How to approach a narrative edit (the rules and tips)

After the shoot we have now returned to editing, we were reintroduced some 
things that we might have forgotten how to do like: cutting, creating bins, finding 
your footage etc. We were instructed the order that we will be editing in, which is: 
picture cut, sound cut, effects and titles, the reason for that order is quite simple, it 
makes it easier and more organized to edit. Picture cut gives everything an order, 
once you are done with the visual picture you more on to sound and organize that, 
and finally effects and titles as small but significant addons. This order you could 
compare to the actual shoot, firstly we film all the main, wide shots, move on to the 
same shots but with a different lens and then we film all the close ups as extras.

We were taught something called “rushes” which is another word for raw footage. 
It’s important to break the rushes down, pick out the best shots and name them 
accordingly to what they are. It’s also important to have the original copy of the 
rushes saved and untouched just in case, and make copies of everything else.

“Edit the film that was shot in front of you, not what you remember filming from the day”

Which means that we might remember seeing the shots during the filming day 
differently as they came out on the screen, so the main point is to make the best out 
of the footage you already have.

As well as organizing our footage we need to keep timing in mind, we need to remember 
that our opening titles sequence has to be maximum 2 minutes long, which mean a lot of 
deciding on what do keep and what to leave out. Therefore you really need to think how 
long evry clip is going to keep, so keeping track of unnecessary silence and cutting this 
excess out.

Editing is creating a story and making sure that story gets told well, so things like going 
from a close up to an extreme close up can look silly, so the order of different distances 
of the shots are also important.