Noob Question - Finding Editing Work in LA

B

BennyWhiskers

Active member
How does one go about getting hired in LA as an FCP editor?

Especially if your starting with a terrible resume cou*not me a friend wink wink*gh.

Are some employment opportunities run like a union(SAG), and you just go and join the editors union? Is there even one?

I mean, I can IMDB people, like directors who I want to work with and find out where they live, study their habits and then slowly place myself amongst there peers and before you know it, I'm a part of their crew by association.

Obviously I'm being sarcastic with the last thing I said, but honestly is there alot of work for guys who are fluent in FCP and AE as their main skills? What is the pay rate(how much per hour?)

Would a smart route becoming an editors assistant and pursue side gigs to work my way up?

I'm just curious of the hiearchy in place.
 
There is an Editor's union...it is the Editor's Guild, local 700. And it isn't something you can just get into...you have to work on other projects for so many hours before you can get in.

The first thing you do in LA is look to get hired as an ASSISTANT editor. Decide the career path you want...TV, Feature Films, documetary, reality...and then seek out production companies that make those. In feature film...you look for the directors of post production...and you start at the VERY bottom...Post Production Assistant. Andt hen work your way up. This will be the case for network TV too...post PA. Or if you are pretty good and technical with computers and FCP, you might be lucky enough to find work as an assistant editor. They need to be highly technical and VERY organized. Then you move up.

To be an editor you need someone to hire you as an editor. You need to be known. To do that you need to work your way up and get known.

And I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you learn the Avid. This town is still very Avid heavy. Limiting yourself to FCP REALLY limits your choices of where you can find work.
 
Also it's a ridiculously competitive and crowded market and in a down economy to boot. Don't expect to find work instantly and if you do, don't be surprised if you have to work for free for a while. Having a secondary source of income for your first few years 'making it' is essential.
 
This is in reference to taking gigs outside of cutting feature-length motion pictures. These can be your bread and butter as you try to make it cutting films.

When I started out, I made nice with the producers of behind the scenes content for the studio's dvd releases (and now blu-ray). I went to lunch with them, became friends and in a few months, I was part of the network of editors cutting their pieces for them. Now i own my own post boutique and still occasionally take a job with my friends in that old network to give us an excuse to hang out for a few days/weeks.

At the trailer houses I'm familiar with, you can't jump in as an AE for the most part (there are exceptions, of course). You likely will need to start lower, as a runner driving tapes and dvds to clients, and work your way up to dub room operator making those tapes and dvds, then assistant editor ingesting and logging features and dailies, then finishing/online where you prep picture and audio for mixing and clean printing, and THEN you're in line to be promoted to full fledged editor who works with a producer and client to shape the edit of the trailers.

And I concur with Shane. Learn Avid. The jobs I've worked have been 60% Avid at least, the rest being FCP. (plus learning Avid will, in my opinion, develop more efficient habits on FCP).

Anyway, the short version is to make friends with the producers who manage multiple projects and decide who cuts them.
 
Shane Ross said:
There is an Editor's union...it is the Editor's Guild, local 700. And it isn't something you can just get into...you have to work on other projects for so many hours before you can get in.

The first thing you do in LA is look to get hired as an ASSISTANT editor. Decide the career path you want...TV, Feature Films, documetary, reality...and then seek out production companies that make those. In feature film...you look for the directors of post production...and you start at the VERY bottom...Post Production Assistant. Andt hen work your way up. This will be the case for network TV too...post PA. Or if you are pretty good and technical with computers and FCP, you might be lucky enough to find work as an assistant editor. They need to be highly technical and VERY organized. Then you move up.

To be an editor you need someone to hire you as an editor. You need to be known. To do that you need to work your way up and get known.

And I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you learn the Avid. This town is still very Avid heavy. Limiting yourself to FCP REALLY limits your choices of where you can find work.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed response, I'm taking notes on what you said and figured that was the reality of starting as an assistant(which is fine, gotta start somewhere) and work up. I've taught myself fcp and ae, avid shouldn't be an issue.
 
NoahK said:
Also it's a ridiculously competitive and crowded market and in a down economy to boot. Don't expect to find work instantly and if you do, don't be surprised if you have to work for free for a while. Having a secondary source of income for your first few years 'making it' is essential.
Click to expand...

Figured that too, I'm multi-talented and driven so working for free as long as it's beneficial for my resume would be fine.
 
Zak Forsman said:
This is in reference to taking gigs outside of cutting feature-length motion pictures. These can be your bread and butter as you try to make it cutting films.

When I started out, I made nice with the producers of behind the scenes content for the studio's dvd releases (and now blu-ray). I went to lunch with them, became friends and in a few months, I was part of the network of editors cutting their pieces for them. Now i own my own post boutique and still occasionally take a job with my friends in that old network to give us an excuse to hang out for a few days/weeks.

At the trailer houses I'm familiar with, you can't jump in as an AE for the most part (there are exceptions, of course). You likely will need to start lower, as a runner driving tapes and dvds to clients, and work your way up to dub room operator making those tapes and dvds, then assistant editor ingesting and logging features and dailies, then finishing/online where you prep picture and audio for mixing and clean printing, and THEN you're in line to be promoted to full fledged editor who works with a producer and client to shape the edit of the trailers.

And I concur with Shane. Learn Avid. The jobs I've worked have been 60% Avid at least, the rest being FCP. (plus learning Avid will, in my opinion, develop more efficient habits on FCP).

Anyway, the short version is to make friends with the producers who manage multiple projects and decide who cuts them.
Click to expand...

Behind the scenes guys would be a good network to be a part of, they're following production stuff with cameras all day, which would be very beneficial to a guy like me who wants to learn as much as possible about all the different facets of filmmaking. Editing is just my strongest talent.

Being a runner driving tapes to clients wouldn't be a problem, I know I wouldn't start as the main guy, I'd be bringing them all coffee.

like the other guy said above, avid is a need to know for editors, so that's my next little challenge is to self-teach that program. Pinnacle is what the video editing software is called, right?

Thanks again.
 
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