Chapter 14

Working with the Editor

During postproduction, you get to reinterpret the script when you work with the editor. This is an opportunity to tell your story in a new, fresh, and possibly better way than you originally conceived it. The important thing to remember is that the editor is trying to make you look good by putting together the best episode possible from the footage you have shot. He has no preconceived notions but is simply dealing with putting the pieces of the story together. The editor, aided by his assistants, has done a lot of work before you ever see his initial cut, which is called the editor’s assembly.

BEFORE YOUR CUT: THE EDITOR’S ASSEMBLY

Although technology changes the medium on which the picture is recorded (tape, film, digital tape, digital hard drive), the editor still usually receives either a master tape or copy of the master tape. If the footage was shot on film or memory card, it has been transferred to a hard drive. The editor gets a copy of the footage along with the camera report, sound report, and script supervisor’s notes for what you have shot. The script supervisor’s notes are a blueprint for finding and retrieving the information about all the footage shot and especially about the footage the director printed. It is all organized by nonlinear editing methods (NLEs) in consecutive bins, or giant files, on the editor’s computer that follow the order of the script. (In the old days, prior to 1990, when dramas and features were shot and edited on film, the individual strips of film hung from hooks in a literal canvas bin.) Each scene has a separate bin. If all the footage for that scene is shot, a bin is said to be complete, but if an insert or special effects shot is missing, that bin is still incomplete. Once the assistant editor gets the final shooting script, the appropriate words of the script also go into the bin. Certain editing programs have the capacity for the editor to lay the cursor over a certain line of dialog and automatically see the various footage that has been shot containing the line in that selection.

You get a copy of the unassembled footage when you are handed a DVD containing dailies or printed daily footage. Unassembled footage is so named because the producers and the director used to have a daily screening of the film that was shot the day before. You don’t need to look at every minute of what you shot. You should look at dailies to make sure that you got the specific shots or performances that are critical to your story. The editor takes the dailies and cuts them together scene by scene (not necessarily in order) using his fresh eyes to either take an educated guess as to how you saw your footage fitting together, or assembling the footage to tell the story so it makes sense to him. If you have specific ins and outs and it is clear where you anticipated cutting out of the master, it will be apparent to the editor how you intended your episode to be cut together. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle and you both are looking at the same picture on the box lid.

But sometimes what you intended might not be apparent to the editor. Steve Welke, coproducer on Eureka, suggests that the editor really wants to know the director’s plan or vision. He reports editors saying, “I have all this footage. I wish I knew what the director was thinking when he/she shot it. It would help me put it together if I knew how they want to see it.” So touch base with your editor prior to you coming in for your cut to see if the editor wants some guidance from you before working his magic.

 

 

You can avoid the editor’s picture being radically different if you know the look of the show and have shot your footage appropriately to mesh with that established look. During prep, you will have discussed in your tone meeting with the showrunner what the style preferences are. (See Chapter 6.) As a freelance director, it is your job to give the producer and the network exactly what they’re looking for while expressing your individual creativity within those parameters. The exception, of course, would be a pilot, for which you create the look of the show.

 

KNOWING THE CLASSIC PRINCIPLES OF EDITING

The look of the show dictates how the show gets put together. Although some shows deliberately break the classic rules of editing, it is always important to know a rule—and why it exists—before you break it. Here are the traditional rules that editors begin with:

 

Change size or change angles between shots that will be cut together.

Cut back and forth between complementary shots.

Cut into a tighter shot when the information gets more important or the mood more intimate.

Cut wider to show movement or geography.

Match for continuity.

Don’t cross the line.

Cut on movement.

Pace (time between edits) is part of the storytelling.

 

Nearly all these rules exist so that the edit seems seamless; that is, it doesn’t draw attention to itself when the picture is changing. You want your audience to be enthralled by your story, not noticing how a scene was shot or how it was edited. If they’re noticing those things, they’re looking at your technique, which should be invisible. Having said that, there are times when a director wants to break the rules for effect: to startle or otherwise alert the audience to storytelling points. When you feel the need to break these rules, we encourage you to do it artfully.

As you’ll recall from Chapters 7 and 8, the director plans not only how to shoot the scene, but also how those shots will be edited together. The director specifically shoots an opening visual and an ending visual, and although that visual should be clear to the editor when looking at the footage, you can also instruct the script supervisor to include that information in her notes. The director also has in mind where the first cut is from the master or opening shot because that begins to dictate the cutting pattern and rhythm of the scene.

