Explore the origins behind the techniques and crafts of video editing. Uncover the methods discovered by the old masters, from the Lumiere Brothers to Georges Melies, Edwin Porter, D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein and even Charlie Chaplin. Whether you’re a beginner or have been editing for years, enhance your skills and gain fresh insights into editing techniques. Understand what the early filmmaking pioneers discovered about editing, learning how to rearrange their footage into cohesive narratives and setting the standards for modern video editing. Engage in examples among the earliest films, demonstrations, interactive peer reviews and online multimedia resources. Showcase your newfound knowledge through quizzes and exercises, and open doors to career opportunities and connections. All you need is access to basic editing software and some rudimentary skills to use it. Presented by CU Boulder Journalism Instructor Paul Daugherty and CU Boulder College of Media, Communication and Information Media Technology Manager Emilie Johnson, The Foundations of Video Editing Techniques will take you back to where it all started, to the silent era of filmmaking, an era that inspired many filmmakers across generations.
The Foundation of Video Editing
This course is part of The Evolution of Video Editing Techniques Specialization
Instructors: Emilie Johnson
Included with 
Recommended experience
What you'll learn
Define editing terminology and explain fundamental editing techniques.
Describe the features of editing software and demonstrate basic editing skills.
Identify examples of continuity editing and montage in film scenes.
Describe the impact of film pioneers on the evolution of editing techniques and explain how these innovations influenced modern editing practices.
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January 2025
4 assignments
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There are 4 modules in this course
Welcome to the first module of The Foundation of Video Editing where you will learn about the origin of modern video editing techniques. We’ll share with you our recommendations for editing software that is either free or affordable and introduce you to the grammar of editing. We’ll also introduce you to the pioneers of film in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and explain their innovations in editing, which changed empirical reality as we know it. Understand how jump cuts originated and were subsequently hidden by inserts and cutaway shots. Apply your knowledge in exercises where you can identify and use jump cuts, and with insert and cutaway shots within a scene.
What's included
9 videos4 readings1 assignment2 peer reviews
Welcome to Module 2 in The Foundation of Video Editing where we’ll explore how the fundamental unit of editing shifted from the scene to the shot. We’ll introduce you to film pioneers who innovated editing styles like parallel action and cross-cutting. Learn the concept of the 180-Degree Rule, and how Dutch filmmakers cut their shots together on the action. Filmmakers like D.W. Griffith showed how narrative problems can be solved with a simple close-up. In exercises where we provide the footage, you can demonstrate parallel editing using footage from one of the earliest films, assemble cross-cuts, and edit sequences that will make your narratives more compelling.
What's included
7 videos3 readings1 assignment3 peer reviews
Welcome to Module 3. Delve into the subjective innovations of editing with the point-of-view shot, where it becomes possible to tell visual stories from the narrator’s psyche. Explore a new era of subjective cinema with German Expressionism and learn about psychological editing. We’ll also explore how to smoothly transition from one shot to the next by cutting on movement. Discover how some silent filmmakers explored ways to convey a character’s inner thoughts without using words. Finally, we’ll look at the fast-paced editing style of slapstick comedy and the innovations made by global superstar Charlie Chaplin. We’ll provide you with footage to demonstrate what you learned, cutting on movement, and even using smash cuts to contrast between scenes with jarring edits.
What's included
5 videos3 readings1 assignment2 peer reviews
In the final module of the course, we’ll take a deep dive into the Soviet influence on filmmaking and the theories of montage as conceived by Russian filmmakers Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin. Learn about the principles of montage, how it can be used to juxtapose shots with contrasting content, to convey emotions and ideas, and even to make symbolic connections between scenes. The montage can be used to condense time, communicate exposition, and can guide the audience’s emotions when the editing is set to music. We’ll provide you with footage with the media so you can take a crack at editing your own music montage.
What's included
3 videos3 readings1 assignment1 peer review
Offered by
Recommended if you're interested in Music and Art
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Colorado Boulder
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University of Colorado Boulder
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