One of my first editing tests - A trailer for What Dreams May Come. Fabulous movie, by the way. Very artsy.

Step one was, of course, to watch the movie. I picked out scenes that were particularly dramatic or beautiful, and dialogue that told enough of the story to make a good trailer without giving away the ending. This part was really tough, because I could only use dialogue that didn't have a background track that would interfere with the trailer music.

Step two was to capture these key scenes onto the computer. This involved a complicated little electronic setup between an old TV shaped like a cinder block, and a VCR. Yes, you heard me, a VCR. Straight from the 90's. 

Step three was to lay the scenes down over the music. This was a very rough cut of the trailer, with off timing and jarring audio. A couple hours of moving frames around and tweaking sound levels, and a movie trailer was born.