Are all filmmakers editors?

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Sajc05

Active member
I was wondering if all films makers know how to edit as well. how many big directors get involved in post and to what degree. For me, all my shorts from student work on, I've never handed off any post work (aside form sound mixing and composing and things like that) to anyone else. i just couldn't imagine not being intimately hands on piecing together the scenes myself. but i assume that creates conflict as in not being able to cut scenes that people who are only editors would recognize as not being necessary.
 
I think you need to have an eye for editing because it really informs how you shoot. Hell, David Lean and many other great directors started out as editors. I personally have a really hard time handing my footage off to someone else.

That said, I do look forward to the time when I can find an editor I 100% trust and let him do a lot of the work and make some of the hard decisions that I might be biased towards (i.e. I can't get rid of this shot, it took six hours to shoot and cost us a ton of money!)
 
Sajc05 said:
I was wondering if all films makers know how to edit as well. how many big directors get involved in post and to what degree. For me, all my shorts from student work on, I've never handed off any post work (aside form sound mixing and composing and things like that) to anyone else. i just couldn't imagine not being intimately hands on piecing together the scenes myself. but i assume that creates conflict as in not being able to cut scenes that people who are only editors would recognize as not being necessary.
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I agree. And I think many up-and-coming filmmakers feel the same way, mainly because the power to edit our own work is so readily in our hands. In the past, the edit suite was something only available to a studio or a film school, and it was difficult for us to get enough time on the flatbed, or the expensive Avid suite, to become proficient. So only "the trained editor" could do the job for us. Directors had to rely on the editor to translate the script and the directorial vision into a finished film (or try to fix both a botched script and disjointed directorial vision, if necessary). But today, we all have edit suites on our laptop. We can edit at home, in bed, in the kitchen, day, night, whenever we want. We're not paying hourly for a suite rental, so we're learning the craft to a degree never imagined before. And in the end, I think we're realizing that it's as intrinsic to the crafting of a movie as shooting it. I can't imagine handing over the editing process either. It's a trend I expect to see more of in the coming decade: the director-editor.
 
Sajc05 said:
...but i assume that creates conflict as in not being able to cut scenes that people who are only editors would recognize as not being necessary.
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A good director (read as "filmmaker" or "storyteller") will be able to see this as well, whether or not the editor mentions it.

I very much enjoy editing my own work. Like Awake-In-Anamorphic, I see that process as very much an extension of the director's job. It can carry on or completely throw away all of the hard work done up to that point. I've worked with an editor on a couple of projects and frankly, it was very tedious. I found that I was directing their cuts so specifically that I might as well have just done it myself. That said, it's important to have confidants throughout the process - a sort of focus group to bounce ideas off of. Otherwise, you're completely isolated and it's very easy to get caught up in your preconceived notions, which may end up hurting the project in the long run.

~~Dave
 
Generally all "filmmakers" are editors as well.

There is a difference IMO between a filmmaker and a director, although the two overlap.

A filmmaker is someone who (quelle surprise) makes films. They tend to be involved at every stage of production and post production. They write, direct, produce, edit and take an active process even with things that they can't do themselves eg composing, effects etc

A director in the strictest sense, may just be someone who just interprets visually someone elses work and may pass along the other work to other people. A Director doesn't necessarily have to do a whole lot.

In terms of learning to make films, there is little that is more beneficial than editing as it teaches you about the mistakes you made and you get to look at the film with different eyes.

As ever in terms of film however, nothing is absolutely set in stone.
 
Frankly, I can't fathom how another person would edit my movies. It seems foreign to me, and this is maybe showing my youth in this industry, to let someone else edit my work. I've been doing this for a couple of years and have never had an outside editor, ever. It just seems strange to tell you the truth, and again, I guess I am a neophyte, but in here in Houston, nah.
 
It's your baby.. you don't want it be damaged because of poor editing.

But sometimes you gotta let it go to an inexperienced and incompetent student editor who will use stupid wipes and dissolve transitions and make your $15,000 movie into an episode of sesame street.

OR.. sometimes you will find an editor that will tear your baby apart. You'll be watching it with horror as he analyzes every piece and structures it in such a way that majority of your audience understands the story. He may hurt you sometimes by getting rid of an expensive crane shot or a shot that took you 8 hours! Sometimes he may surprise you by using a take you thought was the worst!

