ABSTRACT
Writing the script is only part of the story. Once the shots are back from location and ingested into the newsroom system they have to be edited. This is how the grammar of television news is applied. The report may also need library pictures or graphics. This section dealswith editing the images and compiling the report. It dealswith the most vital principles of editing rather than the technology which is updated several times a year or with the way editing is organized by a broadcaster: some have craft editors plus shoot-edit crews and/or VJs/reporter-editors or a combination of all of that. But everyone needs to know the principles in the same way as everyone needs to understand the shots. There are some basic principles, no matter what kind of software is being used:
Editing is an extension of the shooting process. The editor is building on the work of the sounds and pictures that have been acquired from the location. But as we learned in the previous chapter, the camera shots will be longer than they would appear on air, to give the editor a choice, and will probably be out of sequence. The editor’s job is simply to select the best shots, put them in order and trim them to length. One of the advantages of a shoot-edit professional and for aVJ who also edits is that he or she will know what is available. Edited shots should cut from one to another smoothly and logically and follow
a train of thought. If this rule is broken, the images that result are likely to be jerky, unrelated, confusing and detract from the story. Every change of scene or sequence should be properly set up to register with the viewers. GVs or long shots are often used as openers or establishing shots to set the scene. There’s a political demonstration at a global summit conference . . . they just
want to make their views known and hand in a petition. We see the demonstration advancing and get an idea of the scale of protest. As we begin to wonder who is involved, a medium shot cuts in to reveal the organizers striding ahead and perhaps there’s a brief interview with one of the leaders, walking and talking at the same time. But what was supposed to be a peaceful protest has turned sour. Perhaps we have no idea why at this stage. We then have a close-up of a man burning a banner. Rearrange the sequence of these shots and youmay remove the context and offer
the viewer more questions than answers. Begin with the close-up and you have no idea of the scale of the protest – is it ten people or a thousand? Cut then to the long shot and the action appears to be moving backwards. Unless you cut progressively and smoothly – like the human eye – the logic of the sequence will be destroyed. It is easier to follow the action if you bridge the close-ups and long shots with medium shots.
