question: How did people edit movies and television shows before computers? How did they change fonts, add effects, etc.?
comment: You can cut and splice film together to get the sequences you want from the various takes. It is also possible to paint over film for title sequences or just hold a board that was made for the show in front of the camera with the words you want on it.
passages: This was the way things were for television shows shot on tape for the first 15 years. Even such fast-paced shows as "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" continued to use the razor blade technique.
  
  Section::::History.:New technological developments.
  
  Three developments of the late sixties and early seventies revolutionized video editing, and made it possible for television to have its own version of the film workprint/conform process.
  
  Section::::History.:New technological developments.:Time code.
   In the United States, the 1961-62 Ernie Kovacs ABC specials and "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" were the only TV shows to make extensive use of splice editing of videotape.
  
  Section::::Introduction of computerized systems.
   Although tape formats changed from open reels to videocassettes (VCR), and all the equipment rapidly became much cheaper, the basics of the process remained the same. An editor would offline on a less expensive, low quality format, before entering the online editing suite with an EDL and master source tapes, to finish the broadcast quality version of the television show.
   As 1981 production manager Heidi Moser recalled, "We had an amazing amount of creative freedom. I remember kids 'experimenting' with the studio switcher in ways the adults never considered. 'What happens if I do this?' We frequently pushed technology to the limit."
  
  During the summer months, students shot and edited 16mm film using a Bolex camera. Film and animation would later be edited by student editors and sound dubbed in the studio.
  
  Students sold advertising time, and often produced commercials for local advertisers.
   The second development was cheaper video recorders. Though not suitable for broadcast use directly, these provided a way to make a copy of the master, with its time code visibly inserted into a small box or 'time code window' in the picture. This tape could then be played in an office or at home on a video recorder costing only as much as a used car. The editor would note down the numbers of the shots and decide the order. They might simply write them in a list, or they might dub from one of these small machines to another to create a rough cut edit, and note the necessary frame numbers by watching this tape.
   Section::::History.:New technological developments.:Exact editing.
  
  Though both of these developments helped greatly, effectively creating the offline editing method, they didn't solve the problem of precisely controlling the video recorder for frame accurate editing. That required precise control of the tape transport mechanism, using a dedicated edit controller that could read the time code and perform an edit exactly on cue.
   Professionally, early video cameras were designated mostly for studio use, as up until the mid-1980s, when the camera unit and recorder unit merged as a camcorder (CAMera-reCORDER) as their bulky size made them far too big and bulky to be used outside against the smaller and more practical film camera.
  
  For example, British sitcom Only Fools and Horses used videotape for internal scenes, but used film stock for external scenes for lighting reasons – it was difficult with tube sensors to get a stable, quality image without them needing a lot of lighting.
   Section::::History.:From film to tape.
   The series had at least three technical advisors, among them Bill Lowden and industry veteran Carl Ledbetter, the latter of whom worked at IBM, AT&T Consumer Products, and Sun Microsystems. Ledbetter reviewed early scripts for authenticity, wrote sample computer code that appeared on-screen, and helped operate props on set, controlling lights on a breadboard from underneath a table or hand feeding a printout through a dot matrix printer.
   Film editing used an offline approach almost from the beginning. Film editors worked with a workprint of the original film negative to protect the negative from handling damage. When two-inch quadraplex video tape recording was first introduced by Ampex in 1956, it could not be physically cut and spliced as simply and cleanly as film negatives could be. One error-prone method option was to cut the tape with a razor blade. Since there was no visible frame line on the tape, a special ferrofluid developing solution was applied to the tape, allowing the editor to view the recorded control track pulse under a microscope, and thus determine where one frame ended and the next began. This process was not always exact, and if imperfectly performed would lead to picture breakup when the cut was played. Generally this process was used to assemble scenes together, not for creative editing.
   With improving hardware, lower costs, and an ever-increasing range of software tools, CGI techniques were soon rapidly taken up in both film and television production.
  
  In 1993, J. Michael Straczynski's "Babylon 5" became the first major television series to use CGI as the primary method for their visual effects (rather than using hand-built models), followed later the same year by Rockne S. O'Bannon's "SeaQuest DSV".
   Owing to the rise of the Digital Age, the roles and responsibilities of a copyeditor have changed. For instance, beginning in 1990, copyeditors learned pagination electronically. They could now look at different pages of a text on multiple screens and easily edit on there, as opposed to pasting them by hand on a board. This technological advance also required that copyeditors learn new software such as Pagemaker, Quark Xpress, and now Adobe InDesign.
   Technical advisors who have become actors include George Kennedy (an Army advisor to the "Sgt. Bilko" television show) and John Dierkes (an accountant working for the U.S. Treasury, who provided technical assistance to the makers of "To the Ends of the Earth"). A former child actor, Frank Coghlan Jr, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and later became an advisor to Hollywood on Navy-themed films.
   The first screenwriting software was SmartKey, a macro program that sent strings of commands to existing word processing programs, such as WordStar, WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. SmartKey was popular with screenwriters from 1982 to 1987, after which word processing programs had their own macro features.
  