His goal is to tell your story in the best way possible. Find a great editor and give your baby to him. After all, you shoot movies so people can UNDERSTAND them.

As a director it SUCKS to not edit my own film, but I know I'll be bias - it's human nature. Personally, I feel directors who edit their own work are sometimes egotistical. I have to control my own ego sometimes cuz what I have in my mind I tend to want what is in the final edit and I need to stop being controlling.

Another good advantage of finding someone else to edit your work (someone GOOD) is that you don't have to spend countless hours watching your tapes over and over again and capturing them, logging, marking, organizing, the simple continuity edits that can take forever, etc.. all that is off your shoulders!

Focus on what you do best, let others fill in your weakness.

or if you HAVE to edit your own work... take off at least a couple weeks to clear your head from production, and then return to the post-production stage with a fresh mindset. (I got that from Walter Murch's book)
 
Director & Editor are interdependent

Director & Editor are interdependent

I agree with what most of what is written here.

You can't direct without knowing how you're going to cut it - you can't cut it without knowing what you intended to happen on set as the director.

As a director, you can move on from a scene on set if you know you're going to be the one cutting, and how it will need to be cut... etc. It goes on and on - but these two things rely on each other. A director has to think on their feet.

I don't think you need to be a filmmaker to be a great editor (but is sure as hell helps).
To be a great filmmaker, you certainly need to be a great editor.

To be a great director, you should be a great filmmaker...

DecadenceFilms said:
Generally all "filmmakers" are editors as well.

There is a difference IMO between a filmmaker and a director, although the two overlap.

A filmmaker is someone who (quelle surprise) makes films. They tend to be involved at every stage of production and post production. They write, direct, produce, edit and take an active process even with things that they can't do themselves eg composing, effects etc

A director in the strictest sense, may just be someone who just interprets visually someone elses work and may pass along the other work to other people. A Director doesn't necessarily have to do a whole lot.

In terms of learning to make films, there is little that is more beneficial than editing as it teaches you about the mistakes you made and you get to look at the film with different eyes.

As ever in terms of film however, nothing is absolutely set in stone.
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As a first time film maker, I have no problem with the idea of handing my footage over to a more experienced editor so long as I can sit in and watch how he's appreciating the footage. I have no qualms over my inexperience and realise the editor would do an infinitely better job than myself. However, I would also like input.
 
troopercooper said:
As a first time film maker, I have no problem with the idea of handing my footage over to a more experienced editor so long as I can sit in and watch how he's appreciating the footage. I have no qualms over my inexperience and realise the editor would do an infinitely better job than myself. However, I would also like input.
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That's a great attitude and the start of a good habit, but I can tell you from experience that for some projects, for some stories, the need to cut it yourself becomes almost like a ravenous hunger unsatisfied!

uTurnProductions said:
As a director it SUCKS to not edit my own film, but I know I'll be bias - it's human nature. Personally, I feel directors who edit their own work are sometimes egotistical. I have to control my own ego sometimes cuz what I have in my mind I tend to want what is in the final edit and I need to stop being controlling.
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This is a double edge sword. Where a healthy amount of ego can sustain or even lift a production or a career, the same amount can destroy a production or career. You really have to be careful, and I take this as a personal admonishment and a caveat... great comment.
 
I guess I'll chime in as a minority opinion here... I absolutely HATE editing. It is by far my least favorite part of the process (except for maybe financing). Yes, I know how to press the buttons and make it work. But I hate doing it. Why? Because I know that other people can do it better, and more importantly, that they will see things I didn't and bring new life to the project. In that respect I think it's similar to casting.

Of course, it's not like the editor has suddenly become the director. If some crazy idea I never would have thought of isn't really working, it's no trouble at all to say "nope, ditch it, do it the way I planned earlier." You should be a collaborator with the editor, hopefully working side-by-side... but at the end of the day the director is still the boss (ignoring the producer who is his boss!).

Yes, the film is your baby. But if you love something, set it free...
 
I did a 6 week editing course at the Edit Center in Ny. I did this a few months before i shot a 14 page short.

The instructors there have all edited docs and narratives with million dollar budgets. So they have experience working with directors, horror stories and good ones. But they said that a director some times wont know what kind of cut will work better more so than a trained editor, so they might insist on shot or cut that doesn't fit, the editor knows this tries to argue for it another way, but in the end he'll do what the director says. but sometimes producers are brought in.

