How did they edit films before computers?

[gcubedproductions]

How did they edit films before computers? This has been floating around in my head, and I was just wondering how they did everything from cuts, to transitions, to titles, to special effects, etc.

[WesScog]

They had optical printers and editing tables. Before that they did it by hand.

The editor would organize the film, have it on rolls with basically a magnifying glass, and he would cut it with scissors and glue or tape it together.

More recently, they have editing tables, which are motorized, and have little magnified viewing screens, and you can cut and tape the film together.

Transitions can be done a lot of ways, like fades, you take the parts of the film out of the developing chemical at different times, so you get this fading effect in the filmstock, and you just overlay the images.

Stuff like special effects, they've had optical printers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_printer) for a long time, that automatically can remove blue or greenscreen, and they overlayed the other footage, the same way computers does it, but it was all done analog, and you had to have the two strips of film, and create a third copy of the combined films with the blue or green removed with a machine.

Titles can either be done manually, by filming a surface painted with your opening credits and titles on it.

Or to overlay them, that is one again an optical printer trick, which I am unfamilar with. There are also teletype machines specially designed for that kind of stuff, overlaying text onto footage.

[ilikecookies]

sometimes, people edited using 2 VCRs.

[google550]

Wes basically covered it, they would squint at the negatives and literally make cuts, then using a special tape, would connect the two clips. Then they'd put it through the reel and see how it looked.

Now when they use film, they scan in each individual frame, and edit it in programs like Final Cut Pro or Avid.

[JBdaJUGGALO]

When editing film it was common to use steenbecks, the editor would had to manually cut and splice film together using splicing tape.

Alot of words that editing software use are from the days of manually editing film.


Here is what a steenbeck looks like

http://thewinger.com/words/wp-content/images/600/20071017_100900.JPG

[gcubedproductions]

Thanks guys. Man, that sounds monotonous and expensive. It probably required a lot of skill, too.

[mopman]

yeah, lets have a moment of silence to remember the heroes of film editing... ok i'm done lets go get pizza!

[CTrax]

Eeeew... we had something like this in high school (an old one). But they had gone 'digital' which mean it was the same thing but some really old computer program in it. The way the did stuff was so outdated that I opted out of the film class. *bangs head*

Anyway, James Rolfe on cinemassacre.com just did a segment on all the ways he did his old videos. Maybe that would help you? *shrugs*

[Vaughn Whynot]

splice'in and vcrs for skate videos lol