Before editing anything, your first step involves setting up an efficient editing environment that takes into account your creative needs, such as what the purpose of your film is and what format you want to deliver it on. By arranging your available technology, resources, and environment correctly, you are improving your chances of creative success later.

The most important point about designing and organizing your editing infrastructure is to work backwards and plan things from the end to the beginning. By that we mean that every decision you make about how you will edit your film and organize your work needs to consider where you want to end up—that is, how and where you want to show your film. If you were shooting for a studio-level 3D presentation on a giant screen, then it stands to reason your editing infrastructure would need to be more complex and, thus, more costly. If your goal is to end up with a quality Blu-ray disc to bring your movie around to people as a calling card, then your process will be far less complicated. And if your goals are somewhere in between those two extremes, your decisions should reflect that final format.

You also should make sure your editing space is comfortable and ergonomically set up—after all, you will be spending a lot of time there. Among other things, it’s a good idea to have a couch or extra seating for your director or others who will be giving you feedback, and for you to be able to lie down during a break in the midst of marathon editing sessions. You also need sufficient air conditioning in the room, not only for your comfort, but also to make sure your hardware does not overheat.

In terms of choosing that hardware to get started, you’ll want to pick a platform that is both robust enough for your particular project and affordable.

NLE Hardware

A nonlinear editing system (NLE system) is simply a computer workstation configured with special software designed specifically for editing moving images. What is revolutionary about the NLE concept is that it allows you to perform editing functions on digitized imagery without irrevocably eradicating original elements or ruining all the work you have already done. In other words, you can experiment creatively with an NLE system, and then you can export that material to physical or virtual media through off-board hard drives, thumb drives, optical drives, or other devices widely used to move data in and out of central computer systems.

Therefore, the components of an NLE system involve relatively powerful hardware and specialized software. First, let’s look at hardware considerations:

Computer In theory, you could use any off-the-shelf computer you have available—desktop or laptop—as long as it has enough memory to run the software and sufficient memory and graphics capabilities to handle the clips you will be running through it. But for long-form projects, a personal computer may not have the computing power or memory you need. At the professional level specially configured computers with powerful editing software—often known as turnkey systems that are assembled with all relevant hardware and software components packaged together, tested, and professionally installed—are used exclusively for nonlinear editing applications.

As a student, you may not have access to a professional turnkey system, so you should strategically evaluate what computers are available to you. Laptops are obviously more mobile for editing on or near the set or while you travel. Desktops, on the other hand, can often be upgraded more easily with additional hard drives, video cards, and other hardware, and they easily connect to big monitors to allow you to better view material. We recommend editing on a desktop with a mouse when feasible, but if you are using a laptop, be sure to connect it to a larger monitor and use a mouse if you can. In either case, you always want to edit on a computer with the most memory and computing power available. Particularly if you are working on material at high-definition resolution, you will need a powerful processor or multiple processors to avoid rendering waits and slow performance. You may also use more than one computer, but if you do, be careful about file-naming conventions and data management, so that you will know which version of the cut is the latest as you move files around; these subjects will be discussed later in this chapter.

The other computer performance issue to consider is RAM (random-access memory). Certain editing functions with NLE software products need lots of RAM to function efficiently, and whatever software you use, it will likely come with a recommendation of the minimally acceptable amount. Remember, though, as with most software, “the minimum” that is acceptable is just that. You are always better off, when feasible, using a machine with more RAM than recommended.

Monitor For basic editing, many computer monitors, consumer monitors, or televisions can work with most modern editing software programs as a component of larger NLE systems—but that doesn’t mean they will provide the best viewing experience. For one thing, consumer computer monitors do not display color in the same way that broadcast monitors do. What this means is that although they are usually fine for viewing clips and using the editing interface, they will not show you the image as it would likely be seen in a broadcast or theatrical situation. For broadcast quality specifically, images on computer monitors can appear too dark or flat—neither of which is a major issue for the creative purpose of selecting editing transition points and making cuts, but they can be major issues for color grading (see here) and evaluating the final version of your material to make sure it will be displayed as you, the filmmaker, have intended. Keep in mind, then, that the bigger the monitor is, the better, because part of editing creatively involves looking into the nuances of the image, blowing up images, and also having a clear and easy view of your entire timeline—the most important visual user interface within your nonlinear editing system (see here). The better look you can get at images while editing, the more likely you are to come away with a good choice and a seamless cut.

Depending on resources, as you select a monitor, do the best you can with the issue of color depth (how many colors the monitor can display—bigger monitors generally have greater color depth), and also see if you can use two or more monitors instead of one, as many professionals do. If you can swing that, you will have a much better view of the entire timeline and isolated imagery, but of course it will require greater computer power. Ideally, try to have at least the best quality HD monitor you can get.

Cards and Devices A video graphics card is another important issue to consider. The graphics card contains a computer’s graphics processing unit (GPU)—essentially a circuit board inside the computer with its own separate RAM, which controls the data’s output to a monitor, determining how fast and how clear the image can be. Professional editors, of course, use the fastest graphics cards and accelerator hardware available. You may or may not have that inside your available system, or have the ability to upgrade it, but as you figure out how to configure your NLE, keep this issue in mind and find the best solution possible. Beyond all that, remember that because you need to move data in and out of your NLE, the more input and output ports your computer features, the better—USB, Ethernet, Thunderbolt, DVI, HDMI, and so on. On a desktop, you can potentially add ports using open expansion slots during an upgrade process.

NLE Software

Among the most exciting aspects of the nonlinear editing revolution is the fact that there is a wide range of NLE software systems that are affordable and accessible for consumers and students. Therefore, if you have even the most basic hardware, and you have set it up correctly, there is undoubtedly an NLE software tool available for you.

What factors should you consider before making your choice? Your computer’s operating system is an important one. Some editing software tools only work within the Apple OS, such as Apple’s signature editing product, Final Cut Pro. Others only work in Windows, but many run in both. In addition, many work best with a 64-bit operating system,³ and obviously, everything functions better when you have more memory and RAM. The simple act of checking out your hardware and operating system capabilities should be among your first tasks.

Price is another obvious consideration, especially for student filmmakers. Despite the proliferation of more options than ever before, at the professional level, the vast majority of modern films are edited using some version of Avid’s line of nonlinear editing platforms, to the point where it is fair to refer to Avid as the industry standard for professional editing. A smaller number of films use some version of Final Cut Pro (either a legacy version of the original version of the software or the radically revised Final Cut Pro X, rewritten for the OS X operating system in 2011, which is the only version that Apple now supports), particularly independent or low-budget films, while still others use Adobe’s Premiere Pro system. But there are others that are used on projects of one type or another, including Sony’s Vegas system and Lightworks. High-end professional tools from Autodesk and other manufacturers that professionals most often use for color correction, finishing, compositing, and certain other visual-effects tasks now also include strong NLE functions, but most of those are likely out of a student’s price range.

As with many software products, some manufacturers periodically offer student pricing on lower-end versions of major NLE products. For example, Avid has offered a low-cost subscription to a student version of Media Composer in recent years. You should periodically check out the product sections of manufacturer websites to find such deals. Your school might also be able to offer assistance in securing special student pricing from major manufacturers. Furthermore, many programs have direct relationships with such manufacturers and may already have editing facilities—built on professional-level NLE technology platforms—available to you.

Additionally, there are even more budget-conscious options available, including freeware editing technology for download, and editing tools that come installed on consumer computers, ranging from Windows Movie Maker to Apple’s iMovie, which incorporates some Final Cut Pro features. Lightworks offers a free version that can be downloaded, as do other companies—tools that range from ultrasimplistic to surprisingly sophisticated. Even platforms that cost significant money often offer free trial versions you can use for a short time to work on projects, familiarize yourself with features, and figure out if they are worth your while.

Whatever choice you make, each platform offers a somewhat different user interface, different keystrokes, different looks to the timeline, different options and functionality, and somewhat different nomenclature. Still, there are certain commonalities in how they operate, what to look for, and how to get the most out of them for practical editing work. Among those commonalities are basic features, graphic representations, or icons you are likely to find widely available across multiple systems. They all, for example, have a useful undo function—click on an icon or a menu, and your last edit never happened. Likewise, you will often see some kind of playhead graphic symbol when viewing clips—a symbol that moves across what is often called the scrubber strip at whatever speed you drag the playhead along, which is a useful tool for moving back and forth quickly to find what you are looking for. Similarly, you will typically find jog and shuttle controls, to allow you to move through clips a single frame at a time or at different speeds. You will probably find a razor blade icon you will use when making a basic cut, and controls you’ve become familiar with from using any standard consumer-level software, such as the find command, zoom tools, and rollover tools that tell you what a particular control is for when you put your cursor over it.

Organize a Workflow

Many technical nuances associated with importing, manipulating, and exporting files, and the nature of different formats and codecs, are beyond the scope of this book and the type of filmmaking work you will be doing for the foreseeable future. However, you do need to formulate a workflow—the basic plan for the series of steps you will use throughout the editing process to get files into your NLE system, back up and keep track of them, work on them, save them, and export the final product to your desired finishing media at the end of the process.

