The Brief History of Editing from Old to New

With a case study on modern Editing techniques

Sam Thomas
In the movie Everything everywhere all at once, directed by Daniel Kwan, which won the
Oscar for ‘Best Film Editing’ in 2023, there were only 6 people in the VFX and editing team.
None of these people went to a film school and were all self-taught by free tutorials. Yet
these 6 guys made one of the greatest editing masterpieces of all time and won an Oscar for
it.

Before we get into the editing of Everything ever where all at once I wanted to do some
research into the history of editing. We start in 1924 when ‘Iwan Serruier’ created the first
video editing devise called the ‘Moviola’. This kick started the movie editing space. “The
Moviola allowed editors to study individual shots in their cutting rooms, thus to determine
more precisely where the best cut-point might be. The vertically oriented Moviolas were the
standard for film editing in the United States until the 1970s”1. This was widely used in the
US until the invention of the Flatbed Editor.

(Moviola)

The Flatbed Editor was invented in Germany in the 1930s. “When the editor finds a point to
cut one shot into another, they mark it on both picture and sound rolls, then makes the cut and
splices in the next shot.”2

(Flatbed Editor)

We now look at the first editing soft where called “Avid” created by Bill Warner in 1988.
Avid was a revolution of the time becoming the first “professional non-linear editing
system”3. This soft where was used in most movies at the time most notably Jurassic park and
is still used rarely today.3
(Avid)

We then move to the by far most used soft where premier pro. Created in 2003 by Adobe and
is still used to this day in most movies and forms of media today. This is featured in most
movies nowadays such as, Deadpool, Terminator, and the one we are looking at Everything
Everywhere all at one. Premier pro was the “first QuickTime-based video editors on the
market”4

(Premier pro)

When talking about premier pro it’s also worth mentioning Adobe After effects. This is also
used a lot in modern day movies. The difference between After Effects and Premier Pro is
that after effects is for digital models and much more complicated visual effects. Along with
blender these 3 softs where make that perfect mix of editing soft where allowing you to do
anything and everything you may need.

(After effects and blender)

The impact of premier pro being created was the most dramatic of all. When premier pro was
created it made editing so much quicker and made it easily accessible to the general public
this led to the rise of content creators though YouTube (created in 2005) and other video
platforms. Premier pro made a cheap and easy way to edit videos meaning that anyone could
learn how to edit videos and could edit any video they chose.

(YouTube)

The next up and coming concept in editing is the idea of using artificial intelligence to edit
videos for you. This is something that hasn’t been used much yet especially in the movie
space. The use of artificial intelligence would let you describe what you want to edit and for
it to do it. Unfortunately, this technology hasn’t been invented yet or is in very early stages
but it is for certain a world that is coming fast.

(Ai generated images)

According to experts in the field the first fully Ai Hollywood blockbuster could be made in
“about three years”. They also say that some “Ai tools are already being used”. This shows
how quickly Ai is coming. The fact that we could have fully Ai generated movies in three
years is a scary fact, but I will be most interested in how people react to them. If there is lots
the backlash then I don’t think there will be many more made. But if they are received
positively then we could have an Ai movie Oscar with in the decade. We are in the crucial
years of Ai generation.

One quote about editing that stands out to me is by Francis Ford Coppola which says “editing
is the essence of cinema” what makes this quote stand out so much to me is the fact that it
describes what editing is perfectly. Without editing the cinema we know today is not the
same and some would say without editing we wouldn’t have cinema at all.

Moving on form the old to a bit more of resent history and looking at Everything everywhere
all at once. What makes this movie so excellent form an editing perspective is the fact that it
is made by only 6 people who were all self-taught on free tutorials.
(Everything Everywhere All at Once editing team)

This movie is incredibly interesting to watch form an editing perspective because of how
different it is. This movie is just so unique to watch as you don’t see many movies like this.
As all the effects they use are relatively practical and made to perfection.

(The time line for the movie)

One thing I love about this movie is that fact that the scenes were shot to be edited. They
were shot to make it as easy as possible for the editor, this is something you don’t always see
in movies. It seems obvious when watching this that they had a very clear idea of what and
how they were going to edit it.

