ABSTRACT
In The Parade’s Gone By, Kevin Brownlow chronicled the early days of editing thus: ‘Editing, in common with other aspects of techniques, settled down to a solid professionalism around 1918. Astonishingly most editors worked without the animated viewers considered essential today. They cut in the hand. Modern editors are baffled by this; how could they possibly judge the pace or the rhythm?’ He goes on to describe how ‘cutting in the hand’ only died out when sound brought synchronization problems, and quotes Bebe Daniels’ comment on Moviolas, the new editing machines: ‘The old cutters would not use them-they were like old cooks who refused to use pressure cookers.’
