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An old Hollywood adage has it that a film is created three times; when it's written, when it's shot and when it's edited.

This isn't entirely true. Ideally the three stages should be the work of refining a core theme or idea, the act of creation should be a single ongoing event. It's only if you are presented with footage shot by a clueless director using a poorly conceived script that you might find yourself in the unenviable situation of creating something new.

If the director has done his job properly, then the editing stage should be a process of enhancing what the screenwriter started and the director shot. So let's assume that the best situation has occurred and a director who knows what he's doing has handed you a neat pile of tapes.

The most important thing to do first is log the tapes and while you are doing this, watch as the slates are called look for any useful looks or mannerisms that the actors give before the director calls action. Note these down.

You've done that? Right, let's move on.

Depending on how much of a vision the director has, it should be fairly obvious where to take an edit and your first cut will be probably closest to what the director had in mind.

Even though a good director might have had the editing stage in the back of his mind while he was shooting and have a clear idea of how it will cut together, it will, in all probability, still be waaaaay too long.

Good directors love to work with actors, to encourage them to try new things and wring out the best of them. Quite often all the focus on the actors leads to a fundamental oversight; that film is a medium of moving pictures, not of dialogue.

It's now your job to ratchet it all up a gear and make it into a proper movie, rather than a series of monologues and heartfelt interchanges.

How can we do this?

There has been a lot of furore recently about the new version of Apple's iMovie '08 software. The primary cry of the infuriated videographers across the world is, Where have all the fancy transitions gone?'

The only real answer Apple should give is Why should you care?'

In the world of editing there are two types of transitions that are of any use the cut and the dissolve and the dissolve should be used sparingly. This leaves us with the cut.

The cut! Ah, the cut. As an editor the cut is your primary weapon. The cut has the power to break a heart, to change fear to loathing in an instant, to cause grown men to cry.

The cut is all powerful! Not the images either side of the cut (though these

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