Foreword

During our tenure as Directors of the American Cinema Editor’s Internship Program from 1994 to 2014, we set out to train incoming college graduates to become skilled assistant film editors. We placed them in editing rooms that spanned features, television, post production facilities and reality shows during the four-week course. Numerous students sought the internship, and since we only accepted two interns a year into the program, we felt compelled to try to help everyone else as well. We created a lecture series in which we presented all the same material the chosen interns would learn and to which all of the applicants were invited. This gave every hopeful applicant a unique chance to hear stories and bits of advice from editors and assistants. It was an invaluable opportunity for the graduates to network with film industry colleagues as well as meet some of their heroes at close range.

The response was overwhelming. We heard from hundreds of students, both domestic and international, who wished they were able to make the long journey to Hollywood, but unfortunately were not in a financial position to make that happen. To reach as many aspiring editors as we could, we recorded and transcribed the lecture series, and then published what became our first book, Make the Cut, A Guide to Being an Assistant Editor in Film and Television. In it, we set out to encapsulate the inner machinations of an editing room and prepare the aspiring assistant for the tasks at hand. A few of our main topics were etiquette, work ethics, technological savvy and personality traits that lead to a successful immersion into the world of editing. We presented the editorial process from dailies to online, from scripted to reality, from your first day on the job to wrapping up the movie. It became the local handbook for many assistant editors, and has been adapted in several film schools as required reading.

Now that our faithful readers and students have become successful assistant editors, we would like to share our sequel, Jump•Cut, How to Jump•Start Your Career as a Film Editor. This book starts where the last one left off, and if you arrived in Hollywood with your heart set on moving into the editor’s chair, it just might be the guidebook that will help get you there.

We sincerely hope so.