MANILA, Philippines ? One of the ?Hidden? and grossly underappreciated artists in the TV-film process is the film editor. He or she works quietly, far away from the cameras, and yet, the way TV-film footage is edited affects a production?s success or failure in a major way.

These thoughts come to mind, because we?ve recently seen evidence of how important editing is in the production process: First, the new ?Pinoy Big Brother?s? opening show was more viewable than past editions, because it was so briskly conceptualized and edited.

From start to finish

In the past, the reality challenge?s opening telecasts tended to be too slow, portentous and long. This time around, thanks to judicious editing and compression, the introduction of the tilt?s new contestants fairly flew along, and we found ourselves watching the show from start to finish.

In the ?Angelina? movies, too, some comic sequences worked well, partly because they were so smartly and organically directed and edited. On the other hand, some sight gags didn?t work because they were on too long.

One example is the sequence in which a villain?s moustache was clipped in half while his back was to the camera. He took much too long to turn around to reveal the ?funny? shaving, giving viewers time to guess what the visual ?punch line? would be?so, when it was finally revealed, it became anticlimactic. Crisper editing would have speeded up the process, to everyone?s delight. In comedy, timing is everything, so judicious editing is acutely important.

Problem

On many teleseryes, editing is again a problem, because those melodramas tend to make their characters speak too long and lushly, screaming invectives at each other, ad nauseam. After a while, one ?confrontation? scene looks and sounds like all the others, so crisp and even ruthless editing is urgently needed.

On fantasy-adventure series like ?Darna,? the editing flaw is the slow execution of action, flying and special effects scenes. As a result, those key moments fail to fly and impress, so a lot is lost in terms of the shows? excitement quotient.

There?s also a problem with editing ?natural? action in combination with special-effects setups. The editing has to be seamless for the effects to work, but this sometimes doesn?t happen.

More lively

On ?Lovers in Paris,? inefficient editing even affects the performance of one character as opposed to another. For instance, KC Concepcion?s ?ditzy? portrayal is edited in a more lively manner than Piolo Pascual?s more buttoned-down and dour character.

This makes logical sense, but it ultimately proves to be a dampener for Piolo?s performance, because it comes off as comparatively tedious and boring. So, the production needs to help energize Piolo?s performance with more astute and interesting ?psychological? editing.

The bottom line is: You can play a boring character, but your performance must never be boring; subtly dynamic editing can help Piolo?s character a lot in this regard.

These and other instances should make viewers more aware and appreciative of the key role that good editing plays in TV-film productions.

Editing may be a ?hidden? art and craft, but it articulates the tempo and visual language of cinema, so it?s really where the all-important action is.