If I am not mistaken Television came before computers. So how did people edit television shows and moives?

Answer 1

cut and paste. Simple...not really. It was a long and tedious process. Hooray for technology.

Answer 2

Two different technologies, two different -- but similar -- solutions. Movies were (and still are) made on film, a transparent substance that was capable of storing colored images (and, after about 1927, sound as a separate track). TV shows used video tape, a flexible plastic coated with a magnetic layer that records images and sound electronically.

Editing movies in the days of film used a film editing machine which allowed the editor to view two different reels of film at the same time. The editor could stop each reel independently, and move them forward and back frame by frame before making the selection about where to join the two reels. The editor would actually cut the film strips, then join them together to make a continuous flow when played back. This is the origin of the term "cut" -- no, not when the director yells it on the scene, but when film buffs talk about how a movie makes a lot of rapid "cuts" from one camera angle to another. It's because in the old days, the editor literally had to cut the film from one view to the next.

Transitions required special photographic techniques. A fade-out could be done simply by making each frame more opaque than the one before it -- therefore less light gets through the projector and the screen stays dark. Fade-ins were the reverse. But these were not done by the editor -- they were done in the film laboratory.

Video editing was much the same, only it was the tape that was being cut and spliced together instead of film. The editor would view two tapes on a machine that permitted stopping, slow-motion viewing, and rewinding. And even that was a step up from how TV shows were edited in the age of live TV -- the director would switch the signal being broadcast from one camera to another (or more likely, the director would tell the technicians to switch the signal).

The introduction of computers for editing film and video is very recent, only really taking over in the 1990s as computers became fast enough to handle multimedia tasks, and disk space inexpensive enough to replace the existing technologies economically. The real benefit, of course, is that putting nonlinear editing in a computer made it possible for the creative staff (director, photographer, editor) to take over the technical jobs. When I was writing about multimedia in the early 1990s, I interviewed several directors and producers who were thrilled at the ability the computer gave them to have real "hands-on" control over how their work looked. Before that, it was a matter of telling the production lab what they wanted, then waiting for days or even weeks to get the product back. If it wasn't exactly what they wanted, but the show aired that night -- they had to take what they got. Being able to change things with a few mouse clicks was a revolution in creative control over the final output.

Answer 3

They did manual editing. If they didn't continuous long takes, or cut the scenes up into small scenes so there was less room for mistakes (which would dramatically heighten production cost), they spliced the film that they used.

Cause film takes 24 frames per second, so the editor would find the right moment of film, seek out the frame where he wanted to pick up where he left off, then cut the film, then attach it to the scene that he wanted it connected ito with special splicing tape (I forget what it's called). And the end result would still be one long continuous roll of film.

Answer 4

TV and movies were shot on film not video. That's why several takes were done and then the film was cut by hand and glued back together. They had to line up the sprocket holes to make sure the frames matched. That clapper board with the scene and take numbers on it, was used to line up the sound. A counter tells you how far along the film your edit is. I'm sure a lot of old time editors tell the guys doing it today, "When I was starting we didn't have it easy like you we....."

Answer 5

In the 40's when television was in its infancy, it was done live and there was no editing. Then after that, it wasn't any different than movie editing where film was spliced.

Answer 6

Movies were shot on film. Not film as we know it now but big spools of the stuf they called reels. To edit they had to view the film frame by frame and cut and splice by hand.

Answer 7

If you limit the definition of computer, TV came first.
Editing is the same process, frame by frame examination, followed by "cut & paste" of film, where desired. Early TV shows were done live!

Answer 8

maximum shows have been stay those days and accomplished in one specific studio. The actors would take breaks and do the merchandising as nicely so there replaced into no decide on for modifying. so a procedures as video clips are worried, they had action picture rolls which they'd decrease and paste to get the needed effect.

Answer 9

Early most televison was done live or shot on film. The film for movies or tv was marked and spliced by hand

Answer 10

They have bigger editing devices specially meant for studio tasks nowadays you can comply some of that work with a nice little editing program.