/seconds/frames. Then, give the editor an in cue to identify how the scene begins. Like I said before, there is no such thing as being too prepared. Give as much information as possible. This might be someone saying “Welcome to our office,” on camera or it might be a visual cue such as starting just after a lady with a yellow hat walks in front of the camera. After you’re done with the in-point, you must mark the out time code with an indication that includes hours/minutes/seconds/frames. Then you must determine an out cue. This could be someone verbally saying “Goodbye,” or it could be someone visually waving goodbye. Next, subtract the in time code from the out time code to determine the duration of the clip.

Third, with only the “clip #” and “location” left to determine, you must decide where each clip will be placed on your final video. Select your first clip and name it “clip #1”, select your second clip and name it “clip #2”, keep doing this until you have your clips selected in the order you want them to appear on the final video. Clip #1’s location is 00:00:00:00, add the duration of clip #1 to its location and this becomes the location for clip #2, add the duration of clip #2 to its location and this becomes the location for clip #3, and so on. Also, keep in mind that in order to have a fairly accurate estimate of the final length of your video you’ll need to add the time needed for graphics, text, and special effects.

Sometimes it is not necessary to fill in every piece of information for every clip, nor is it always possible. If it does not matter how long the final video is, just that all of the important pieces are included, then the clip #, source, in and out time codes, and the in and out cues are probably the only pieces of information necessary. In this case, the duration and location are not needed because it doesn’t matter if the final clip starts at 00:04:30:00 or 1:59:30:00.

If your raw footage contains multiple takes of a scene, then it would be helpful to give some information that separates the good takes from the bad takes. If you shot with a slate indicating scene and take numbers then that’s what you’ll need, if not then something like, “After the take where the talent says, ‘I keeping stumbling over that word’”. As the editor is fast-forwarding through the raw footage, visual cues are generally easier to locate than audio cues. But the more precise the time codes are, the less information you’ll need to provide for these takes.

If you are going to be inserting music and a particular scene must end as a song ends, then you must do the math and figure out if you need to add time or subtract time to make the video match the audio. Don’t leave this up to the editor, it is your video. These must be determined before any editing begins.

It is best to have your edit decision list complete before you schedule time to edit. I have had clients schedule appointments and think that it’s only going to fill up an afternoon and it turns into being a full week’s worth of editing. I have also had clients say that they need their edited video to be less than 30 minutes and before we’re done with half of their clips, we’ve put together 40 minutes.

Conclusion
Time and money could be saved if you follow these simple principles. Even when a professional is being paid by the hour to edit your video, they can become frustrated if you are not fully prepared. Feel free to use the EDL I designed.