Every scene is like a piece of music that is carefully constructed to be structurally sound and tell the story. The pattern and rhythm is a part of that. Is the scene legato, or is it staccato? The editor brings a “fresh eye” to the footage and may discover things you never anticipated. But ideally, the editor is assembling the film according to your vision while following the accepted rules.

 

 

The first rule—“Change size or change angles between shots that will be cut together”—assures that there will not be a jump cut, which is two shots in a row of the same subject from nearly the same camera position. If edited sequentially, these subjects appear to jump, hence the name. Changing angles prevents this problem; the suggestion is to change that angle by at least 30 degrees. Some editors also believe that it helps to avoid a jump cut if you change the size of the shot.

Following the next rule—“Cut back and forth between complementary shots”—also makes the edit seamless. Imagine an intimate moment between the Soldier and his Wife standing at the door facing each other. Complementary shots would be their matching OS or CUs (whether they are cowboys, waists, two-ts, or chokers). What makes them match or complement each other is that their faces are the same size when you cut back and forth. Ideally, they should also be shot with the same lens and at the same depth of field to ensure not just that the faces fill the same amount of space in the frame, but also that the background behind the faces is equally sharp or blurred. This approach ensures that the complementary shots have the same feel. Bethany experienced this on Ally McBeal, on which the camera department didn’t even carry a lens wider than 75mm. They wanted a “filmic” look, but it was challenging to shoot masters on that kind of long lens. Nevertheless, by not even offering another option, the show’s producers ensured that all of the episodes had a similar look. Conversely, a director can exploit the difference between a shot and its reverse for emphasis and point of view.

The next two classic editing practices are “Cut into a tighter shot (i.e. from a two-shot to a close-up or from a cowboy to a two-t) when the information gets more important or the mood more intimate” and “Cut wider to show movement or geography.” Often (but not always) a scene will begin with the master to show the geography of the space and where people are physically in that space. As the scene progresses, the editor will sequence shots to tell the story, generally in descending order from the wider shots to closer. The most basic information is where the characters are in relation to each other and when they choose to move. The viewer must be aware of this basic movement. Subtler, though, is when the eyeline becomes closer (as we discussed in Chapter 8) from the objective viewpoint to the subjective. The editor will cut to a tighter eyeline to place the viewer “inside” the story or to say “pay close attention now.” An interesting example of this is in The Social Network, when director David Fincher and his editors, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, would often cut to an extreme close-up with a very tight eyeline when there was a pivotal piece of dialog.

 

 

The next classic rule is “match for continuity.” There are so many ways that this guideline is used. If a character is sipping wine throughout a scene, the editor must make sure that the same hand is used for drinking, that the glass ends up on the table on the same lines of dialog and in the same place if it is visible, and finally, that the amount of wine in the glass progressively lessens as the scene progresses. The script supervisor will watch most of these things carefully during shooting, but if objects or actions don’t match, the footage will be awkward, no matter how good the actor’s performance.

We talked about the next rule—“Don’t cross the line”—in Chapter 11. You know how it disorients the viewer. The editor will always avoid doing this, unless that is part of the look of the show. Both NYPD Blue and Homicide were TV shows in the 1990s that played with crossing the line as a means of keeping their viewers on edge. It worked. But those kinds of shows are the exception to the rule. For good storytelling and flow, it’s important to not cross the line, and the editor will do his best to keep the screen direction clear and consistent.

The primary rule for seamless editing is next: “cut on movement.” The less attention the viewer pays to an edit, the better the edit is. It’s hiding or disguising when the picture changes. A simple example of this is the turn of a head. Let’s take our two characters Alice and Bob. If the editor wants to bring our attention to the fact that Bob walks into the room, he might cut to the door when Alice turns her head to see who has just come in. Notice that this edit specifically helps tell the story. Another example here would be if there is a camera angle (shot) outside the door too. As Bob steps away from camera, over the threshold, the editor could cut back to the angle from inside the room, and the audience would be barely aware that there was an edit there. They would just accept the two versions (angles) of Bob entering. This editing rule is why directors instruct actors to rock into coverage during shooting: if you shoot a walk ’n’ talk and plan to cover the last part of the scene when the two actors stop walking, you would begin shooting those close-ups by having the actor take a step onto that final mark. You wouldn’t have them already there, flat-footed. By having them step onto the mark, you can make the edit seamlessly from the master to the close-up shot during that movement. It fools the viewer’s eye and leaves the audience focused on the story, rather than how it was shot and edited.

