The editor puts together (cuts) the pictures (rushes) as they come in from the set (or lab, if the drama is being shot in celluloid). Films tend not to be shot in the order in which the story unfolds, so editors might be working on scenes from the end of the film before the beginning. Their job is to take scenes in non-story order and edit them bit-by-bit into a whole. Show In pre-production, editors work closely with the director to decide how to make the most of the script. Once filming starts, they look at the rushes each day, checking technical standards and the emerging sense of story and performance and editing it into a series of scenes. By the time the film wraps editors will have spent hours reworking scenes and cutting them together to create a rough assembly. During post-production, the editor and director will work closely to refine the assembly edit into a director’s cut, which must be approved by producers, until they achieve picture lock (known as final cut). After that, the music and sound are added to the mix, a process that editors will oversee. The editor role is featured in ScreenSkills' new immersive film First Day: In post. Read and watch
What’s an editor good at?
Who does an editor work with?
Assistant editors take charge of the day-to-day running of the cutting room, leaving the editor free to concentrate on editing the film. Their primary task is to communicate with other departments, like production, camera and sound. They check camera sheets when the rushes arrive and note any technical problems. Sometimes the editor asks the first assistant to do an assembly cut.
First assistant editors might be helped by several assistants, depending on the size of the production. The assistants label files and do simple cutting, editing and sound syncing. They read oscilloscopes and audio meters, TV and video signals, are familiar with technical specifications for different broadcasters and understand compression.
Supervising sound editors are responsible for all sound post-production. They are the picture editor’s main point of contact for everything concerning the production soundtracks. See separate profile: supervising sound editor
The dialogue/ADR editors have a close working relationship with the picture editors due to script changes and replacement dialogue with the actors.
Colourists contribute to the mood and look of a film by defining its colours. They work with the director and director of photography to decide the palette. See separate profile: colourist
See separate industry: VFX
Runners keep the edit suites tidy, make tea and arrange meals. They sometimes work on reception, answering the phone and making clients and guests feel welcome. See separate profile: post-production runner
The traditional route to becoming an editor is to start as a post-production runner or trainee and go on to become an assistant editor. See the post-production runner job profile for details. It’s common to work as an assistant editor in lower budget productions before moving into feature films. At school or college:
If you want to go straight into a job or apprenticeship, the following Level 3 vocational qualifications will equip you:
Get an apprenticeship: Before taking any apprenticeship, check what you’ll be learning with your prospective employer and college, so you can be sure it will be giving you the skills you want. Go to how to become an apprentice to learn how to find apprenticeships in your region or approach companies directly. Edit: Get a degree: Take a short course: Network: Network online: Look for post-production companies: Become a trainee: You might also be interested in...Being an editor for music videos. Alternatively, you could consider being a series director or an edit producer in the unscripted TV industry. Further resourcesWhile the production team is shooting the film, the editorial team is often just a day or two behind them, building the assembly edit slowly and steadily from the previous day’s dailies. The editor has to move quickly and only has access to part of the film (the part that has been shot so far). So the assembly will be very rough, but it can provide the structure for each scene and ensure that each scene works as shot. It can be very helpful to the director to have the editorial team working in lockstep because the editor will be able to spot any potential issues very quickly. Perhaps a mistake was made and an important shot isn’t usable. If the editor can spot that within a day or two, it may be possible to do some reshoots before the production team has moved on to another location. On a short commercial or music video shoot, the entire production may only last for a few days, with no room in the budget for reshoots, and so the turnaround time for the assembly may need to be even quicker. The assembly edit is usually very close to the script and includes every line and piece of action that was shot. The assembly thus is usually quite long, sometimes more than twice the length of the final film. There are no visual effects, no color correction, no sound effects and usually not even temp music. While the structure of the story is all there, the assembly is usually pretty far from the finished product. Most of the blood, sweat, and tears of the editing process are shed in getting the film from the assembly to the rough cut, which may take several months of hard work. In most cases, the director works closely with the editor during this stage. Because the director was required on set throughout production, the editor has usually been working without a lot of input in building the assembly edit. For some scenes, the process may be as simple as taking the assembly edit and trimming it down and tweaking. In other cases, the editor and director may start from scratch with a completely different approach. If the film has VFX in it, the rough cut probably will only show very basic simplified versions of the VFX shots. No professional sound people have touched the film yet, so the sound effects and sound mixing will have rough edges. Once the rough cut is done, the film is usually shown to the client or producers for feedback, but that sometimes depends on who those people are. The producers of a Hollywood film are used to seeing rough cuts and are usually able to see past the many flaws of this version of the film to judge how the story is working. The client for a marketing video, on the other hand, may not have the experience to judge it properly, and so it may be a good idea to wait for a more polished version before getting feedback. For example, the Jurassic World team released a sequence on YouTube that’s edited just with the dailies (no final VFX included). It’s quite strange to watch, since the dinosaurs play such a huge role in the sequence. It takes a great deal of imagination to be able to judge whether the sequence is working, at this point. You can view the finished sequence here: If reshoots are needed, it should hopefully be clear at this point, so that they can be scheduled in time. Depending on the type of project, there may be several more milestones after the rough cut. There may be a “first cut”, which is shown to test audiences, especially if there is a concern from the producers or disagreement between the director and producers about how audiences will react. There may also be a “fine cut,” which is shown to producers and others involved in the film’s production if the editor and director aren’t comfortable showing the rough cut. On many feature films, the director will finish working with the editor, creating a “director’s cut,” and then leave the film to work on their next project. The producers, however, may request more changes to be made, resulting in a “producer’s cut” which ends up being the final version. Unless the director is also a producer and/or has a role in the financing of the film, he or she seldom has the last word. After much work, many versions, many arguments, and many compromises, the picture is “locked”, which means that no more editorial changes can be made. No cuts can be altered. The film is far from finished at this point, but editing decisions cannot be changed. It’s essential to reach this stage and to actually lock the picture lock so that the color, sound, and finishing teams can begin work. If changes are made to the edit after the film has been handed off for the next stage of postproduction, that can cause all sorts of issues (and extra costs). In an ideal world, the VFX is also delayed until picture lock, at which point the shots that need work are handed off to the VFX houses. It’s wasteful and demoralizing for a VFX house to spend weeks perfecting a beautiful animation only to have the editorial team decide that, in the end, they don’t actually need that shot. In the real world, however, there is seldom time to wait. If the film is an action or sci-fi film with many hundreds of VFX shots, it’s often not realistic to wait many months between picture lock and the film’s release. Or if the VFX includes complex CGI (an entirely digital character, for instance), the VFX houses will need to begin work long before picture lock. In those scenarios, the editorial team may focus on finishing the most VFX-heavy sequences before the others, so that at least those individual sequences can be locked. The unfortunate fact is that, sometimes, VFX work is done that cannot be used. If you ever watch deleted scenes from a film, you may notice shots with lots of green screen or where digital characters are missing entirely. That is a very good thing – it means that the scene was deleted from the film before time was spent crafting the VFX. |
During what stage of production do editors work?
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