Obsolete Skills that Video has Taught Me.

For a recent project I was looking back through some of the older issues of Videomaker from the 90’s. As I was flipping through the pages looking at ads for edit controllers, time base correctors, and genlock equipment, I came to the sudden realization of all the incredibly obsolete skills I’ve acquired over the years.

When generation loss was the most serious issue that an editor faced, I came up with some spectacular workflows for assemble and insert editing on tape to tape systems. Do new editors even know what that is anymore? That’s not to say I’m hungering for the good old days of a/b roll editing, but that’s another painstakingly gathered skill I’ll never use again.

Other obsolete skills I’ve acquired consist of:

• Threading a 1″ VTR.
• Striping a tape with timecode. (sometimes via VITC, sometimes on Audio Track 2)
• Setting up a time base corrector.
• Mixing audio in real-time with faders.
• Jogging and shuttling with a real dial.

Those are just off the top of my head, but I’m sure there’s many more. What obsolete skills have you acquired over the course of your career? I’m still waiting for the one day when I get that emergency call, when the fate of the entire production is in the balance, and the producer asks: “Does anyone know how to do a split edit on a Sony RM-450?”