Behind the scenes: The editing process

Well, first I make a cup of coffee then I sit down and watch through all the material I’ve been sent. If I’ve been sent some notes or timecodes, I’ll bring those clips onto a timeline then go hunting for other key moments that will compliment the clips, either by showing a range of different characters, accents, dramatic changes of appearance, abilities such as sword fighting. Once I have all my clips together, I have my starting point for actually cutting the showreel. So, new timeline (in case I lose something I later want!) It needs to start with something arresting, something that’s going to hold the casting director’s attention, it could be anything but I’ll know it when I see it. Then it’s a case of whittling down the remaining clips into an order that feels right and removing the ones that don’t provide anything new for the actor or that aren’t of the same quality. I’ll then have my rough cut showreel (hooray!), from here I can tweak scenes to give the actor the most airtime possible from a clip. Once any recutting is done it’s time to neaten the edits up; fade in and out the audio subtly, put some dip to black between each clip and add the all-important on-screen information for each clip in an easy to read, classy font. Finally, I’ll add a name card to the beginning and end, with extra info such as spotlight link and agent name/email at the end. Once all this is done, off it flies to the actor (or DOP, director etc) for notes or final sign off. Once they’re happy, I’ll export it in high quality, then check the export for any errors (spelling or glitches on the file) then off it goes once again and hopefully leads to jobs and opportunities for the person who commissioned it! Then, back to making coffee!