Career Opportunities in Film and Video Editing
One of my many intentions with this Live Project 2 module was to enhance my learning and my skills within editing.
Since the last major edit I personally did was my own Me, Myself, and I back in December 2017, and the last qualification I obtained was the Adobe Certified Associate: Digital Video using Premiere Pro CC2015 back in May 2018, I figured that I needed to step up my game in this regard.
My Reasons
This I did not only in order to keep my knowledge and skills alive, but also because I personally think that working in editing will ultimately enhance and inform my practice as a student cinematographer, especially in regard to the 30° rule, jump cuts, and the like.
Furthermore, I think that the ability of being able to edit my own footage will make me more viable in the industry, as it will allow me to work more independently, offering more skills and services to my future clients and employers. Also, it would offer me another leg to stand on, in case work experience and jobs in cinematography might become a bit slow, for whatever reason that might be.
Thus, in my pitch for Live Project 2, I proposed editor as my secondary role for this module. And with the Teacher Central project and its use of green screen as well as the heavy-planned use of visual effects, I was confident that my learning would increase heavily.
But how would I go about finding work experience in the editing department within in the industry, once I graduated?
Since I realised that I did not know enough about this branch of filmmaking and post-production, I decided to do a bit of research into the different job opportunities, career paths, and job hierarchies, as well as their tasks and the skills or personal requirements necessary for that.
My Resources
For my research, I thus looked into resources such as ScreenSkills and UCAS, but also MyJobInFilm and Prospects, to get a good general overview of the situation at hand and to inform myself about a possible second career path.
However, conducting my research I quickly had to realise that UCAS and ScreenSkills were rather superficial sources that did not really help much. Whilst UCAS’ job description of a video editor remained rather uninformative for my purpose, as they need to cover a variety of job descriptions and departments across a multitude of industries and work sectors, I was really disappointed by the amount of information given by ScreenSkills, which was the former Creative Skillset.
Whilst Creative Skillset back in the day was a splendid go-to source for nearly every job role in the creative industries, especially in regard to film and video, its content sadly has dumbed down massively since its refurbishment to Screenskills, offering me less information that I would have loved to get and was used to get as well.
However, looking at MyFirstJobInFilm and Prospects, I was surprised about the amount and richness of detail of the provided information as they directly catered to the purpose of this blog entry. With MyFirstJobInFilm, their concept is as straightforward as it is easy, as they literally go for the very first job that a beginning filmmaker – or in this case: editor – would realistically go for and get within the industry. Something similar would go for Prospects, albeit the fact that they centre more around career opportunities in general.
Career Opportunities in Editing
Much like with the camera and lighting departments, working in the film and/or video edit department requires a progression through the ranks, from a post-production runner to ultimately an editor.
These ranks, in ascension, are as follows:
Post-Production Runner
Post-Production Trainee
Assistant Editor
2nd Assistant Editor (more progressively used on extremely big features)
1st Assistant Editor
Editor
These jobs can all be found in various productions, such as commercials, corporate and music videos, but also on TV programmes, shorts as well as feature films. However, as indicated under #4 above, 2nd Assistants are more frequently used on big features, allowing edit assistants to move up to 1st Assistant after about four or five years, being able to begin working with minor assembly edits first.
Job Roles in the Spotlight
The Editor
Generally speaking, editors would receive and work towards the director’s brief, which can entail e.g. a script or storyboard. Already with the first day of principal photography, they would start working with the rushes, attempting to get a feel for the story and its pace, but also for the technical aspects and standards applied, using notes they receive from the script supervisor.
Subsequently, they would be transferring, checking, and assembling the desired footage, audio files, visual effects and graphics to create a first, ‘rough cut’ of a film, thereby not only exercising quality control of the entire post-production process, the footage, and the final product, but also improving and fine-tuning the edit in regard to order and pace, and experimenting with various techniques, styles, and designs to further enhance the story and its progression. Finally, once the director and the producer have approved of the final product, the editor would then create the output of the desired product to its requirements.
The bigger the projects, however, the more editors might be hired, which in turn means that every editor will work on a different aspect of the film or have a certain specialisation (like e.g. sound editing, offline editing, and online editing, VFX).
1st Assistant Editors
A 1st Assistant Editor’s job is primarily to ensure that the editor is able to concentrate on his job of editing the film, which requires the 1st Assistant Editor to take care of the communication with all departments in order to ensure that all goes according to plan and that the required workflow – such as editing SFX – will be implemented. During the shoot, 1stAssistant Editors would be the ones checking the production logs for any inconsistencies or technical problems/errors and would ensure to sync up rushes. If they are experienced and/or well trusted, they may also get opportunities to edit segments of a production.
