I made mention in RJ's thread that for a couple years I worked for a production company that would produce work for anyone and also produce their own content for the church market.
This is where I began to learn to edit. They were all film shooters that were converting to video. They had the only early computerized video editing system in town. Long before you could edit on your PC and digital video, you had to edit machine to machine, playing back on one or more "playback" video tape recorders and recording the output to another, usually passing the video through a switcher or "special effects generator" for the dissolves, wipes and layering graphics, and separate audio mixer. The editing computer would synchronize all these devices so you can make frame accurate edits and it would log all these events should you want to change or fix anything.
This wasn't our place but it was almost the exact same equipment and layout:
The multi-function buttons that wrapped the screen had a buffer so we challenged ourselves to stack as many commands a possible then sit back and let the equipment grind.
I started there and an assistant editor, which meant I would load and change tapes, ride audio, help with graphics. Since most of the work was unsupervised I would be able to discuss the editorial decisions with the senior members of the company and learn the aesthetics of editing from these former film editors. I would also study the manual for the editor and play with it whenever I could, so the mechanics, I pretty much taught myself.
Here is how I got my first real chance to sit in the editor's chair. A local hospital sponsored a health talk show, aired on local TV. They shot it in our studio and we edited it.
They decided to do a show on childbirth and actually show a c-section. Our production manger was doing the editing and when we got to that part of the show, as soon as the doctor made the incision in the mother, he jumped out of the chair and ran to the nearest waste basket to blow chunks. He said "Mike, you've got to finish this for me". I took over and finished the show. At some point in the process the client from the hospital came back and asked what happened to my boss. I explained and he showed no mercy. He went over to him at his desk and hit him with some joke about placenta and that sent him spewing again.
The next Monday the president of the company called me into his office. Said to me that he heard that I finished the health-talk show and he gave me a raise, promotion to editor and the elements to edit a Pat Summerall True Value Hardware Store commercial and I was on my way.
Funny story about one of the last gigs I did for them. I was asked to sit in and run camera on a church service in Chicago. The church was this converted old arena that used to host boxing and wrestling events from the 20's to the '60s.
So I am standing at my camera doing my thing and the preacher's wife gets up to testify. She gets into this long story about a conversation she had with her 3 year-old son then all of a sudden the kid in question shouts as loud as he could "I never said that"! I almost fell off my platform I was laughing so hard, and so was pretty much the entire congregation.