With the shoot underway, the real work of the Editor starts in earnest. The Assembly is the first step in the edit where material hits the timeline and the final form of the film – which may have been in development for years – begins to take shape. Building the Assembly Most of the time,…
Information and Emotion
Of all the things I learned in film school, this concept is probably the one I think about the most often. It covers what you could argue are the two primary tasks of the Editor: shaping information, and shaping emotion. Information A narrative film is, to some extent, pieces of information strung out one after…
Five Stages of the Edit: Part 1 – The Script
It might sound odd that the first stage of the edit is the script, but many, many things in this industry revolve around the script, and for the editor, it’s the key element we have to work with before we start getting rushes from the set. Plus, there are a few things I find it…
What does a Film Editor ACTUALLY Do?
I’ve spent a long time (probably too long), trying to figure out how best to describe exactly what it is that a Film Editor does, in a way that feels simple and obvious. I get the impression that it’s seen by many people, both inside and outside the industry, as a “technical”, button-pushing job. This…
How many stages does a Film Edit have?
Making a film or television show is a multi-stage process which has been honed over decades, and with some exceptions follows a standardized process. The film edit is much the same, usually completed in a series of common steps, and generally taking place in the same order from one project to the next. Production of…
What does an Assistant Editor do?
Glance at the credits of any feature film or scripted TV show, and you can see that there are dozens, if not hundreds of people involved in getting the show to the screen, often with their own unique job title, ranging from the familiar (Writer, Director) to the unusual (Key Grip, Best Boy). But even…