Overview

Master the post-classical editing techniques that helped shape the MTV Style, characterised by fast, rapid cuts and non-linear narratives. Discover ways to enhance your visual stories, utilising visual effects like wipes and intentional jump cuts more to evoke an emotional response through visual impact. Delve into the psychology of editing and learn how to create tension and suspense. Learn the Rule of Six as conceived by award-winning editor Walter Murch and understand why we cut. Explore social media editing, using editing software that you can use to create engaging, short-form videos with elements like quick cuts, kinetic typography, music and sound effects to hook viewers immediately. Dive deeper into what makes a cut invisible, applying natural transitions that are created in-camera. Identify the different types of match cuts that shape meaning within a narrative. Examine some of the captivating editing techniques used by film director Edgar Wright. Understand the many uses of sound in your edits and why it’s important to get the eyelines to match. Finally, demonstrate your knowledge by editing a short video with footage we provide, and share it amongst your peers. At the completion of this course, you will be able to highlight your new abilities in a range of work and add to your portfolio.

Syllabus

Psychology of Editing

Welcome to the first module in Modern Video Editing Techniques, which introduces you to modern video editing techniques. We begin with a description of the post-classical era of editing, which is sometimes referred to as the MTV Style, defined by its fast-cutting, non-linear narratives, and many jump cuts. We also ask whether short-attention spans in modern audiences justifies the use of fast cuts, which you can discuss amongst your peers in our Discussion Prompt. Also, explore the psychology of the edit with master storytellers like Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. We’ll look into some of the editing techniques that can inject tension and fear or produce a sense of calm and contemplation. Finally, you’ll be introduced to Walter Murch, an award-winning editor, who wrote the book on editing. Murch’s Rule of Six will help you know when and why to make the edit.

Social Media Video Editing

In this second module, we’ll explore the editing techniques used to captivate consumers of social media videos. We’ll explain why it’s necessary and crucial to hook your audience’s attention right away, and how you might do this. Creating such videos doesn’t require months of learning. We’ll recommend certain editing apps that will help you create outstanding videos. Learn about the many transitions you can use, including some that you can innovate yourself to spice up your videos. We’ll introduce to kinetic typography as an editing technique that will make text on screen more visually appealing, and we’ll tell you more about the use of jump cuts as a stylistic choice.

Invisible Edits

In this third and final module, we’ll revisit the “invisible cut” and the ways that you can edit continuity seamlessly. Natural wipes are a common fixture in traditional editing, and we’ll look closely at some examples of this technique in film. As an exercise, we’ll provide the footage so you can experiment with natural transitions yourself. We’ll also dive back into match cuts, identifying several different types that can infer certain connections between themes or ideas. We’ll introduce you to the fast cuts and incredible transitions of filmmaker Edgar Wright. He learned that editing begins not in post-production, but in pre-production with the use of animated storyboards. We’ll also revisit the most common sound bridge technique – the J-Cut, and how they can be great ways to smooth out otherwise jarring edits or even to jump forward in time. Finally, learn about the use of eyeline match to help motivate the edit. We’ll show you several examples where the eyeline matches must follow the 180-Degree Rule. In your final assignment, apply the techniques you learned during this specialisation to edit a short narrative. As always, we’ll provide the footage, you have all the fun! Thanks for joining us on this insightful exploration into the evolution of video editing techniques!