In the olden days, film was edited on a reel-to-reel system. Footage was literally cut off the spool with scissors and then taped back together. Thankfully these days are long gone and everything is digital. You probably have simple movie-editing software like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie already pre-installed on your computer. These are great to get a flavour for video editing, but if you want to get serious you should absolutely look at upgrading.

The top of the range Adobe and Apple suites are scarily expensive, but they do offer watered-down versions for a reasonable price. Just like with cameras, every brand has a whole army of nerds shouting their badly-spelt opinions around the internet. Have a shop around and find the package that suits your needs best. To suit as many readers as possible, we’ll be taking a more general look at editing without sticking to one brand.

All editing programs share one common feature: the timeline. This is where all the cutting and stretching takes place, where the magic happens. It replicates the analogue style of production so you can drag your perfectly filmed clips onto it and then chop away at them to your heart’s content, usually with handy little scissor icons. Now you know where they came from!