Re: Opinions on what NLE to teach on a new BA in Film & Screen Media Production

An interesting question. I've always thought high-end software, like NLE's, have at least a passing similarity to language. In both mastery begins by essentially memorizing a variety of arbitrary elements and also submitting to a overall logical construct to create and finish a coherent statement. The key variable of course remains the editor's insight, creativity, and commitment to doing the work necessary to a good job.

Like language, mastery of one specific form tends to lead to undue confidence that the path chosen is superior to alternate approaches. I think the psychologists call this "cognitive dissonance". It's a pretty rampant phenomenon in the technical arts.

Ultimately, I'd advise you to teach whatever application you personally know and like the best. But at the same time caution your students that they are not learning the key to editing, just one path that works. Whatever you teach them will not necessarily be immediately commercially useful, and in any case it'll probably be obsolete in 5 years, certainly in 10. So please also advise them that the best thing they'll get from your course isn't the ability to make application "X" jump through hoops, rather it's the skill, perseverance, and confidence necessary to absorb a relatively complex piece of software and use it for art or commerce. That's something that they'll need to do over and over if they expect to make a career in the field.