Whilst studying at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Julian was introduced to the technology of video in all its forms. Using state of the art equipment, he was trained in lighting, camera control, videography, edit decision listing and A-B role editing on analog editing suits.

As technology continues to become more affordable and the use of video and digital cameras becomes more widespread, Julian is now able to build broadcast quality video editing suits for a fraction of the costs of professional production outfits.

He recently completed a semi-pro digital editing suit for a producer who was putting together a wildlife documentary to sell to Channel 4. Editing 20 hours of raw footage to a 45-minute DVD edit decision list and teaser trailer would have cost the producer over £10,000 at a professional studio, but he was able to do it for less than a fifth of that, in his own home. 

For video editing, the faster you can process, the better. Sounds obvious, but by comparison, to collate and produce one hour’s worth of video, then burn to DVD might take between one and three hours on a Quad core Pentium or AMD, six to eight hours on an Intel P4 2.6 GHz system, or two days plus on an IBM T40 laptop! As with most things, it is “how fast can you afford” but great results can be achieved for a modest budget and a complete editing system, including camcorder, DVD re-writer and authoring software can be produced for less than £1,000.00  

A tip based on experience. Do not think just a fast processor will do the job. For video production and editing you need the biggest, fastest storage system you can get. A raid 0 or 5 based system is recommended, although drive sizes and speeds are increasing to the point when this might not be necessary. Then you need a lot of RAM and finally, a good motherboard with fast bus speeds to get the data in and out efficiently and prevent bottlenecks. The range of software can be bewildering, so include at least provisional training in your budget, better than the time and frustration spent trying to figure it all out by yourself.