Typically with most NLE systems, you first initiate a new project in the software, which sets up the job so that you can create and organize a timeline; access your material from a central location; create settings and shortcuts for keystrokes; designate where all edited material shall reside, and in what formats; and so on. The entire project then lives on your hard drive as a single project file, which is a fairly small file because it is essentially just a playlist that maps out the project and points to the actual, higher-resolution media files elsewhere on your hard drive. Those more substantial files that you will store on your hard drive include source files, which are original picture and audio files that you have imported from your camera and audio-recording system. Generally, source files live within your storage system, and your NLE “links” to them when it is time to go back and use source elements to finalize your movie (see online editing).

The other large files your NLE generates to live on your hard drive are render files, which are copies of source files after they have been modified or tweaked and then processed by your computer to reflect all changes to the original file. Remember that you may also be importing associated media files—separate media beyond your original camera footage, such as graphics, still photos, and music. As you start a project, most systems will guide you through a process of deciding where you want to keep all that media material on your hard drive. This spot is frequently called a scratch disk, although different platforms may use slightly different terminology. Often, you will be able to specify the format, frame rate, codec, and other characteristics of files either manually or using automated presets for commonplace digital camera formats.

In most systems, your organizational structure for tracking everything is designed and visible through your NLE system’s browser, which is essentially a window or panel where you can store, track, move, and organize files, folders, bins, and other elements for your project. But most important, you want to properly name your files and set up bins—also called windows or simply folders—that contain all your chosen elements, takes, shots, and options for each scene in the movie in a fashion organized to your specifications for maximum efficiency in finding and using those shots as you launch into the editing process.

There are dozens of ways to organize files and bins depending on your preferences, your resources, and which NLE software you are using. Many leading editors have particularly arcane ways of doing this, whereas others keep it exceedingly simple. Do some experimentation with sample clips to figure out what methodology works best for you. (To see a video about how this works in practical film conditions, see Video Activity: How Do I… Keep Track of Footage?)

Files and Bins

As you ingest image files and set about deciding where to put them so that you can use them efficiently, it’s important to be particularly strategic about file-naming conventions. The basic rules of thumb in this regard reflect common sense. You want to describe a file in a way that is unique and detailed but also brief, logical, and specific with respect to what it contains. You should be able to get a very good idea what each file contains merely by reading the file name. Beyond that, here are a few simple guidelines:

Finally, if your file format and software include the ability to input metadata—information about the file itself—into pre-generated information fields, don’t fail to take advantage of that opportunity. Among the metadata notations that are important is the file’s original camera file name. Because computer files can become corrupted, you might need to reimport a particular file from your original camera tape or recording media. In such cases, you will need to know what it was named originally—usually some sequence of numbers or letters that are automatically generated whenever a digital camera creates a new recording file.

Meanwhile, you also need to move files to bins within your NLE’s browser environment to serve the goal of maximum efficiency. Generally, there are two leading schools of thought about organizing bins: you can organize material based on either the order in which it was shot or the order in which you intend to cut it. Many leading Hollywood editors organize content in cutting order—the order in which they envision they will be proceeding with each scene, in script order usually but not always—starting with wide footage and working their way to close-ups of each character for each take of each scene. Each take associated with the first shot in the scene will be located at the top of the bin, all the way through to the final shot in the sequence. The advantage of this for veteran editors is that it makes it easier for them to compare performances between takes as they sort through material during the cutting process. They can find, insert, and evaluate the first character reciting the first line from a wide angle, then do the same with a midrange shot and likewise with a close-up. This methodology allows them to view all takes in a row and thus more efficiently figure out which ones they prefer, without having to waste a lot of time searching for alternate takes to compare.

The downside of this approach is that it can be extremely time-consuming to set up bins in this way, so you will need to evaluate the potential time savings you can get against the labor-intensive work you will need to go through up front. Thus, on typical student projects, you may be better off organizing material in the order you shot it, typically by scene and take number. Timelines of many NLE systems offer the option to view graphic representations of clips, which will give you a fairly quick idea through ordered thumbnail photos about the type of coverage each clip entails—wide shot, close-up, and so on.