The lure of editing is the creative possibilities it offers filmmakers. But as the old saying goes, organization is the key to success. If you are spending much of your precious creative time searching for files, comparing versions, and worrying about lost or misplaced data, then logically you aren’t being creative during those moments. The following phases are the ones you will follow on the path to getting organized and avoiding that eventuality. As noted elsewhere, in the file-based digital workflow era, there are dozens of options and degrees of sophistication to these processes. You need to figure out the simplest, most basic, and safest way to move your files into your system, but no matter what approach you adopt, it will include some version of the following steps:

Logging The process of deciding what material you want downloaded to your NLE system as possible elements to be considered while editing is called logging. Due to limits on storage space, and the need to be organized and not bogged down, it’s rarely a good idea to download every single frame you shot.

Therefore, reference any records or notes you or your crew kept during production about what you shot, from a marked-up script to camera reports or informal notes. If feasible, you might also hook your camera up to a monitor before downloading anything and scan your footage take by take and scene by scene, looking for shots you definitely want to consider and taking note of the timecode, if it is available, to make it easier to find that material. As you scan your way through shots, write a report that lists the scenes, takes, basic descriptions, and timecodes of shots that particularly interest you. With many modern NLEs, you can do this during the download process by viewing footage and simply telling the software which shots you want. Many systems also include dialog boxes for you to manually input various kinds of metadata information about the clip.

Ingest Obviously, you will need to transfer captured image and sound files from your recording media to your NLE system’s hard drive, so that you can organize and work on them. How you transfer the images to your computer depends on what format and media you shot them in, what system you are using, and personal preferences. Among the possibilities are film, analog videotape, digital videotape, or—more likely these days—digital image files, either standard definition or high definition.

With modern cameras, you will typically apply settings as you shoot, telling the camera what file format you want the images to be translated into. This way, you will have established files on your recording media that can be seamlessly transferred to a computer via any of several types of digital interface connectors now available, or via a removable drive or solid-state card that plugs into your computer. In fact, there are currently dozens of ways via dozens of input methods to transfer digital files from a camera to your NLE, depending on your camera and how you configured your NLE system, as discussed earlier. You might end up using a standard USB connection, a FireWire connection, a faster Thunderbolt connection, or even HDMI or Ethernet technology for even faster data transfer. On the other hand, if you are still using digital videotape, you might have to connect a video tape recorder (VTR) to your NLE system.

You might also need one of several different kinds of capture cards, which are really circuit boards for your NLE computer that serve as an interface for ingesting different kinds of file formats into your system. Some of these technologies can also transcode a file from one format to another, convert the image up or down from standard definition to high definition, improve the speed of your computer’s ability to do all this, and much more. For now, your goal should be to find the simplest, fastest, most straightforward way of moving captured image files to your computer.

Backup/Storage Another advantage of working in the digital era is the fact that large hard drives are relatively accessible. On any project, among your first steps should be the act of copying all media and source material to a redundant drive or set of drives of one type or another. If at all possible, keep those drives in a different location from where you are working for extra security. Depending on resources and logistics, you may even want to keep a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) system on-site—powerful, automated storage systems that are constantly backing up files while you work. They can range in price from under one hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on their size and degree of sophistication.

The other advantage that is available to you at modest cost is the fact that there are a wide range of consumer-based cloud storage services, such as Dropbox, and automated cloud-based archiving services, such as CrashPlan and Carbonite—that permit you to upload full or compressed individual files; copies of your entire NLE project and EDL (see here); or, in some cases, a mirrored image of your entire hard drive in order to achieve security off-site in a relatively affordable manner. Other ideas include simply emailing yourself or a fellow student backup copies of the project at the end of each day.

Resolution As you import and organize material, the other thing you need to figure out is what resolution you want to edit your movie in, because resolution impacts the size of files and therefore how much work and memory your computer has to dedicate to rendering and dealing with them. This is where the terms offline editing and online editing enter the discussion. In essence, at this stage, you are deciding whether to edit material in its native resolution and file size—typically higher-quality files you imported into your NLE exactly at the size they were originally recorded and saved in, a process often referred to as using an “online workflow”—or whether to change files to a lower resolution, which more or less means a lower-quality format and a lower-quality look on your monitor, but which makes it easier for your system to work with image data during editing (offline editing). In that scenario, you will need to reassemble the movie using your original higher-resolution elements during the finishing stage, which is often called the “online edit,” or the conforming process. (See Tech Talk, for more on the distinction between offline and online editing generally, and here for a deeper look at a typical offline/online workflow, and also the difference between using an “online workflow” throughout and performing an “online edit” after the offline process. See also Producer Smarts: Stretching Resources, below.)