Just as a character’s movement smoothes the cut, so does sound. As you’re planning your transitions—the way you go from one cut to another—take into account that it may not be visual movement that helps the cut but auditory movement instead. For example, someone is exiting a scene, and you add an extra “door opening” sound as that happens, but continue the sound over the cut, as someone enters in the next scene. Or perhaps it’s something of a background fill (an ambient sound) in which a “car-by” sound starts on the A side of the cut and the sound continues onto the B side of the cut. That sound going over the cut just smoothes it out and makes the audience less aware of the edit. (We talk more about sound editing in Chapter 15, because it’s an important component of completing your story.)

 

 

In conversation with your editor, it’s helpful to use an editor’s vocabulary, just as with actors. When talking about a particular edit, or cut, you will talk about how you want to see the A side and B side, generally using the terms add to or trim. So if you want an edit to happen sooner, you might say, “Let’s trim the A side of the cut.” If you want to massage the cut—that is, find the absolute best place for it—you might say, “Let’s trim the A side and add to the B side of the cut,” or the other way around, “Let’s add to the A side and trim the B side.” Other terms referring to the same thing are head and tail, as in, “Let’s trim the tail” or “Let’s trim the head,” referring to the end and beginning of the shot.

Much of that kind of discussion regards the final rule: “Pace (time between edits) is part of the storytelling.” A faster pace (quicker cuts) is good for comedy and action. A more leisurely pace is good for drama, particularly when the actors are filling those long moments with their performance. But in TV drama today, a faster pace is encouraged, no matter what the material is. We are all conditioned to expect a faster pace, when much of what we see in feature films (like Salt, Kick-Ass, or any action movie) is extremely quick editing. If you find in editing your shooting pace was too slow, you can trim the time by prelapping incoming dialog (the audience hears Bob start talking over the picture of Alice) and then cutting away from Alice to Bob as he is already in midsentence, thereby losing the air or the pause between the two characters talking. This is also known as pulling up, meaning that the editor is pulling up the dialog so there is less space between the character’s dialog than there was while shooting. Good editors have lots of tricks like that to help you adjust the pace of your finished product.

BREAKING THE RULES

Now that you know the rules, you should also know that these rules are made to be broken. The only thing that really matters is telling the story. Some shows or films deliberately break the rules; they want to bring attention to the style or look of the film in order to tell the story. For example, let’s say you are introducing your antagonist villain, who has been sighted by your protagonist hero across a crowded city plaza, similar to the scene we discussed in Chapter 8. The first shot might be the hero’s POV shot in which he sees the villain among business-attired people hurrying to work. The next shot might punch into a waist of the villain and then immediately punch in again to a two-t of the same guy. This is a deliberate jump cut to reveal the identity of the villain to the audience. (A punch is a straight cut in, from a wider shot to a tighter one, of the same subject in the same angle, without first going to, or editing in, a reverse shot.) Edited rhythmically, it has an impact and gets across a story point. On a show such as USA Networks’s Burn Notice, this series of shots might accompany the protagonist Michael Westen’s narration, as he says this villain is an “arms dealer with a grudge”; then the words “Arms Dealer with a Grudge” appear on the screen under the villain’s face. Then, to continue the show’s characteristic tongue-in-cheek humor, the chyron, or printed words, changes to “Michael’s New Boss.” This jump-cutting is breaking the rules for a reason and with great style and effect.

CREATING THE DIRECTOR’S CUT

The editor has been working the whole time you have been shooting. So when do you first see your story assembled? And how soon should you deliver your cut? It differs from show to show, but there are mandates from the DGA that set the standards. You should not only know your creative rights and responsibilities, but also should observe and respect them. They include:

1.  You should see the editor’s assembly of your show no later than 6 days after the close of principal photography.

2.  Only the editor will see an assembly of the episode you directed before you do.

3.  You may ask that no other person view this cut for 24 hours after you view it.

4.  You must begin your cut within 24 hours of receiving it.

5.  You have 4 days to complete your cut on an episode (more on a made-for-television movie).

6.  Your contract states that your cut should be no longer than 1 minute over the length of the broadcast time.

In practice, this final rule is often ignored because the showrunner will generally want to see the show complete as written. The protocol on this differs from show to show, and it’s something for you to discuss with the showrunner and your editor.

 

 

Most shows will give the director a copy of the editor’s assembly to preview before the first editing session with the director. It is your choice whether to look at it before the session. Mary Lou does, and she comes to the edit session with notes she has made to herself about things she wants to change, review, or consider. Bethany, on the other hand, likes to start the edit session with “fresh eyes” and to watch the editor’s assembly for the first time sitting next to the editor. The important thing, either way, is to be open to what the editor has done. Don’t ever dismiss something just because it is different from what you intended until you decide whether it is better than what you intended. It will eventually add up to the same puzzle, so just ask yourself if this is a superior, clearer, or less predictable version of this puzzle. The goal for both you and the editor is—first, last, and always—to tell the story.