There are, of course, more detailed breakdowns you can do with your bins—and with specific folders within your bins—depending on how much time you have to organize them before you segue into the cutting process. As you make edits, you may want to create new bins to keep track of your first edit, second edit, and so on down the line. You might even have bins for each scene with original dailies, bins for those same scenes with each of your organized edits, and bins with related music and effects for those particular scenes.

Timelines

Most NLE systems use a window-based methodology for graphically displaying material you are working on in various ways, such as the aforementioned browser window. Another typical window, often called the viewer or source monitor, is used for marking clips while the editor is culling through material, and another, called the record monitor or program monitor, is used for basic viewing of edited sequences.

In virtually all NLE systems, the most important display is the timeline. This serves as the primary interface the editor will use to lay out chronological thumbnail representations of all tracks for all sequences from the movie in a linear, horizontal fashion across the monitor or monitors. You can zoom in on individual shots or scenes, and you can also zoom out to view how each sequence fits into the larger movie. The timeline essentially represents your movie exactly as you’ve cut it thus far, even though clips on the timeline are really just surrogates for the actual media files, which live within your storage system. These clips link directly to the portions of your original files that you will need when you finish the movie later on, as we discuss shortly.

Keep in mind that most NLEs permit multiple video and audio tracks or layers, depending on your creative and technical needs. You can layer sound above picture, sound above titles, titles above picture, or picture on top of picture. If, for example, you are using back-and-forth cutaways from another event happening in the narrative, you might want to place the cutaways on a different video track on the timeline so that you can experiment with them before you need to bother with an overwrite edit (see the next page) in that particular spot.⁴ You can make the cutaways longer or shorter to decide what you prefer without taking original shots off the timeline, and when you are happy, you can move the shot to the primary video track.

Also, not all NLE systems use a two-window layout, or all of the aforementioned nomenclature for the various tasks we have described. Some systems use just a single window, from which you can toggle back-and-forth between source elements and edited clips. In fact, there are numerous differences in terminology, layout, and other aspects among various systems. However, virtually all of them take the basic approach of offering some kind of visual representation via the timeline so that you can drag-and-drop clips, cut-and-paste them, or insert cut points; see what you like or don’t like; and then save or delete what you just did. In other words, the timeline is the place where you will be able to keep visual control of your creative work in an organized fashion.

Once you have familiarized yourself with your NLE and set up your project, you will start marking clips and adding them to your timeline. Here are some basic pointers for interacting with your timeline:

Technical Assembly Techniques

As you march forward, adding and subtracting elements to and from your timeline, you must keep in mind that the movement of clips will typically impact the clips around them. If you already have a series of shots linked together and want to insert a new clip in the middle of them, most NLE systems offer a couple of ways you can do it so that you impact the overall sequence only as you intend. You can add a shot with an insert, or a splice edit—a procedure by which all preexisting clips automatically move to the right of the new shot. Some NLEs also call this a ripple edit because it “ripples” all clips after the edit further down the timeline. In this scenario, the overall length of the sequence grows by the length of the newly added clip.

A different approach involves an overwrite, or overlay edit, which adds no additional time to the sequence. With this method, the NLE allows you to insert a new clip and simply overwrites all material already on the timeline from where the new clip starts to where it ends. With an overwrite, the length stays the same and there is no rippling—earlier clips remain where they were. Overwrites are useful not only because length is not impacted but also because the synchronized relationship between picture and audio of the existing portion of the sequence is not changed. However, you need to be skilled at doing it, or you can overwrite material you do not wish to remove from the sequence.

You can also remove shots from the timeline, thus linking two shots that were previously connected to the deleted shot. This is simply called a delete or an extract edit. Modern NLEs have functions that make it easy to delete clips and then restore them with little difficulty. Other key technical editing maneuvers are described in this section. Keep in mind that the most crucial of editing techniques—executing transitions (techniques for moving from one shot to the next)—lies at the creative heart of editing, and we will leave that subject for examination in Chapter 12. But for now, here are the important technical processes you need to learn about: