TheUntoldTruth AboutEditors Film Editors go Unnoticed by the General Audience

By Rylan Berry

The movies that we all know and love are twisted and turned by a largely unknown person or even group of people are known as editors.

Film editors help to make the movies we all know and love through the process of editing, which is cutting together footage and making it a cohesive and singular film. This is because, on the rest of the process, but the same goes for any department, whether its cinematography, music, they all play such a big factor in how a movie ends up, but editing for sure, you’re almost the final creative piece. And it can really make or break a film.”

The editor’s job is of the most importance, which makes you wonder why they go so unnoticed by most people. It’s likely because they don’t know its true importance to a film. On top of that, Crouch also thinks it’s “‘cause a lot of people don’t know what goes into editing.” during filming, the filmmakers have multiple clips that are usually out of order that need to be put together, so the editors come in and put that all together. More hilariously, James Crouch, who has been editing for nearly a decade, said “I basically watch something over and over and over again until it feels right, usually in a dark room.”

This process can be very important to films. It is just as important as the writer, director, actors, and so on, and Crouch thinks that “It’s extremely important, it can make or break a movie. But it’s just one of the many really important parts of the process, I found that it’s really important for a film to work at the script level because if it doesn’t work at that point it has a ripple effect

Everyone knows the writers and the directors, but why not the editors? It could also be because they work after production concludes, putting them in postproduction, but they can sometimes start before production in the case of Crouch he works “on things as they are shot” so he gets “all the footage and [puts] them together to assemble scenes,” which would go into the final film.

Editors don’t just know these skills as they are born, they have to learn it, and even then it’s a constant case of learning. Jessica Lund, a senior assistant video editor for PBD Post, said that she’s constantly learning and she would go on to say that “even to this day, I am learning from my editors that I work with, my superiors, from the internet. I’m always looking for more skills, and the programs that we work with grow and develop all the time so it’s never like you finish and you achieve and you know everything, there’s always more to learn.”

Once an editor has learned how to edit they can work on a variety of things. Lund would say that she works on “all kinds of things from commercials to short films.” It’s inferred that editors work on all kinds of films, but they can also work in singular genres, for example, Crouch works “specifically [as] a scripted fiction film editor.” To decode that, it means he edits fiction movies or films, that usually have a script in them. So Crouch works only “in the scripted feature film world” whereas Lund works on a variety of films. Once they decided on what kind of films they were going to edit, they’ll have to go to work, and while they work they have to interact with the director of a film. Crouch said that “Typically I’m working really close with the director,” going as far to

“Over the course of the last 9 years, I’ve been able to do some really cool projects. ” say that as an editor you “have to be pleasant to be around because you’re going to be in close proximity with a director… for months at a time.”

Editors don’t only just work with the director, for example, Catie Cacci, a film editor that went to UT, said “I have two assistants that log the footage…so that the sound fits the picture. And helping in that sense, and then I’m cutting the scenes together and putting the whole story together.”

Even Lund says that sometimes in her company she works in a team “when there’s bigger projects [and] need more people involved to make sure things are going smoothly and efficiently, but a lot of times there’s something that one person can handle we’ll work independently,” and she goes onto say that working independently “is super fun as well but typically were always collaborating with a client, so you’re not completely alone, you have someone to bounce ideas off of.”

Crouch works in a team but “not from the start but [he’s] always consistently working with at least one assistant editor and their job is receiving the footage from set and pro- cessing it, ‘processing it’ meaning making sure that it’s synced the sound and picture, making sure that it is logged, it’s organized, and it’s set up the way that [he] prefer[s] it. Basically, ingesting it into the product file and making sure it’s ready for me so I’m consistently working and that there’s not much downtime. And there with me throughout the whole process, even when I’m finished.”

Not only do editors collaborate with a team, but they also have to collaborate with other departments in postproduction. “Well, then what are the other departments?” You may be asking, well Cacci says that the postproduction process starts with editing then “it will go to color correction it’ll go to sound design, mix, and then it’ll go to online which is when they do the finishing and final watch through, and put in the visual effects and all of that as well if there happened to be any.”

But editors don’t have to directly collaborate with the other departments, for example, once Crouch is finished with editing, his assistants will “help maintain the work beyond with the other departments, like sound, color, visual effects, music, and be that kind of middleman.”

Even though some editors may rely on assis- tance, it’s really important to stress the importance of an editor to a film, to hit that point home here’s what Lund thinks about the importance of editors

“I think it’s a pretty crucial but sometimes underappreciated part of the process, there’s a lot of collaboration so most of the time the people who are involved like the director or writers of things are getting to participate in the editing process so that’s super cool to have that influence and guidance, but there’s a lot that editors are able to offer and just kind of display and present ideas that weren’t considered before. So it’s super important and it feels very Wizard of Oz, you’re behind the curtain doing lots of things that are really shaping each project but maybe people don’t realize or don’t know so sometimes you are happy to just sit back and know that you have a big influence” on the project.

To continue with the importance of editing, here are Cacci’s thoughts on its importance, “I believe editing is very important it’s one of the most important processes in filmmaking. I think first, you usually have something written, an idea, and then the director implements that idea and shoots it and puts their story together visually, and then it comes to me, and it’s the next part of the creative process, and the next piece of developing the story is in the editor’s hands and the collaboration that they get to make, that an editor gets to have with the director is also one of the most important steps, but its that process of putting together all the pieces that are so important.”

So the next time you watch a film, think about the many times an editor has had to sit through it and perfect the timing of each and every camera angle and scene.