Separating Yourself as An Editor
“The essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.”
~Francis Ford Coppola
Film editing, at its core, is a labor of love. It's the careful stitching together of distinct moments into a cohesive narrative, making sense of the chaos of life. As an editor, you are the silent storyteller, the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes. With every cut, every transition, and every sound effect, you breathe life into the footage.
As an aspiring video editor, however, the challenge lies not just in mastering your craft but in distinguishing yourself from everyone else. These five will help you improve your editing and stand out from the crowd.
1. Embracing the Grind
Behind every successful editor lies a trail of countless hours spent in the editing suite. Every project undertaken, regardless of its scale, is an opportunity to learn, grow, and refine your craft. However, the path to excellence is rarely a sprint; more often, it's a marathon.
Recently, I’ve noticed a huge pushback against this notion of “the grind” or the everyday dedication to a specific task. You see thought leaders like Gary Vaynerchuck getting clowned on social media for persuading people to work tirelessly for long hours day in and day out. However, this pushback against “the grind” honestly feels like an attempt to make people feel good about not working as hard as they possibly can. I’m a huge fan of taking breaks and allowing time off to inspire your work, but if not managed properly, it can turn into an excuse to not do the work.
The process of the work itself is the reward.
Success does not come easily and if you’re cranking out one project a month while another editor is cranking out one per week, you will improve at a significantly slower rate purely based on the fact that you don’t have as many reps. This isn’t to say that good projects don’t take more than a week to edit, but what I’m getting at is you need to do the work.
If you’ve been following me for a long time, you know that for a year straight I released two vlogs on my YouTube channel every week. When I look back on these videos, I certainly see their flaws and occasionally cringe, but it is the dedication to produce something consistently that allowed me to learn and develop the skills I have today. I’ve released over 65 videos and 99% of them aren’t client work, they’re just projects that I set out to create on my own time. That means that for every one video posted to my channel, there are at least 5 more projects that never made the cut - projects that you’ve never seen because I either didn’t think they were good enough, weren’t on brand, or for clients that I can’t share on my own channel. At 23 years old, I’ve calculated that I’ve worked on 500+ projects across just video and 3D alone.
I’m not sharing this to brag in any way, in fact, I know that my work can still be improved a lot. I still have so much to learn and I am not by any means saying I have it all figured out. Rather, I’m putting into perspective the amount of dedication and time it truly takes to get good at something. There is no secret shortcut or magic hack that will make you a good editor. You are going to have to do the work behind the scenes and you’re likely going to have to do it without recognition or financial compensation.
But when you look back on your early work and compare it to your current work, there will be undeniable proof of your progression.
Embrace the grind - dedicate yourself to the craft and put in the repetitions necessary to take your skills to the next level.
2. Streamline Your Workflow
A streamlined workflow is the backbone of your editing process. From mundane tasks such as offloading footage and creating proxies, to more intricate processes like organizing your folder structure and managing storage - every task plays a part in creating your project.
The key is to eliminate resistance. You want to be able to jump straight into the creative process so you don’t waste energy rummaging for specific clips or sourcing sound effects while you’re in the middle of an edit.
Create a repeatable folder structure to store all your clips, assets, and effects in one place.
Experiment with the quickest way to make selects for your project. Do you enjoy making in-and-out points or using a stacked timeline?
Create custom hotkeys or learn your software’s inbuilt shortcuts so you spend less time clicking around and more time crafting the story.
For example, when trimming through a timeline to create selects, I rarely use my mouse. I trim through the footage with my 1, 2, and 3 number keys. I cut with the W key, and ripple delete forwards or backward with the Q and E keys respectively. This saves me a lot of time!
Don’t spend all your time rewatching the footage. Watch it once or twice and make a firm decision on the spot. When you’re working with hours of footage, it will become impossible to sort through all of it if you keep re-watching the footage five times over.
Learn to compartmentalize each task. Some editors prefer to edit the video linearly from beginning to end until it’s finished. Others choose to separate each piece of the edit into sub-scenes and then piece them all together at the end. Are you coloring your clips before the edit or waiting til’ the end? These are all questions you need to ask yourself in order to create a process that works for you. There is no correct way to do things.
Another key is to eliminate distractions. When I first started editing, I found myself getting distracted by the internet - looking up a bunch of unrelated things and then falling into a wormhole of YouTube videos, and then ultimately realizing that I hadn’t gotten enough work done.
As a solution, I removed the ethernet cord from my desktop computer and unplugged the wifi adapter that allowed me to connect to the internet. This forced me to work without internet access. It was just me and the footage. I would make sure ahead of time to have all the sounds, music, and graphics I needed in a folder before even starting the edit to ensure that I wouldn’t have to download anything from the internet. In emergency situations when I needed to source some piece of media from the internet, I would unplug my computer’s hard drive, download whatever I needed from my laptop onto the project’s hard drive, and then re-plug in the hard drive to continue editing the project.
