The Editor's Toolkit

Chapter 4

Dealing with Dialogue

Dialogue forms the backbone of most movies and TV programmes. Here, I consider ways of dealing with dialogue from whatever source: script, interview, discussion, or actuality.

This chapter is divided as follows:

• 4.1 Fundamentals of Editing Speech—Finding the best place for an edit within a word can be tricky.
• 4.2 Rhythm of the Spoken Word—There is as much phrasing in the melodic line of speech as in music. You can do terrific harm to this hidden melodic line if you don’t recognise it’s there and respect it.
• 4.3 Editing Dialogue—In this section, I examine the differences between two main sources of the spoken ...