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Unedited Versus Edited Video And The Production Process


Of all the ways in which diversity existed in video production, the way that poses the greatest obstacles for seeking development is the inconsistency in how “finished” the projects were. Most dramatically, this is evident in the projects that were never edited, but being edited does not necessarily mean that a project is finished either. “The Good, the Bad, and the Techies” (Project 5), for instance, is a project that was edited, but the students reported having run out of time so that the edits do not adequately represent their intentions; the project represents only what they had time for. The fact that the students required more time could be taken as an indication of a lack of development—they were not able to sufficiently plan a project in relation to its constraints—but the genre and production process they selected clearly required more time. Thus these aspects of the context need to be known and taken into consideration.

The search for development in unedited work also requires reference to the context. In one unedited piece from Urban High (Project 7), the story is evident as scenes were shot repeatedly and from several angles and were mostly in sequence. The few that were out of sequence were clear because of the repetition. Both experimentation and a degree of consideration about how the camera would show the scenes was evident, and care was taken to show all the essential pieces of the story. I did not need to speak with the students about their intentions because it was mostly evident. My only question, which remained unanswered, was about how they would integrate or choose between the various shots, and my impression was that this would have been a difficult task for them since their only guidance in this regard came in the form of teachers frequently reminding students that different angles make a video more interesting. They were, however, never given the opportunity to edit the project and commented during their group interview that they did not know at that time that editing was possible. The unedited work was the finished project as far as they were concerned.

There are, however, additional projects in which the unedited videotape bears little relation to the edited tape. This is most dramatic at Boarding High where students were given the camera and allowed to go out and shoot without making plans and without supervision (Project 15 in particular). Here the camera work involved more exploration and searching, even experimentation with different techniques. The difficulty is that the unedited video does not suggest the quality or theme of the edited projects. In Project 15, interaction with other students and school staff characterize most of the shots, but the edited piece has no people in it. There are therefore, two distinct types of unedited video: one that is geared specifically toward the finished project and one that does not. Because the two types of unedited video are so different, distinguishing what does and does not serve as a suitable substitute for an edited piece is not difficult. The difference in process is apparent in the unedited video.

This raises the need to specify the different phases of production. Zettl (1995), who authored the books used in two of the schools, distinguishes three stages of the process as it is customarily described: Preproduction, Production, and Postproduction. To clarify what students actually did, however, parts of these stages are highlighted through the discussion of the planning phases, recording phases, and editing phases. These correspond to Zettl's stages, but some students participated in additional activities. Logging, for example, is technically part of production, but students frequently skipped it or logged tape only after they edited—simply to meet the teacher’s requirements. Some productions included rehearsal, but never as much as teachers seemed to prefer. Planning sometimes included creating scripts or storyboards, the assignment of roles, and the documentation of the idea, but some groups showed no indications of having had an idea before beginning to record. Since video and observation are the only indications of which activities students participated in, the planning phases are in some instances entirely unknown. Future research—particularly if a greater emphasis is placed on the production process—would best obtain all the artifacts related to production, including work done on paper during planning. Because this study did not include permissions for this collection, a comparison of unedited to edited video, when both are available, are the primary indications of development, supplemented by observations of some of the production activity.

Initially, my hypothesis was that stronger communication would be indicated by a stronger similarity between edited and unedited tape, but after observing courses with very different requirements and having experimented in making “video art,” two radically different production processes have become evident, which seem to have no bearing on the quality of the finished product. There simply are two processes—production with extensive preproduction work and production that consists of explorative camera work and extensive editing. The dominant approach involves having a concrete plan before beginning to record, but some mixture of the two approaches is possible.

Suburban High formalized its values by requiring that paperwork reflecting preproduction work be submitted at the time of viewing, but Urban High went a step farther and required clear evidence of planning before access to equipment was given. At Urban High, the result of requiring extensive planning was that very few students in Media 2 ever worked on a video and the majority of time in Media 1 was spent working (or not working) on the planning stages. One—and only one—of the observed projects at Suburban High (“The Good, the Bad, and the Techies,” Project 5) evaded the pressure of documenting a precise plan with a project that necessitated more explorative camera work. Similarly, one project in Media 1 (“Sex Talk,” Project 8) planned interviews that were designed in very general terms. In the case of “The Good, the Bad, and the Techies,” the lack of planning became a problem because they did not have sufficient time to select the best shots and apply all the editing they intended (such as more music), but the plan nevertheless was a valid and potentially rich one.

At Boarding High, by contrast, only one project showed any indications of planning before recording, and it was never finished. Observation also revealed that efforts to promote planning were sporadic. Two of the courses started with requests for lists of ideas, but the students were never reminded of those lists when production began or otherwise guided toward developing a plan. The one project with some planning involved a small story: Female students climbed a fence to escape school. The real “work” of most projects took place during editing when the unedited video was sifted through, experimented with, and placed in order. The “planning” in this case did not involve activity away from the video but actual manipulation of clips until a satisfying project emerged. In this sense, the planning was visual and sometimes aural—in the sense of matching images to music—rather than symbolic or abstract. More importantly, it was more concrete and relied less on anticipating what might look or sound good. Reilly (1998, p. 146) addresses the problem of “visual literacy” as opposed to other forms of literacy and the necessity of developing it specifically. One possibility is that the expectation of significant planning without the use of the camera might pose a formidable obstacle to some students, despite years of “consuming” video. The lack of recognition given to the novelty of video production is likely to make abstract recording activity—the planning of camera uses without the camera—much more intimidating. 20 When actual planning as a preproduction activity happened, the subject of how to use the camera and how to edit were rarely the beginning point; the beginning of planning activity was normally with the development of an idea, a message the students wanted to convey.
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 20 My own experience of trying to create an “art video” when the video had been recorded without a plan suggests  that it is not an easier process: I could not devote much time to it and after about three hours of attempting to edit various clips together, I gave up. The possibility of a third, more dynamic process that involves planning, exploration, and evaluation leading to more planning arises as a way for teachers to promote greater development.
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