2nd Assistant Editors
2nd Assistant Editors in turn ease the job for 1st Assistant Editors by setting up the edit suite, digitising rushes, syncing footage, manage all required media for a production, recording and labelling tapes or DVD with so-called ‘play-outs’ and sending these off to film labs. According to Prospects:
“They may carry out some simple cutting and editing work, must understand the operational support required for edit suites and be familiar with their technical aspects. They should be able to operate, patch and un-patch equipment and possess relevant IT skills for moving media around the facility. They must be able to read oscilloscopes and audio meters, TV and video signals, be familiar with technical specifications for different broadcasters, understand compression, and be able to utilize video tape recorders (VTRs). ”
They may take care of simple cutting/editing work, correct naming conventions of files and documentation, managing back-ups, and assisting colourists, or even preparing the offline edition to transition into the online edit.
Post-Production Runners and Trainees
Finally, Post-Production Runners and Trainees will be tasked to help anyone else above their rank to fulfil their job without much hassle. This may infamously require brewing coffee, but also more important tasks such as helping out getting the rushes delivered from set onto into the edit suite and taking on any running job that might be necessary, such as data-wrangling and logging footage according to key themes, story arcs, etc, thus summarising the footage for easy and quick access.
Personal Requirements and Skills
Ultimately, for the job of a video editor, the following skills will be required:
Imagination
Storytelling skills
Visual awareness
Keen attention to detail
Sense of timing and pace
Critical, but creative application
Patience and trustworthiness
Concentration and self-motivation
Team collaboration skills (in communication and listening!)
Time-management and organisation skills
IT skills
Knowledge on a variety of post production software
Ability to work under pressure
Being able to deliver on time and
Networking skills!
As almost always within the film and TV industry, there is always an option between either going the vocational route or the academic route. Whilst a foundational degree will always be helpful in entering and progressing within the industry, it is not a hard requirement, for relevant skills can already be obtained editing free community and charity productions, working for editing companies as a runner or even working in an editing equipment hire company (which I did not even know existed at this point)! If the willingness to learn quickly, eagerly and independently is given, as well as working independently, there is no limit. Especially in regard to the variety of video editing short courses offered on a regular basis.
Contracts, Salaries and Working Hours
As an editor, you would most likely find yourself working on short-term contracts as a freelancer, both for television companies as well as for corporate employers. As with most departments within the industry, BECTU offers access to the current recommended rates cards for editors.
Whilst experienced editors can earn from £21,000 to £35,000 annually (and even up to £70,000 in case of senior editors in high end film productions), the entry salary for assistant editors averages at around £18,000 to £25,000 annually, whilst post-production runners and trainees would most likely start out on a minimum wage basis.
The amount of working hours may vary strongly, between normal office hours up until 50h weeks for TV and feature film production. And again, as always in the industry, long hours and overtime are a very likely prospect.
My Learning
I’ve learned that this branch of the film industry is at least as technical and hierarchical as the camera department would be. However, I did not know that the job roles within the edit department were this differentiated as my research depicted.
Finally, I think the most important key point I am taking away is the fact that I would be able to pursue another career path within editing as well if I ever required that for personal and/or professional reasons. From the described personal requirements, I feel that I would be able to thrive in that area of filmmaking as well. However, being entirely honest, I do also think that this would require me a lot of learning especially in regard to basics and further aspects of IT.
Let’s see how the editing process for Creating a Character will go and how I feel about this career path afterwards!
References:
BECTU (2019) Post Production & Facilities Branch - Feature Film Ratecard 2018 [PDF] https://www.bectu.org.uk/advice-resources/library/2452 [Accessed on 14 April 2019]
IMDB (2019) Editor Thelma Schoonmaker [online] Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0774817/?ref_=nmls_pst [Accessed on 14 April 2019]
Murch, W. (2001) In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing Second Edition Silman-James Press: Hollywood
MyFirstJobInTV (2019) Edit Assistant [online] https://www.myfirstjobintv.co.uk/resources/careers-guide/detail?page_id=29 [Accessed on 14 April 2019]
Prospects (2018) Job Profile: Film/Video Editor [online] https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/film-video-editor [Accessed on 14 April 2019]
ScreenSkills (2019) Edit Department [online] https://www.screenskills.com/education-training/job-profiles/post-production/edit-department/ [Accessed on 14 April 2019]
UCAS (2019) Video Editor [online] https://www.ucas.com/ucas/after-gcses/find-career-ideas/explore-jobs/job-profile/video-editor [Accessed on 14 April 2019]