Chapter    8       THE EDITING  OR  COMPILING THE FILM     

Once the film has been shot ( or picturised) it has to be edited.  This becomes necessary as the film is normally shot at random and not in the sequential order of the shots, even though the shots would have been decided before going for the shooting.  As we said earlier film itself can be defined as a compilation of shots , this has to be resorted to give a final shape to the film.  This process of compiling the shots is called editing.   You may be thinking all along that the main job that is done in editing is to compile only the good shots, discarding all the bad shots or takes, as they call them. (The same shot, with the same dialogue and same action may be shot a number of times, till the technicians and artists concerned are satisfied and these are called the takes.  Please note the difference between a shot and a take.)    

But in reality editing is more than sifting the bad from the good shots and takes.  It is the way in which the shots are compiled and this is the one that gives the film  its final form.  The director and editor will decide on how this is to be done.  They may alter the sequence of the shots to a certain extent, if they feel that the film will be better that way.  You may wonder as to how can they change the order of the shots   without changing the order of the dialogue and if they do change then the story may turn out be different or even at times meaningless.  No they will not change the story, but they would have taken different shots of the same dialogue or action and can therefore change them, without changing the story.  Also they can change the sequence of the scenes, to make it more impressive and even this will not change the story, if done properly.  Let’s take an example and examine how this can be done.  We will go back to our screen play.    

As per the screen play, when Nirmala answers the phone for the first time, the viewers do not know who the caller is , but could have easily guessed that it is from someone, whom Nirmala does not expect to call up and also someone, whom she does not want to have anything to do with. Now we may think that there is enough suspense for the viewers.  But the Director and editor may feel that even this should not be revealed to the viewers now.  They may prefer to let them know about it a little later.  In that case they may replace the scene  with the caller meeting Nirmala (remember Nirmala asked the caller to meet her before ten)   Whether they will decide to reveal the identity of the caller and the purpose of his meeting with Nirmala, at this point or not will  be discussed ,.later.  But for the time being, for you to understand how the screen play can be modified slightly to suit the film, it is enough to know that this scene can be changed and shown at a later stage.  And this is the job of the editor and he will do it with the approval of the director.