  Section::::Script coverage.
   Timeline of computer animation in film and television
  
  This is a chronological list of films and television programs that have been recognised as being pioneering in their use of computer animation.
  
  Section::::Further reading.
  
  BULLET::::- Dirks, Tim "Greatest Visual and Special Effects (F/X)—Milestones in Film", FilmSite.org, New York, NY:AMC Network Entertainment. Accessed 25 July, 2019. A site that has been used, substantially, to derive the content of this Wikipedia list, and which includes periods not yet covered by this list.
  
  Section::::References.
  
  BULLET::::- Netzley, Patricia D. "Encyclopedia of Movie Special Effects". Checkmark Books, 2001.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Animation
   Though recording to computer disc pack and this first attempt at non-linear editing on video was abandoned as too expensive, the rest of the hardware was recycled into the offline/online edit process that remained dominant in television production for the next 20 years or more.
   Section::::CGI in the 1990s.:Machinima.
   Gregory L. Biller formed Spectra Image in 1983 as a post production service primarily for filmed situation comedies. In 1985 Spectra developed a transportable computerized " random access" editing system called Spectra System, which used proprietary laser disc technology for editing filmed or videotaped programs. The system allowed editors to quickly find shots and segments without waiting for tapes to shuttle from place to place.
   As the decade progressed, computers played an increasingly important role in both the addition of special effects (thanks to "" and "Jurassic Park") and the production of films. As software developed in sophistication it was used to produce more complicated effects. It also enabled filmmakers to enhance the visual quality of animation, resulting in films such as "Ghost in the Shell" (1995) from Japan, and "The Iron Giant" (1999) from the United States.
   Originally, animation was all hand-drawn by artists, though in the 1980s, beginning with "Captain Power", computers began to automate the task of creating repeated images; by the 1990s, hand-drawn animation became defunct.
  
  Section::::Science fiction television production process and methods.:Animation.:Animation in live-action.
   BULLET::::- Technical Supervision: Frank Palker
  
  BULLET::::- Checking and Scene Planning: Evelyn Sherwood
  
  BULLET::::- Ink and Paint Supervision: Billie Kerns
  
  BULLET::::- Xerography: Robert "Tiger" West
  
  BULLET::::- Sound Direction: Richard Olson, Bill Getty
  
  BULLET::::- Supervising Film Editor: Larry Cowan
  
  BULLET::::- Music Editor: Joe Sandusky
  
  BULLET::::- Sound Effects Editor: Joe Reitano
  
  BULLET::::- Negative Consultant: William E. DeBoer
  
  BULLET::::- Post Production Supervision: Joed Eaton
  
  BULLET::::- Camera: George Epperson, Jerry Smith, Wayne Smith
  
  BULLET::::- Production Manager: Art Scott
  
  BULLET::::- Assistant Production Manager: Jayne Barbera
  
  BULLET::::- A Hanna-Barbera Production
  
  BULLET::::- RCA Sound Recording
  
  BULLET::::- Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. ©MCMLXXIV-MCMLXXVII All Rights Reserved.
   Section::::The 1960s and 1970s.:The end of Termite Terrace.
   Hannam's wife Wendy Dickson worked as production designer.
   Hands-on All-Student Production: In the early years, an adult directed the show, but by 1974, the production was entirely student-directed. Students would receive studio training, and "qualify" to run camera, audio, and studio switcher. Students ran all technical posts, including directing, floor directing, projection, and VT. Students recorded and edited the shows. Students designed and built all sets and props.
   The organizational aspects job could best be compared to database management. When a film is shot, every piece of picture or sound is coded with numbers and timecode. It is the assistant's job to keep track of these numbers in a database, which, in non-linear editing, is linked to the computer program. The editor and director cut the film using digital copies of the original film and sound, commonly referred to as an "offline" edit. When the cut is finished, it is the assistant's job to bring the film or television show "online". They create lists and instructions that tell the picture and sound finishers how to put the edit back together with the high-quality original elements. Assistant editing can be seen as a career path to eventually becoming an editor. Many assistants, however, do not choose to pursue advancement to the editor, and are very happy at the assistant level, working long and rewarding careers on many films and television shows.
  