ABSTRACT
The first movies were single, static shots of everyday events. The Lumière brothers’ screening in Paris of a train pulling into the La Ciotat train station caused a sensation. Silent, black-and-white, it still held a gripping reality for the audience. Editing is at the heart of film and video production. Without editing people would just have moving pictures. Video and film and television are a language. It’s a language people are all somewhat familiar with, partly because they have been watching films and television since childhood, and partly because it is a visual language that attempts to reproduce the way they look at the world to convey information or to tell a story. Editing is an art and a craft, and like any craft it has to be learned. Simply possessing the tools is not enough. Every pair of shots will always try to force on the audience some kind of relationship.
