We edit your recorded films

If you are unsure what is on your tapes or films, if you need them in a particular order but cannot watch them prior to transfer, digitise them and watch them first on DVD. We edit your recorded films.

We have the solution! In general, people know that the tape or film is of reasonable value, but they have not been able to view them for a long while.

We add a time code to your films to enable you to give us precise instructions.

And we can add titles to label the film identification number:

You choose and detail an order to put them into and we do the rest.

we edit your recorded films

We edit your recorded films

You want to transfer your tapes or film reels to digital but you don’t know exactly what they contain since you have not been able to play them for a long time. Unfortunately, we do not offer the possibility of viewing the contents of your tapes or reels prior to transfer. However, we do offer you a complete service option where we transfer to digital and include editing.

Why would you want to do this? Your films are of a certain age, you do not know exactly what they contain, but you would like to have a final result which is fluid and succinct, free of superfluous image. You may have a precise objective for your films, such as focusing on particular people or themes.

How can you go about this?

While we do not offer the possibility of reviewing your films prior to transfer, we do offer the possibility of transferring them and providing you with an initial digital copy on DVD, USB key, hard drive or on YouTube in order to review the contents of the transfer. If you do not wish to edit in any way, then you already have the final results, and you keep the media provided.

Note the sequences to keep or remove

You would like to modify your films once recorded.

Simply note the sequences o keep or remove in the table provided.

Change the sequence order

In another example, where your tapes or reels were all mixed up, the beginning might be at the end and vice versa. This type of table enables you to tell us the required order of the sequences.

  1. Review the recorded material
  2. We record your tapes or reels
  3. We export the recording to DVD, key, hard disk or YouTube.
  4. Watch the recordings and decide what you want to keep or delete.
  5. Complete the table ‘keep or cut’
  6. Return the table to us, and we make the required changes.
  7. Review the recordings and decide if the changes are sufficient
  8. Repeat if necessary

Why edit your recorded films and what sort of sequences can you take out?

You might well discover that the camcorder was left on but unattended, thus filming the inside of a handbag, the wall or the floor. These are the most obvious types of sequences to remove.

Recordings are not in chronological order. You were not able to identify dates or locations prior to recording. On watching your film, you notice that sequences are not in chronological order. You decide that you would like to have them in chronological order.

You find the film too long, or you would like to focus on certain people, scenes, locations or events. Perhaps there are certain sequences that do not interest you at all and would simply like to exclude them. So as you watch the film, you note the time code of the sequences that you would like to remove.

Perhaps you would like to edit your recorded films according to a theme, for example just focus on Grandad.

The film is too long. Perhaps you have recorded all of your holidays over a ten-year period, which might give you perhaps 10 or 15 hours of film. Sometimes not much happens. A barbecue goes on and on, people are at the beach, there is a party. A good resume of a film mentions the significant people once or twice for only relatively short periods of time. More than that may get boring, be unnecessary. An edited film is a final product. A transferred film is raw material.

We edit your recorded films – set us an objective

Specifying sequences to cut and retain is one way of working. But you could give us a certain number of indications, and we will do the rest, such as … NB: Alternative methods exist to edit your recorded films. It is possible for us to work together where you identify simply the people that you would like to remove or keep, or say remove all the scenes where there are no people at all. We can identify the people concerned as we go through the film. Most often, customers wish to focus on people in particular.

Keep some or all of the film with Grandad, but remove all the film where there are no people or where there is just background scenery.

Take out the slow sequences, filming the floor, the ceiling or the film is just not aesthetically pleasing …

So you could simply just give us an objective. If we were to produce a one-hour film down to 15 minutes, just give us your feelings about the film, what you like and what you don’t like, and we will do the rest … Of course, we will give you a first draught edited version and will retain all the cut sequences so that you can change your mind.

You will already have viewed the raw footage. This is a first draught version. You then view the draught version and let us know how you feel about it, whether we have taken out too much, whether you would like certain things put back in or adjusted.

After a second corrective edit, you review the film on DVD, key, hard disk or on YouTube.

We hope that this will enable you to approve a final version, which we edit on the format of your choice.

What cost to edit your recorded films?

We always work based on an initial quotation, which establishes a total cost for your project. Sometimes we can simply calculate the number of cuts or reorder operations.

But projects may vary enormously, especially if we work based on your guidelines rather than a predetermined number of cuts. In this case, we calculate our quotation based on the time we expect to take and an hourly rate. Once the quotation established and signed, the project price is fixed, and we will charge you no more than originally agreed.

For this reason, we spend quite a little time with you to understand your requirements to make sure that we understand how you want your film edited.

Preferred tools to edit your recorded films

We now use Première Pro for our video editing.