When I think back to the days of editing tape to tape you had to both visualize how the series of shots were going to edit, but you also had to keep in mind and plan the current, previous and next edits at once. It was hard to go back and “trim” an edit! It usually entailed remaking every edit from that point!
With digital NLEs we make the changes instantly. We can go back five clips and trim an edit to make it flow better, without needing to reconstruct subsequent edits.
That flexibility has made it so much easier to edit visual stories. I certainly don’t miss those days, but has it reduced my ability to visualize the whole sequence, or doesn’t it matter?
Instantly preview and edit without that creativity killer: preroll alone is a huge step forward!