Digital Video Editing

Course Description

Digital Video Editing teaches production and post-production techniques for effective non-linear editing and distribution of content.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, RTV is the Radio and Television prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 4 credits, offered fall, giving approximately 80 contact hours at the prefix convention.

Editing is where a production becomes a programme. It is also the single most employable skill in this prefix — editors are hired in every corner of the industry, in-house and freelance, in news, sports, corporate, agency, and documentary work, and the craft transfers between them more readily than any other. A student who leaves this course genuinely fluent in a non-linear editor has something immediately marketable.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its RTV courses, but the convention across the prefix is consistent: every published RTV course at this institution runs at approximately 20 contact hours per credit (RTV1000 and RTV1510C at 4 credits and 80 hours; RTV2100C and RTV2600C at 3 credits and 60 hours). These are studio and laboratory courses, and the hours reflect substantial hands-on time rather than lecture.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the non-linear editing workflow from ingest through delivery.
• Import, organise, and manage media within a project.
• Apply a consistent file and folder naming convention.
• Create and manage sequences with correct settings for the source material.
• Perform basic edits: insert, overwrite, ripple, roll, slip, and slide.
• Apply the grammar of the edit — continuity, screen direction, and the 180-degree rule.
• Cut on action and select edit points that serve the story.
• Construct a coherent narrative sequence from unstructured footage.
• Edit dialogue and interview material, including the use of cutaways and B-roll.
• Mix audio to appropriate levels and maintain consistent loudness.
• Apply audio processing: equalisation, noise reduction, and compression.
• Apply transitions purposefully rather than decoratively.
• Create and apply titles, lower thirds, and basic motion graphics.
• Perform basic colour correction and match shots across a sequence.
• Apply speed changes, freeze frames, and reframing appropriately.
• Work with mixed frame rates, resolutions, and codecs.
• Use proxy workflows for high-resolution material.
• Export to appropriate delivery specifications for broadcast and online distribution.
• Describe common codecs, containers, and compression trade-offs.
• Archive a finished project so it can be reopened later.
• Apply the 3-2-1 backup principle throughout a project.
• Identify licensing requirements for music and third-party material.
• Incorporate feedback and revise an edit through multiple cuts.
• Deliver a finished piece on deadline to a stated specification.

Optional Outcomes

• Apply multi-camera editing workflows.
• Apply advanced colour grading and scopes.
• Create motion graphics in a compositing application.
• Apply keying and basic visual effects.
• Describe collaborative and shared-storage editing workflows.
• Build a portfolio reel from course work.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Non-linear editing workflow
• Media import and organisation
• File naming conventions
• Sequence settings
• Core edit operations
• Grammar of the edit
• Cutting on action
• Narrative construction
• Dialogue and interview editing
• Audio levels and loudness
• Audio processing
• Purposeful transitions
• Titles and lower thirds
• Colour correction and matching
• Speed changes and reframing
• Mixed formats and frame rates
• Proxy workflows
• Export and delivery specifications
• Codecs, containers, and compression
• Project archiving
• Backup discipline
• Licensing of third-party material
• Revision and feedback
• Delivering to deadline

Optional Topics

• Multi-camera editing
• Colour grading and scopes
• Motion graphics
• Keying and visual effects
• Shared-storage collaboration
• Portfolio reel construction

Resources & Tools

• The programme's own studio, control room, and field kit — by far the most valuable resource here, and the reason to take these courses in person. Book open lab time and use it.
• Television Production Handbook (Zettl) — the standard text for studio and field production.
• Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (Zettl) — why shots work, not just how to get them.
• In the Blink of an Eye (Murch) — short, and the best thing written on why an edit happens where it does.
• Grammar of the Edit and Grammar of the Shot (Bowen) — practical and genuinely useful early on.
• Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition, or DaVinci Resolve — Resolve has a genuinely capable free version, which matters when you are building skills outside lab hours.
• Frame.io, Vimeo, or YouTube for review, delivery, and portfolio hosting.
• NAB Show and SMPTE — where the industry's technical standards and equipment are set out.
• Florida Association of Broadcasters (fab.org) — state industry body, job board, and scholarships.
• NATAS Suncoast Chapter — regional Emmy chapter; student entries are a realistic and well-regarded credential.
• FAA Part 107 study materials (faa.gov) — free, and the certificate is directly marketable.
• Production music libraries and Creative Commons audio — learn to license properly now, because it is unfixable later.

Career Pathways

• Film and video editor — SOC 27-4032.
• Camera operator, television, video, and film — SOC 27-4031.
• Producer or director — SOC 27-2012.
• Broadcast technician / audio-visual technician — SOC 27-4012, 27-4011.
• Sound engineering technician — SOC 27-4014.
• Local television news — the traditional entry route, and still a real one in Florida's many mid-size markets.
• Live sports production — a large and growing Florida sector, from college athletics to professional venues.
• Corporate, marketing, and agency video — where a large share of production work actually is, and frequently the best-paid.
• Houses of worship and non-profits — substantial steady demand for competent live production.
• Government, municipal, and educational channels — stable employment with benefits.
• Theme park and attractions media — a distinctively Central Florida employer.
• Freelance and owner-operator work — common in this field; treat it as running a business.
• Transfer to a bachelor's in telecommunication, digital media, or mass communication — ⚠ confirm which of these courses apply, since technical production credit does not always transfer as major credit.