One scene I want to put a lot of focus on is the chair scene5. I find this scene especially
interesting to focus on from an editing perspective because of how easy it is to create and
how effective it works. They make this scene by first recording the office in the background
and then the actor ‘Michelle Yeoh’ screaming on a chair with a green screen behind her
(Green screen and side angle)

Another shot that really sticks out to me is this scene (image below). This effect looks really
cool and shows a different reality but in fact this effect is really easy to do. All they did to
make this is just mask out the area between their hands and added a different reality into it.
This effect is really simple and shows exactly what the movie wants to portray in an instant.

(Hand effect)

The last scene I wanted to look at is this one (image bellow) with the hot dog hands. What I
find most interesting about this scene is that fact that it uses a real prop. The great thing about
using a real prop is that they have a good idea of what they want to look like. But they had an
issue that it didn’t look real enough which Is where the VFX team would come in. It’s a small
little detail but it makes a lot of difference. Having these hands blend into the really hands
makes the audience feel like the actor has these hands for real. What stands out to me is that
most movies would have no prop hands meaning they would leave it all up to the VFX team
which makes it really hard for them to make as they have no reference.

(Hot dog hands)

Another movie that I find an interesting case study to look at is ‘The Boys’. This is a series
that unlike Everything everywhere all at once, is made by professionals and a team. One
thing the Boys dose that I particularly enjoy is there use of world building. Both of the
images bellow are from the same shot. What I like so much about this scene is the amount of
detail that went into the background. They could have easily put them in a desert for this
scene and made a cop out but no they made a fully city scape with ruined buildings and dust
and went all in on this small shot.

(The Boys Dawn of the Seven scene)

The next thing I wanted to look at in the boys is Homelanders laser eyes. When it comes to
super hero movies one of the most common super powers is laser eyes, and I believe that no
one does it better than Homelander. The eyes they use for Homelander feel like they are
actually inside his eyelids and that’s because they are. When editing his eyes, they crew
wanted to make this effect so they made him digital eyelids to go over his eyes. This meant
that when he used his eyes they could uses these eyelids to accurately reflect the light off
them to make them look like they are really in his eyes. When you combine this with a lens
flair it makes his eyes feel so really making Homelander seem more real.

(Homelanders Laser Eyes)

To conclude after looking at a brief history of editing I feel a new-found appreciation for the
technology we have and where it came from. I have also learnt lots about the simplicity of
editing and how they make it by looking at the best examples (everything everywhere all at
once and The Boys) I also learnt about what it’s like behind the scenes of a movie like this
from the camera equipment to how they put the scenes together. This will help me going in to
my final project as it will make me understand the simplicity behind special effects and
finding easier ways to do it
Wikipedia. (2020). Moviola. [online] Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviola

Wikipedia. (2021). Flatbed editor. [online] Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbed_editor.

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Avid Technology. [online] Wikipedia. Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid_Technology.

Wikipedia. (2024). Adobe Premiere Pro. [online] Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Premiere_Pro#:~:text=First%20launched%2
0in%202003%2C%20Adobe [Accessed 15 Jan. 2024].

Inverse. (2023). When Will AI Generate a Hollywood Blockbuster? ‘Give It About

Three Years.’ [online] Available at: https://www.inverse.com/culture/when-will-
ai-make-a-blockbuster-movie [Accessed 16 Jan. 2024].

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Everything Everywhere All At Once 2022 - Evelyn’s First

Verse Jump | HD. [online] Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY2Hc1pfP70 [Accessed 15 Jan. 2024].

DVDFilmBonus (2023). Everything Everywhere All at Once - Making of & Behind

the Scenes. YouTube. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxQdVAZPXvs [Accessed 13 Jul. 2023].

Corridor Crew (2020). VFX Artists React to THE BOYS Bad & Great CGi. YouTube.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYOpn1yJTKo.

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). VFX Artists React to THE BOYS Bad & Great CGi 2.
[online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fmai7geQwI
[Accessed 17 Jan. 2024].