The Technique of Film and Video Editing

Ken Dancyger examines the artistic and aesthetic principles behind editing both picture and sound, and sets the editor's storytelling choices against the history, theory and practice of the craft. Rather than teaching a particular software program, he treats editing as an art. The analysis rests on stills taken from dozens of films and videos, both classic and recent. Dancyger looks at how decisions about pacing, clarity, continuity and sound shape what viewers perceive and whether a sequence works, and he lays out the ideas and styles of editing so that directors understand the visual tools open to them. Later editions add analysis of newer films. Student editors, working filmmakers and aspiring directors are its readers.

Musician and filmmaker Andi Dumitrescu named it in an interview as one of the books that helped him along the way in his career, which includes film editing.