Editing is magic really, its about cutting scene's up and putting them together to make a movie, the whole point of editing is to cut out mistakes and put in the right scene's to make a story up.
D.W. Griffins was the first recognized person to edit a film the first film he was also the person to use the shot 'close up'
In 1903 they didn't have an editing program like you do now in 2011 where you have e.g. Final Cut Pro now back then they would edit but cut and stick frames together. It wasn't until 1940's when the first editing machine was invented, it looked like an old green sewing it was called a 'Moviola'
Even though technology and techniques have changed so much since 1903 editing a film hasn't it still takes roughly 8 months to a year to edit a film and every film on average will have 200 hours of film on it.
Thomas Eddisons assistant Edwin Porter was the first discovered that if you chop a film up and put it in some form of an order it makes a story. He was the first person to editor a film but failed to get recognized for his. The first film he edited was 'Life of an American Firemen'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM-DhskWrDA
Editing was often forgotten about when it came to film making, not many people would realize without an editor you wouldn't really get a film.
Editing was a hidden talent and was often done by women. The reason was for this was because film makers back then thought women had more of a gentle touch then men and wouldn't cause damage to the film, also because it was looked as being pointless this was another reason it was more of a women's jobs more than males job.
Although editing has changed a lot since it first began the time it takes to edit a film hasn't changed much since then it still takes averagely 8 months or even years to edit a complete film. On average a typical major Hollywood movie tape will contain 200 of footage onto it which has to be scales down to 2 hours roughly.
If you look at the cinema as you would a book you'd read them in exactly the same way.