Any we got to work on feature that was 5 million in budget and starring ally sheedy. we got all the raw footage and were all given scenes to edit. The director would come in and see our scenes and say this is good, change this, i'd like this line of dialogue to be on camera ect. Now he had an editor lined up, but it must have been an experience for him to see these students cut together his film a few weeks after they wrapped for the purpose of education. but i learned a lot about the director editor relationship there.

But one reason i like editing my own work is to build an editing reel a long with a directing reel. i like editing and i see it as a good way to make money in between projects.
 
I know that When asked how to learn how to direct, Scorcese often tells people to learn how to edit. I truly believe that my directing is 10,000 times better because I've become a decent editor. I edit more now than I direct and I just know instinctively what will be edited out. I don't know if it helps you in terms of what you will keep and what is GOOD.. but understanding editing will certainly allow you to not waste as much time shooting things that you know won't make it into the finished piece.
 
Justyn said:
Scorcese often tells people to learn how to edit...
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And yet he hands off his work to Thelma Schoonmaker. However, it has been a very long-time relationship.

As has been said, a good director is an editor as well. The best films tend to edit themselves - everything is there, nothing is "forced" during the editing process - so the director can hand off the film to an experienced editor s/he trusts and just has to get in there for the refining process. Schoonmaker has the first cut almost completed by the time the shooting wraps.

Most directors are controls freaks. That's okay, filmmaking is mostly a directors medium. But there are a lot of things that you will have to learn to let go as your projects and budgets increase in size; there's just too much happening. It happens in business as well; the boss tries to micro-manage everything and loses sight of the big picture. The director must rely upon the talent and experience of other professionals to bring his vision to fruition. You can't do it all; that's why you hire someone like me (sound designer); I've got the talent, years of experience and effortless mastery of my tools. So does your DP, 1st AD, Gaffer, etc. The director must be a communicator, not only with his/her audience but with the hundreds of people who assist him/her with bringing their vision to the screen. The directors job is to be the artist, and the pre-, production and post crews are supposed to be an extension of the director. You need a clear, precise vision and must be able to communicate it fully and succinctly.

Just a quick example of how an outside editor can be a big plus...

I did the audio post for an indie feature from a first time director. The first cut was 160 minutes, the second and supposedly final cut was 110 minutes. The film got nowhere. However, a couple of experienced producers saw the potential of the film and convinced him to hand the film over to an experienced editor. The actual final cut, which I had to conform and re-mix, was 83 minutes. It won two major festivals and received nice notices and reviews at a number of others.
 
troopercooper said:
As a first time film maker, I have no problem with the idea of handing my footage over to a more experienced editor so long as I can sit in and watch how he's appreciating the footage. I have no qualms over my inexperience and realise the editor would do an infinitely better job than myself. However, I would also like input.
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I agree with this -- exactly how I am. I can edit, I started doing all of my own editing for smaller projects before I came to Los Angeles. I edited about a 100 minute educational DVD project, spread across four DVDs actually, and that was a pretty simple editing project. I had done some more complicated work, but ultimately a lot of editing isn't particularly difficult, it's trial and error. That being said, I have an editor who I trust and I cannot imagine having anyone else do it. I would if I had to, but he knows my style, my likes and dislikes, how I want things cut, and I do sit there for the entire process unless it's a small change. I don't always give input, hell sometimes I sit there for an hour and play with my iPhone, barely paying attention, until after sections are done, but I like being there so questions can be asked and answered, and so that I feel I have input.

The idea of directing something then passing it off to someone else totally is retarded, I'm sorry, there's no kind word for that. That's not what I consider to be a director at all. I don't care if that's how some major directors do it, even, they are still not doing what I consider to be true directing, which happens in the editing room as much as it happens on the set. I'm firmly of the belief that a film is created in the editing room, which is something that a Lucas or a formalist filmmaker in general would promote. That is the auteur theory of directing, director as author, and the director cannot be the author if he isn't there to author the final product. It just doesn't work that way. I would do that for a paycheck but if it's my project and I'm the author then I want to have input throughout the process, no matter what part we're talking about. Lucas is that type of director, as much as idiots with their off-brand-name coffee and emo haircuts like to ridicule him, he's the consummate visionary and auteur when it comes to filmmaking, every detail is planned and every detail runs by him, no matter whether it's a prop decision or an art decision for matte paintings or computer graphics, or a character design, etc. He lets professionals do their jobs but he gives the ultimate say on everything and takes control. That's the type of direction I like -- hire talented people to do their jobs, better than I can do them, and then steer them gently towards what I am looking to see.

