The sky above is a laundry-washed blue and the grass is swaying to the wind just the way it should. The white daisies are in full bloom and the mood is just right for the girl in a flowing pink dress to waltz through. A darker shade of pink would be better, you think. Here’s the thing ? you can actually play God and change it all ? alter the colour of her dress, make the sky dark, and even bring on a light shower.

Welcome to the world of film editing. It’s the part of the film making process that takes over immediately after the camera has done its job and the scenes are canned. Basically, editing involves anything and everything to do with shortlisting the right frames to brushing them up in terms of colour, light and effects, and then finally, after aligning them in the right sequence, mixing them with sound.

Of course, editing has been around for as long as film making has been. But as film making underwent a transformation in terms of techniques and styles, so did the process of post-production, especially visual editing. Says Professor T.K. Lawrence, lecturer, editing, at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, “Visual editors are no longer just the ‘cutters’. Nowadays, a film is more dependent on good editors than before.” That FTII introduced a special two-year editing course in 2002 is indicative of how important editing has become as a field.

Echoes Meghna Ghai, director, business development, at film production house Mukta Arts’ institute for film and television education, Whistling Woods International, “In Hollywood, they say a film is actually made on the editing table. And that’s true for Indian films too these days,” she says. Ghai’s yet-to-be-launched institute is planning on a two-year specialisation in visual effects, including editing.

So what is editing all about? After the camera has done its job, editors swing in to give the film the look that was originally planned. In general, the editing functions are the same for film, television or advertising. Says Shyamal Karmakar, professor, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India, Calcutta, “Editing is about technique (understanding the relation between sound and music), technology (work with various software and media like film and documentary) and aesthetics. These are the hallmarks of a good editor.”

So if you are looking to become an editor in films, you require a good sense of aesthetics, preferably a design or film making background, along with a flair for technology. “Nowadays, software has empowered the editing and visual effects process. You can do the impossible with it,” says Amit Jhamb, line producer at Pixion, the Mumbai-based production firm.

Broadly, editing happens in two stages ? offline and online. Offline, as the term suggests, includes going through reams of unedited film, shortlisting and compressing the tapes according to the storyline or sequence. This is the raw stage of editing. The online stage involves polishing the film further through processes like colour grading and treating the frames to give them a cohesive and uniform look. Most of this happens on the computer and hence requires a lot of software. These two stages are common to feature films and ad films and even television serials or music videos.

Unlike other fields, post-production is one area where you have fewer hierarchies in the same role. Chop and change

So after a couple of years, you may graduate to another role altogether. That’s because post-production is like a chain of functions ? there are offline editors and also specialised editors for different kinds of editing software like colour grading, Flame, Lustre and also special skills like graphics, visual effects and animation. The producer who oversees all these functions is called a line producer. Generally, an editor grows to become a line producer after about six to eight years.

After the edited film is canned, it goes through the sound editing phase. That starts with dubbing for the main dialogues, then fusing it with the live and incidental sounds and also adding sound effects and music where necessary.

Usually, in the case of both visual and sound recording, each process is handled by a professional who specialises in it. So before you get into the field, be sure to opt for the stream you have a passion for. “Freshers often go blindly into specialisations in ad or film editing before identifying the areas where their skill sets fit in,” says Jhamb.

Post-production firms don’t exactly discourage complete freshers from applying. Proof of your talent, however amateurish, such as a video or your sketch book, can give you an edge over other applicants. “These days, you can easily learn and practise basic software (for example, Final CutPro) on your home computer,” says Alankrita Singh, producer, Prakash Jha Films.

Money trail

But there’s one catch. As a fresher, irrespective of whether or not you have a degree under your belt, you must be willing to put up with peanuts as salary and crazy working hours. You can start out as an assistant with a producer or an editor. “However, money should not be your priority in the initial months,” cautions a production executive. “Be prepared to work with no salary at all in the first year,” he adds.

But take heart. As a full-fledged editor, your pay packet per project can be as high as Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for a medium to big-budget feature film, and Rs 1-3 lakh for a small film or documentary. “And the creative satisfaction that comes from the job is priceless,” says Jhamb.

Most seasoned film editors say that you learn more on the job than from textbooks. But if you’re keen to get some formal training, you could enrol for a course in editing in any of the following institutes: FTII (Pune), Jamia Milia’s Mass Communication Research Centre in New Delhi, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India, Calcutta, and Xavier’s Institute of Mass Communication, Mumbai.

Many direction and cinematography graduates also end up in editing, say professionals. Says Jhamb, who himself is a qualified cinematographer, “A training in cinematography gives you the ‘eye’ for cinema, which is very essential in post-production.”

So if you have what it takes to become a film editor, go ahead and be the one to give those films their final forms.