Task Three - Developing Editing Techniques

The term 'In-Camera Editing' literally means editing in camera. Instead of uploading your video on to an editing program and editing it, you film your sequence on the camera and it edits it automatically, putting the scenes in the right place. In-Camera editing was first discovered accidentally by George Melies when his camera broke down for a brief minute during the filming of his film 'The Vanishing Lady' (1896).

George Melies

There are many pros to in-camera editing, but there are also many cons. Some of the pros are that it takes less time to create. Because the camera edits the film for you, there is no need to attach it to a computer to edit, therefore taking up less time. Another pro is that when you are filming it creates a constant video without any jumps from one scene to the other, meaning that the film runs more fluently. For example, in my video there is a scene where I am running up the stairs, which had to be shot from two different angles. This meant making sure that I was in the right place for the second shot, which I was, making the video run smoothly. Also, when you edit in camera you are forced to think more about what you are filming as you only get one shot at it and if it goes wrong its hard to correct. Having only one shot means that instead of filming and knowing that you can change what you've done and re shoot, you plan what you're going to film in advance, genuinely making it better as more thought has gone into it.

However there are also many cons to in-camera editing. The main con is that if you film a scene wrong you can't go back and change or delete it. This means that when you watch the film, the scene will still be there as part of your video. For example in my video, there was a shot where the camera filmed for a bit longer than we intentionally wanted, meaning that there was a shot of the stairs when no body was acting. Another con is that it is hard to communicate with the person behind the camera, i.e it is hard for the actor to know when to start acting and when to stop, especially if it starts off scene as you don't necessarily want somebody shouting action in the shot. Also, another problem is that if you stop recording one scene whilst the actor is still in shot and then you want to carry on the scene in another shot, you have to make sure that the person acting is in the exact same place as the shot before, meaning that there will be a brief period of time where the actor isn't moving interrupting the flow of the film. Making sure that the camera angle is right is also another con as if you are filming two different shots in the same place, you must make sure that the camera is in the same position in both of the shots otherwise the framing of the shot will be wrong.

Editors, however, have moved on from in-camera editing for many reasons. The main reason being that in the film industry today, actors and actresses are extremely busy, meaning that they are not always available to shoot the same time as the other actors. Moving on from in-camera editing means that you can film scenes with one actor, then the scenes with the other actor and put them together. If in-camera editing was the only way of editing then it would take a lot longer, and be a lot harder to create a film, feature length movie or TV series. Also, the growth of technology means that there are better ways of creating movies, that are a lot more efficient. Editing in-camera would take to much time and reduce the quality of the end product.