Here’s a short video essay on film editing by Max Tohline.
One of its premises is that anything can be made to mean anything through editing. It’s true, and something we should all keep in mind as we go about existing in a world filled with media.
Tohline says that editing acts as punctuation in films, and helps with expressing relationships and new modes of thinking.
One exercise for beginning video editors is to un-edit a TV show. That is, take a show like a soap opera and cut the scenes apart, then put each character’s story together without the rest of the show. The lesson usually results in a few very short stories.
Another exercise is to make a noise (clap) each time you see an edit during a program, or count the edits in a period of time.
The editor is making decisions to influence what you see and when you see it, be it in literature or film. It doesn’t just happen. It happens for a reason.