Special Information

⚠ Editing is a craft of decisions, not of software features

• Learning the application is the easy half, and it is not what you are being graded on. Anyone can be taught which key performs a ripple delete; knowing where the cut belongs is the skill that takes years.
• Every cut needs a reason. "It felt right" is a legitimate reason once you can articulate it; cutting because the clip ran out is not.
• Cut for the audience's attention, not your own. You have watched the footage forty times and they have not, so what reads as slow to you is frequently correct for them — and what reads as fine to you is frequently confusing for them.
• Watch it with fresh eyes, or someone else's. Sleep on a cut before locking it; you will see problems you were blind to the night before.
• Audio does more work than you think. Sound carries continuity across visual cuts, and a well-mixed track makes an ordinary edit feel professional.
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts properly. Speed is a genuine professional requirement in news and sports, where the deadline does not move.
• Save iterative versions rather than overwriting — the cut you abandoned is sometimes the one the client wanted.
• Take notes on feedback without arguing. Receiving revisions gracefully is an employability skill, and clients notice it more than they notice your transitions.

⚠ Media management — the footage you did not back up is the footage you lost

• This is the discipline that separates people who finish projects from people who tell stories about losing them. Cards fail, drives fail, and they fail at the worst possible moment.
• Follow 3-2-1: three copies, on two kinds of media, one of them off-site. A second folder on the same drive is not a backup.
• Offload before you leave the location where practical, and verify the copy before formatting anything. Confirm the file count and the total size, and spot-check playback.
• Format cards in the camera, not on the computer, and only after the footage is verified in two places.
• Name files and folders systematically from the first day — project, date, card number, and scene. Renaming after the fact breaks the link between your edit and your media, which is a painful and entirely avoidable failure.
• Keep the camera originals untouched. Edit from copies or proxies; never let an editing application be the only thing that knows where your footage is.
• Log as you go. Notes made on the shoot day cost minutes; reconstructing them from four hours of rushes costs a weekend.
• Label and rotate cards so a full card is never mistaken for an empty one — a reversed card is how footage disappears.

⚠⚠ Copyright, music licensing, and releases — the trap that ends student projects

• You cannot use commercial music. Not thirty seconds of it, not "for a class project," not with a credit line. This is the single most common serious error in student video work, and it is the one that gets a portfolio piece taken down permanently.
• Fair use is a legal defence, not a permission. It is decided case by case, after the fact, by a court — it is not a box you may tick in advance, and relying on it for background music is not a defensible position.
• "Royalty-free" does not mean free. It means a single up-front fee rather than per-use royalties, and the licence still has terms — read what it permits, especially for commercial or broadcast use.
• YouTube's Content ID will find it, automatically and permanently. A muted or blocked video is a portfolio piece you no longer have.
• Get a signed appearance release from every identifiable person on camera — keep a stack of blank forms in the kit bag, because you will need one at a moment you did not plan for.
• Minors require a parent or guardian signature. No exceptions, and this matters constantly in community and school-based shooting.
• Location permission is separate from people permission. Private property needs the owner's consent; many public spaces require a permit for a tripod or a crew.
• Clear the background too. Artwork, logos, posters, and playing music in a shot are all someone's property.
• Use properly licensed libraries — production music libraries, Creative Commons with attribution honoured exactly as the licence requires, or music a composer has given you written permission to use.
• Keep your paperwork with your footage. Releases and licences you cannot produce are releases you do not have. Rule 11 applies — verify current requirements before distributing anything.

⚠ In this field the reel is the credential, not the transcript

• Hiring in production is portfolio-driven. Employers want ninety seconds of your best work and evidence you can be relied on — the degree opens the conversation, the reel gets the job.
• Treat every course project as a portfolio candidate, which means clearing the music and the releases at the time, not the week you apply for work.
• Keep it short and lead with the strongest shot. A reel is judged in the first fifteen seconds, and padding actively hurts.
• Show your actual role honestly. Misrepresenting what you did on a crew project is found out quickly in a small industry.
• Say yes to crew positions on other people's projects. Credits, contacts, and competence all come from the same place, and this industry hires overwhelmingly by referral.
• Reliability is the actual differentiator. People who arrive early, handle gear carefully, and stay pleasant at hour eleven get called back; the ones with better taste and worse habits do not.
• Local news, live sports, houses of worship, corporate video, and municipal channels all hire steadily in Florida and are where most first jobs actually are — not at the networks.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement — relevant here because several Florida universities offer upper-division telecommunication and digital media degrees that these courses feed into.

RTV1251 is 4 credits and approximately 80 contact hours, offered fall at Daytona State. Expect graded editing projects with hard deadlines and multiple rounds of revision rather than examinations.

See this repository's RTV1000, RTV1510C, and RTV1613 guides for the surrounding sequence.