With the short I just directed, I labeled every clip, so I did the assistant editing work, and I made a 7 page shot list basically of what every take contains, everything I liked and disliked about it, or whether it was useable or not, and basically made my edit decisions right there, so that when my editor was doing it I had to pay minimal attention to some of those broad strokes, but I could focus on details as scenes came together and see what was working and what wasn't.

I think everyone has their different directing styles, but I'll tell you what, if it has my name on it, and I'm the one who has to take responsibility for however it turns out, good or bad, then I'm going to have my hands in EVERYTHING from the start of pre-production through the end. There's no way I'm going to pass something off to a production designer and just not even bother to give input or be involved in the process, or that I'm going to let someone edit the film without me in the room, it's just not going to happen. I'm not a control-freak about it or overbearing, but whose fault is it if something turns out bad? It's mine. I'm the director. I don't play the blame game, because it's my film, so it's my responsibility, and that means everything goes through my approval or it doesn't go through at all.

I have to be honest I don't understand how some other people make films, or what they do that requires so much time, because from my perspective it's just a lot of screwing around and indecision. I mean when I hear someone takes 3-4 months to edit a short film, I don't understand it. We had a rough cut of my short in 10 hours, one day. It isn't rocket science. You have everything slated, you have a script, you put together the pieces using the best takes and what makes logical sense. Then maybe you take a few days off to watch it, get some feedback, and make changes. You may do this a few times even. But 3-4 months? I don't get it. Then you hear someone spends a year editing a feature. I just don't see where the time goes. My editor and I finished a complicated music video edit in September within two days. We shot it Sunday, had it edited by Tuesday night in more or less final form. Some shots were changed out a few days later, and a few more changes made, then it was done and ready to go. The video before took maybe 4 days of editing because it was a bit more complicated, went to 14 festivals / competitions, so it's not like we rush through things. It just isn't that difficult. It really isn't that time consuming at all. To spend 500 hours or something editing a 10 minute film is insanity. That to me shows a complete lack of planning and vision. It shouldn't be that long of a process. Everyone has acted really surprised we were able to finish this short film in less than three weeks including sound, composing, and editing, but I mean it's less than ten minutes long, it's not rocket science...
 
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Exactly. All of the examples you are giving are short films and music videos. A feature film is not just a short film, but longer. It's a very different animal. A lot more thought must go into the performances and how they define themselves in the footage you actually have. I don't consider George Lucas to be a particularly good filmmaker, and the number one reason I would give you is that he doesn't seem to care much about performance. By the time anyone steps onto set he already knows exactly what he wants to get with no margin of error, and I respect that he goes out and gets it. But it doesn't allow for much in the way of exploration. It doesn't allow any room to improve on what you have in the can.
 
Sajc05 said:
I was wondering if all films makers know how to edit as well. how many big directors get involved in post and to what degree. For me, all my shorts from student work on, I've never handed off any post work (aside form sound mixing and composing and things like that) to anyone else. i just couldn't imagine not being intimately hands on piecing together the scenes myself. but i assume that creates conflict as in not being able to cut scenes that people who are only editors would recognize as not being necessary.
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I agree, I have been doing shorts for afew years now, whether in highschool, on my own time, and now in college. I have never been able to bring myself to letting post work go to someone else. Perhapse I have issues trusting somebody else to edit, or maybe I know what I want and have some doubt on anothers eye and ability to let them cut, I don't know. hahaha. The only time I didn't cut a project I worked on, more than afew people were dissappointed in the editing as a whole, I was let down a little because I know the guy could and has done much better. I know I'm not the best editor or even the best at any production position, but I can get pretty particular as to what I want, and have a hard time dealing with people that aren't as skilled as I am at the ones I give up. I'm learning how to deal though.
Anyone know of any good books on editing? Or even just good production books in general, but not a "general production book", one that covers one part? ie. camera operation, cinematography, lighting, pre-production?
 
I would never work without my editor of choice! ( http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0905062/)

Of course we sit together, but I leave her alone with the material for days and trust her fully! ( but shes the only one)

I have worked with other editors and found myself well......I think its all about pulling at the same string and having another person collaborate.....I dont think I would ever edit a film totally alone, even if I could ( and I can)
 
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