CUTTING FOR STORY

Regardless of whether you’ve previewed the assembly, we suggest watching the entire episode all the way through without interruption with the editor when you begin your first session with him. See if anything bumps you. We know that doesn’t sound like a technical term, but every good director instinctually has that gut reaction to a screen moment that doesn’t ring true or seems wrong. Some directors say “it made me blink,” or others “it made my neck or shoulders twitch,” still others “felt it in my gut.” It truly is that visceral. You just know you want to fix it. But you don’t need to write anything down this first time through. Just notice when you are completely wrapped up in the show or if it loses your interest.

If you haven’t already, thank the editor and his assistants for their hard work and artistry. Then jump in and get to work. Rewatch each scene, stop, and discuss the changes you want to make, then sit back patiently and let the editor do his job. His bins should be organized in an easily accessible fashion so that you can look at another take or another angle readily. Know that you can experiment or play with an idea without the danger of destroying the work the editor already did because it is easily retrievable in the event that you end up preferring the editor’s version to yours.

 

 

This is your one and only chance to assemble your cut. Use your time with the editor efficiently and respectfully. If you were clear and efficient in your shooting, a good editor will almost always deliver a cut to you that is structurally correct; that is, the opening visual, the ending visual, and the first cut out of the opening shot are exactly as you intended.

A director’s work with the editor afterwards is generally subtle and accomplished in tiny ways, whether that’s changing takes for performance, cutting to an insert to make sure the point is made, or pulling up the pace.

CUTTING FOR TIME

After you have made sure the story is clear, your next task is to be aware of the running time. Episodes of television must be delivered at a precise length, measured to the hundredth of the second. You will make trims to tighten the show and deliver the best cut possible. But the showrunner has final cut and will make sure the show is at precisely the right length for airing after consultation with the network regarding omitting scenes. For most shows, a director’s cut that runs about four minutes over running time seems to be an ideal paradigm, allowing the showrunner to cut out dialog and/or scenes that aren’t needed. But sometimes your cut will be much longer, just because it was a longer script.

If your episode is really long, begin by looking for entire scenes or parts of scenes that might be lifted or removed. Never cut out something that moves the plot forward. Then tighten what is already there. (We’ll talk about this more in a moment.) And build some separate planned edits to show how you would propose trimming to the running time. Because editing is now done in a digital format, it is easy to construct an alternative version of a scene so that the producers, network, or studio can actually see how you envision your cuts for time working. Those alts, or alternative versions, and lifted scenes can be available for viewing at the end of the show. And showing is always better than describing.

 

 

To tighten what is already there is more tedious. It means trimming everywhere. Editors call it “getting the air out.” In some cases, it might be seconds or even just frames of film. Either way, they add up. The good news is that usually, it makes for a better pace, better story, and a better show.

With humorous moments, a quick pace will improve the show because one of the comedy precepts is “faster is funnier.” That being said, it can’t just be fast; it must also observe comedy rhythms. A comedy editor whom Mary Lou worked with on two different series, Mark West, does multiple passes pulling out tenths of seconds at a time to perfect the comic timing and tighten the pacing, which used to be called getting the scissors in there. Editors used to literally cut and paste pieces of film together; today, they press buttons and click and drag. But the concept is the same. In the hands of a talented editor, this skill of creating a rhythm for a scene can ensure that the viewing audience laughs precisely on cue. With drama, less is often more. As the director, you should know that when the person on the screen is indulging in a huge moment of some deep feeling, it is sometimes wiser to show less. The audience may feel it more deeply if the actor is not shown lingering in the moment because people tend to shy away from overt emotionalism. It often works out that if you want the audience to cry, you should ask the actor to refrain from doing so.