You might think this is excessive, but in reality, it just created strategic resistance! Rather than spending 5 minutes unplugging my hard drives, booting up my laptop, and transferring files, I instead opted to continue editing offline in my flow state.
3. Building Your Toolkit
As an editor, your toolkit is an extension of your creative mind. It is a collection of resources that enable you to manifest your ideas into reality. To create work that resonates with your style and vision, you need to build and continuously refine your toolkit.
I always joke with friends that I’m unwilling to buy a $30 t-shirt, but have no problem buying a 3D model of a tree to put in my animations for the same price. It’s a perspective shift that has allowed me to view my toolkit as an investment. In the same way that a mechanic may have a toolbox of mechanical tools (which can cost upwards of $50,000) in order to do their job, a video editor also needs a set of tools that allow him/her to get the job done.
I have spent hundreds of dollars on motion graphics, titles, overlays, and sound effects.
Before I developed my recognizable color grading style, I spent hundreds of dollars on competitor’s color grading projects. I tested all the plugins, bought exclusive Powergrade files from actual cinematographers and colorists in the industry, and then tweaked them to make them my own. The goal is to assemble a toolkit of assets that you can use repeatedly to produce work that aligns with your style and story type.
For example, If you’re using the same sound effects everyone else uses, you will sound generic. Do not be afraid to spend time and money searching for hidden gems (tools) from other creators that produce great work.
If you can’t find the assets that fit your project, then invest the time to make them yourself. Identify the gaps in the market and create your own solution. Chances are that if you can’t find what you need, there are others that are having the same problem. This is an opportunity to create useful assets for other creators to use down the line. Pay it forward.
Remember, it's not about having the most expensive tools; it's about how you use them to tell your story.
4. Research and Dissect
Every movie you watch, every video you consume, holds a treasure trove of lessons. By dissecting these pieces of work, you can gain insights into pacing, rhythm, and story structure. It's about understanding not just what works, but why it works.
Change the way you frame consuming content to instead be an act of research rather than pure consumption. Periodically, when I see a video that captures my attention, I will download it to my computer and place it in my editing suite. I’ll then go frame by frame and make cuts between each clip. I’ll then re-watch the video and break down why the editor decided to make a cut and the effect that it has on the overall story. I’ll even re-edit certain portions of the film or video if I believe I can make it better.
For example, when creating a shot list for my project The Tower (2022), I was unsure how I wanted to film the car/driving scenes. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I downloaded a copy of The Fast and The Furious (2001) and began to break down how they shot and edited together the racing sequences within my editing suite. While my scene application for The Tower was much tamer than the chaotic street racing edits of a Hollywood blockbuster, I was able to steal the rhythm of The Fast and The Furious scenes and learn when the best time to cut between different angles of the car was. I even learned about the different types of shots I could capture to sell a driving scene.
This meticulous analysis of a Hollywood scene that I thought was compelling gave me the knowledge (through analysis) of how to apply it to my own film. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Spend time researching what works and doesn’t work before applying it to your own projects.
5. Stay Curious
To grow as an editor, you need to continuously challenge yourself, take on projects that make you uncomfortable, and dive into the unfamiliar.
Don't shy away from projects that seem beyond your current skill set. Instead, see them as opportunities to learn, grow, and push your boundaries.
Take on projects you don’t yet have the skills to execute on and then learn the necessary skills - find a way to make it work.
Don’t be afraid to allow for “happy accidents”. Usually, it is important to stick to the director’s original vision for a video project, especially if there have been hours of planning and thought put into why he chose to capture a scene a certain way. However, understand that there isn’t one correct way to edit a project. Experiment with changing the order of certain scenes and experiment with using different takes for each cut. Don’t settle for the first sequence you put together because you may discover through iteration a sequence that tells the story better than the one you made on your first go around.
Find a mentor. Ask questions. Reach out to those that have more experience than you do. They likely know things that you don’t.
Approach with the intent to learn and improve and you will be surprised by just how many people want to help you on your journey.
I’m not only speaking about 1 on 1 mentorship. It can be as simple as buying an editing course and going through the modules, applying what works, and borrowing from their experience. I’ve been editing for 5 years (at the time this article was written), but still find myself buying masterclasses and courses online. I always learn something new, even if the courses are tailored toward beginners. Books are also a great way to learn new information.
You die when you stop being curious.
Final Thoughts
Carving your unique path in the world of video editing is a long journey, but if you can find joy in the process, there is nothing that can stop you.
So, embrace the grind, fine-tune your workflow, build your toolkit, dissect your inspirations, lean into your curiosity, and learn from the masters. Your journey is unique, and the world of filmmaking awaits your distinct narrative.
Thanks for reading, I hope this helped you out!
-P