ABSTRACT

Just as hard disk editing systems have become an intrinsic part of the audio production process, so disks have found applications in film and video editing too. It is customary to call this kind of editing ‘nonlinear’ in the visual environment, obviously because tape and film store images in a line whereas a hard disk offers almost instantaneous two-dimensional access to any part of the data. Nonlinear editing as a concept really dates back to film, because even though film itself is linear, the ‘line’ can be split apart and new material cut in – something which video tape cannot do (not since the days of Quadruplex anyway). Conceptually, film is the perfect editing medium since everything that you might want to do in terms of story-telling is equally easy, the corollary of that being that everything is equally difficult. There is nothing to stop you therefore going for exactly the edit you want. In video editing, some things are easy, others are more difficult. Guess what human nature leads to! In the past, film was always seen as a ‘fast’ medium, since it was more straightforward to try things out and fine tune than on the ‘slow’ medium of video where there is a distinct tendency to perfect one thing, then another, and another – but never go back. ‘Fast’ and ‘slow’ refer to the end result, not necessarily to the time taken in the editing process itself. Another feature of film is that picture and sound have traditionally been handled on separate media, unlike video tape where picture and sound are bonded together. Thus in video tape editing it is normal practice to cut picture and sound at the same place because a ‘split’ edit is more difficult. On film there is no distinction and edits are done according to what looks best and what sounds best. A film editor would think of that as being entirely obvious.