ADDING MUSIC AND SPFX

After you have cut for time and cut for story, you should add music and sound effects in order to complete your cut. Your music will probably be temp tracks, or temporary, placeholding music. If the show has been airing for more than a season, your editor will reuse the composer’s cues (short pieces of underscoring) from previous episodes that supply the same emotional tone. If the music is a song, it doesn’t matter whether this temp music is cleared (bought for broadcast use, wherein the artists who composed and performed it get paid). This music is laid in just to get a feel for where you see music in the show. Again, it should always enhance the storytelling. That is why it is important that the first time your cut is viewed, your music choices are included. (Later, after the show has been locked, the legal department will get clearances on the final choices for songs.) Sometimes a song has already been cleared even before you start shooting. This clearance almost always happens when there is an artist who actually performs a song in the show. Glee does this multiple times in every episode. The songs are prerecorded and mixed and the performers lipsync, or mouth the words, to their own voices. If this is the case, the editor cuts your footage to the same tracks to which the singers lip-synced. Everything will match except for that occasional mouth that stays open too long. Editors cut around this and make sure the singers appear to be singing live. The other time an editor will cut to already cleared music is when the a specific song is so integral to the story that the song is cleared in prep to be used as the underscoring for a scene or montage that moves the story forward. Dawson’s Creek was a trendsetter when it featured multiple songs in this way from popular artists in every episode.

Adding sound effects (SFX) is the final component to completing your cut. Every editor has a library (legal or not) from which they draw the SFX for every episode. Ideally, these sounds will be replaced with cleared sounds that the studio has paid to use. Make sure that your editor finds the best and most appropriate effects at his disposal. For example, the sound of the perfect gunshot can make a huge difference to the impact of your story. The sharpness, volume, reverberation, and echoing that follow the shot make a difference. You want the shock, fear, and veracity to be felt when someone watches your cut, and the soundtrack is an integral part of your storytelling. You also want to make sure that room tone (the background sounds of a practical location, recorded during production) and temporary walla (the murmur of the background crowd) is laid into restaurant or any crowd scenes. These temporary sounds will be replaced later by loop groups of actors who create specific background voices for each scene. (We talk about all of the final postproduction processes in the next chapter.)

Even though your DGA creative rights contract offers you the opportunity to be notified of the date, time, and place of every postproduction operation, and in good faith allowed to be present and consulted, the next time you see your episode after delivering your cut will most likely be on the air. You will probably be on to your next episode and this episode will be completed and delivered under the competent hands of the postproduction supervisor. Feel free to take advantage of your creative rights, but know that directors—unless they are also producers on the show—don’t usually participate in the next steps of postproduction, so your presence and/or participation might be a surprise.

It has been Mary Lou’s and Bethany’s experience that it doesn’t generally take more than two days to assemble their cut for story and time, probably because they have been blessed with talented editors. You may want to watch your cut one last time with the editor or at home on a DVD copy before you consider it finished and ready to be turned over to the producers.

Some people say shows are “made in the cutting room.” It is true that the editing of a film has a huge impact on its ultimate presentation and audience response. An editor can make good film great. But the editor can’t make bad film good. (One exception, historically, is Elmo Williams’s cut of 1952’s High Noon. Producer Stanley Kramer and director Fred Zinnemann authorized Williams to make an experimental version, cutting the film to echo real time. That experimental cut became the final cut of a classic film.) It is the director’s responsibility to deliver the film that tells the story, and a good editor will be your partner in turning your raw footage into the polished jewel that is its full potential. When you hire an editor, look for someone who shares your sensibilities—a person who understands your vision and will bring his prodigious talents to the editing room to turn what you envisioned into something even better than you anticipated. As director Peter Weir said, “The fine line is getting from them [the editors] what you haven’t thought of yourself, and at the same time needing them to accept that you will make the decision in the end. You don’t want a rubber stamp at all. In casting these parts, as it were, you want somebody who can say, OK, let’s dig deeper into what your point of view is, see if we can go further with this. When that sort of collaboration emerges, it’s wonderful.”¹

AN OPPORTUNITY WORTH TAKING

We want to end this chapter with a piece of advice. We think there is an enormous amount you can learn by watching an editor work. When you watch pieces of film (or another media) put together, you begin to understand the building blocks of visual storytelling. You should take advantage of this viewing. It doesn’t have to be a show you directed. In fact, we recommend otherwise. What would be helpful is if you got a chance to watch something being edited that you also watched being shot so that you know the footage the editor received. Either way, you can see how he assembles what he eventually shows the director. Notice the choices he makes and the things he tries. This kind of experience is invaluable. If you do get the opportunity to watch an editor, be respectful and don’t talk during the process; just watch. Make a list of questions you might like to ask and make your inquiries at lunch. There is a formula that says editing time expands by one hour for every individual who is in the room. Don’t be the person who makes the editor’s job longer. Rather, be the director who will be a better director for having taken advantage of an editor’s generosity and be considerate enough to value the gift you’ve been given.

 

 

 

 

1. Rafferty, Terrence, “Uncommon Man,” DGA Quarterly, Summer 2010, pp. 30–37.