Basic Video Editing Concepts By Wendell Benedetti Commercially produced television programs are the standard against which all other video is measured. With their slick transitions, colorful titles and pulsing sound, they may be a good goal, but they're often a far cry from the homemade videos that most amateur photographers produce. But, with today's video and computer technology, that doesn't have to be that way. The basic ingredients that are used to create professional video productions are now available at the consumer level, at very affordable prices. In fact, professional-looking videos, with all kinds of exciting effects, can easily be generated with an entry-level digital camcorder, a Mac or PC and any one of the consumer video-editing software titles that are on the market. There are various video-editing programs available. Some, like Adobe Premiere, Apple's Final Cut Pro and Ulead's MediaStudio Pro 6.5, are suitable for professional-level projects, but even they have become affordable enough and easy enough to use that anybody thinking about doing serious video work could afford and master them. Others, like the Pinnacle's Studio suite, Roxio's VideoWave Movie Creator and Sony's Screenblast Movie Studio, are designed more with consumers in mind. They're not quite as feature-laden, but they can have a lot of interesting things. Whether high-end or consumer-level, video-imaging applications share many of the same common features. The most common features include some form of basic video capture. That's the first step in any video production. In step two, the captured video is identified as individual video sequences. This often involves identifying and cutting shorter length clips from within the individual clips, whenever appropriate. The last step in the production process is the assembling of shots and clips into a timeline or storyboard, which sequentially holds all the video's footage and sound content. Before any editing can take place, the video must be transferred from the digital camcorder to the computer. There are three primary ways to do this. For instance, you can capture all of the camcorder's video into one large file on your computer's hard drive. While this may seem to be the most effective method of moving the video from camera to computer, it does have its drawback. Digital video takes up a great deal of disk space. In fact, 30 minutes of video capture can take up as much as 10 GB (gigabytes). Not all video-editing applications or computer operating systems are capable of accepting video in such large chunks. An alternative approach is to capture the camcorder's video as smaller files, usually in the order they were initially shot. Shots can range in length from just brief glances, all the way up to 10 or 15 seconds. When the size of the finished video is relatively small, transferring the entire length of the video at one time works fine. For longer projects, it's better to break the footage down into smaller segments, such as individual shots, for transfer. Shots, by definition, are the video sequences of a specific subject taken from a specific angle. A video covering a Little League baseball game, for example, would include shots of the batter, the pitcher, the first baseman and possibly the umpire and the dugout. Once all the video has been transferred, select the individual shots that are going to be included. Each segment is labeled and its file given a name. While shots are the basic building blocks of any video project, it's also possible and frequently desirable to identify and save specific sequences within individual shots. These smaller sequences are called clips. Clips can be cut out from shots and saved as individual files or they can be pasted into the video's timeline without having to save them onto the hard drive first. A clip from the Little League video might show just one or two seconds of the coach's frustrated expression when a member of the opposing team hits a grand slam. Actual video editing takes place when the identified shots and clips are arranged onto the video software's timeline. In most cases, that's an easy process. Find the first shot that's going to be used in the video and drag it from the folder where it's located to the beginning of the timeline. All the remaining shots and clips are assembled, one after the other, in the same way. The sequence of shots can be re-arranged as many times as necessary. The fun begins when all the shots and clips are arranged on the timeline. Video-editing programs provide a broad selection of transitional effects that range from simple fades, dissolves and wipes to complex transitional sequences. In most cases, a simple jump cut is all that's needed between shots. That's where one shot abruptly stops and the next begins. In other situations, a creative transition works better. Positioning a transition between the two shots is usually a matter of finding it in the transition menu and dragging to the point where the two shots meet on the timeline. The amount of time in which a transition takes place is configured by increasing or decreasing its length on the timeline. Most video-editing programs let you do that by dragging the transition graphic to any size you want it. When all the shots, clips and transitions have been placed on the timeline, it's time to take a look at the assembled video. Most applications will display the video in a separate window while showing you where in the timeline the footage is being displayed. This feature comes handy when deciding which scenes need to be shorter or eliminated all together. Most video-editing programs also feature multiple video and sound tracks on the timeline, as well as tracks where titles can be overlaid. They give even beginning users the ability to create interesting videos that have professional-level titles, transitions and accompanying sound.