Yet in real life, second and third takes until everyone gets it right are seldom possible or practical. Sometimes a shot is simply boring. Other times under or over exposure is the scene killer. If the interviewee coughs, you'll want to edit that out. Handshake is another reason some video should end up on the cutting room floor.

Less than a decade ago editing suites cost tens of thousands of dollars. Today, modest editing programs come free with the latest PCs, and more powerful editing suites cost just a hundred dollars or two. 

Of course, you can blow the budget on gee-whiz “prosumer” editing solutions meant for those who charge for their video work and possess real video skills. But I don’t recommend them. While it is true such suites provide precise frame control (a frame is roughly 1/30 of a second of video) almost no one this side of Hollywood truly needs that level of video control. Dealing with individual frames of your movie is exhausting and  usually ensures only your final project will die unfinished in the editing suite and never see the light of public release.

In the past I have purchased, attempted to master and use five different video editors – three versions of Adobe Premiere, Ulead Studo and Dazzle. 

My current (2006) favorite is Pinnacle Studio Plus version 9. It captures, edits and outputs video to CDs, DVDs, VHS tape (boo) and various file formats for the Internet. It includes all the transitions you are likely to need, a small SmartSound library of copyright-free soundtrack possibilities, and all the other goodies beginners need. 

Of course, if you’re on a Mac you know that after iMovie, Final Cut Pro is the way to go.

Depending upon your plan – you did develop a plan for the shoot, didn’t you? – the purpose of your video is either to educate or entertain (not both) those who watch it. 

The job of the video editor is to unmercifully slash and burn the video footage, to whip it into a final form your audience will enjoy watching. 

If you thought directing yourself as a camera operator was hard on the ego, just wait until the editor in you start calling the camera operator in you all sorts of names.

Generally speaking, the no-brainer "first edit" consists of all your raw footage, strung together in the sequence in which it was shot, plus opening title screens and a closing credit roll. Call this the daily rushes. It is your starting position, not where you are going to end up. But save it anyway, just in case you mess up while editing and need to start over.

Going in, we know your video will be an interpretation of the event, not a true historical record of everything that happened. (For that you would need extra camcorders and camcorder operators, people wearing microphones that record every word, and more editing suite than most of us can afford.)

Simply because you stood in one place rather than another while shooting, your perspective was different than those of others who stood somewhere else. Your movie will end up mirroring your perspective. Especially if you concentrated on the pretty girls rather than the guys present.

Some of your shots will turn out better than others, if only because the people recorded did or didn’t do what you were expecting. Free translation, you are going to throw footage away. If you don’t, you deserve the title “amateur” as negative as it sounds. 

That’s why you should have overshot -- mo re footage than the final cut of your video requires. That extra shot of Uncle Ted may be the only one to survive the editor’s knife. In fact, most editors throw away a lot more footage than they use. From a good shoot I typically save 20 percent. Bad shoots have to be re-shot – or faked, which is usually possible, but is seldom as easy, cheap or as convenient as having excess footage at hand.

By the way, make a note of which out-takes are worst. You may want to string them together as bloopers to run under your closing credit roll. Or don’t you want to end your video on the high note of providing laughs, while encouraging your viewers to sit through your otherwise boring closing credit roll?

Spend some time reviewing your daily rushes, your raw footage. Do you have even marginally useable shots of all the key players? If not – and even if you do – it may be time to email friends who attended, asking for copies of their digital pics. Chances are they got the person you missed – and as a bonus, from another perspective. 

As the requested pics arrive by email, don’t forget to add still photography credit(s) to your credit roll. People like seeing their name listed as a contributor, especially to a video they feel is well edited.

While reviewing your rushes, make note of which scenes are your favorites. That way you may be able to string them out during the course of your movie, grabbing the audience’s attention early, and hanging on to it until the end. 

(How much freedom you’ll have to do this depends on the subject of your movie. Some content doesn’t flow well out of sequence, other content does.)

Do you have scenes that lend themselves to special effects? If you taped a toddler doing the same thing repeatedly, as young children tend to do, you could handle it in several ways.
-- One is simply letting your audience sit through all 14 trips up the ladder and down the slide.
-- Another is to use only the best climb and slide, leaving the others on the cutting room floor.
-- Still another is to show the first climb and slide, cut to his mother’s reaction, show the second climb and slide, cut to his father’s reaction, show the third climb and slide, then cut to his grandfather putting the kite together, and move on. 
-- Need to mix things up? How about the climb in fast motion and the slide in slo-mo? Or the whole sequence in reverse?

There are frequently shots that turned out fine, but should for political reasons end up on the cutting room floor. The shot of the child crying should probably disappear. Ditto the shot of Uncle Ted blowing his nose. Be discreet. It is not your job to embarrass anyone, even in the name of accuracy. Just having the footage is a lousy reason to use it.

Boring shots may also survive if moved out of sequence. For example after the kids doing something that makes your audience laugh, can be a great place to show Mom icing the cake, or cleaning up. Such shots, properly placed, can keep your story moving forward, while allowing your audience to recover from the previous high point. It takes practice to string high points together one after another effectively.

Copyright 2006-2007 John Cardiff