The editor's role and the post-production pipeline

Editing is sometimes called the final rewrite. By the time footage reaches the cutting room, the script has been written, the actors have performed and the camera has rolled, but the film still does not exist. It exists only as hours of separate shots, sound files and notes. The editor turns that raw material into a sequence that holds an audience for ninety minutes, or ninety seconds. Editors decide which take is used, which moment of a performance survives, how long a look lasts, what the audience sees first and what it never sees at all. Many filmmakers say a film is written three times: once on the page, once on set and once in the edit. This lesson introduces the editor's job, the people the editor works with and the stages a project passes through between the last day of shooting and the finished master. Later lessons go deep into the craft; this one gives you the map.

What an editor actually does

The editor's basic task is selection and arrangement. From everything that was shot, the editor selects the pieces that tell the story best and arranges them in an order and rhythm that make the audience feel what the film intends. That simple description hides an enormous number of decisions. A single dialogue scene might have been covered from six camera positions, with eight takes from each, and every take contains dozens of small variations in performance and timing. The editor watches all of it, often several times, and builds the scene from the strongest moments.

Editors also shape structure. They may move scenes, cut them, combine them or reorder whole sections. A scene that worked on the page might slow the film down; a subplot might confuse the audience; an ending might need a different final image. Because editors see the material fresh, without the memory of how hard a shot was to get, they are often the first person to notice what the film actually is, as opposed to what everyone planned.

Finally, editors manage time. Film time is elastic: an editor can stretch a moment of suspense far beyond its real duration or compress a decade into a few cuts. Choosing when to cut, and therefore how long each shot lasts, is the editor's central tool. You studied the basics of continuity and montage in FILM-101; this course turns those ideas into working practice.

Who the editor works with

Editing is collaborative, and the editor sits at the centre of post-production. Knowing who does what helps you understand the workflow and communicate clearly.

• Director: the editor's main creative partner. On most narrative projects the editor builds a first cut alone, then works side by side with the director for weeks or months.
• Producers and executives: they give notes on story, length, audience and deliverables, and they approve the schedule and budget.
• Assistant editors: they ingest and organize media, sync sound, prepare bins, manage turnovers and keep the project running technically. Lesson 12 covers the assistant's role.
• Script supervisor: their notes record which takes were good, which lines changed and how each shot matches. These notes are gold in the cutting room.
• Sound team: dialogue editors, sound effects editors, Foley artists, the composer and the re-recording mixer take the locked picture and build the final soundtrack.
• Colourist: grades the locked picture for look and consistency. You met grading in CINE-310.
• Visual effects team: receives shots that need work, returns finished effects, and depends on accurate turnovers from editorial.
• Post supervisor: plans and tracks the whole process, from dailies to delivery.

The post-production pipeline

Post-production follows a broadly similar path on most projects, although the details depend on budget, format and whether the work is fiction, documentary, commercial or series television.

• Ingest and dailies: footage from each shooting day is copied, verified, backed up and synced with sound. Editors and directors review dailies to see what was captured.
• Assembly: the editor puts scenes together in script order, usually while the shoot continues. The assembly is long and rough; its job is to show what exists.
• Editor's cut: the editor's own best version, delivered a set time after the end of shooting under many agreements.
• Director's cut: the director and editor work together to shape the film to the director's vision.
• Producer, studio or network cuts: notes from the people paying for the film lead to further revisions, sometimes with test screenings.
• Picture lock: the edit is declared final. Changes after lock are expensive because every other department is working from the locked timeline.
• Sound, colour and visual effects: these run partly in parallel once the picture is locked, or earlier on fast schedules.
• Conform, final mix and delivery: the high-resolution media is reassembled to match the edit, the final sound mix is married to picture and the required deliverables are produced. Lesson 11 covers this in detail, and CINE-430 covers streaming deliverables.

Offline and online editing

Traditionally, editing happens in two passes. The offline edit is the creative edit, done with lightweight copies of the footage called proxies so that the computer stays fast. The online edit, or conform, rebuilds the finished timeline using the original high-quality camera files for colour and finishing. Today's computers can often edit camera originals directly, but many productions still use the offline-online split, especially for high-resolution or raw formats and for projects shared by many people.

Shooting ratio

The shooting ratio compares how much footage was recorded with how much appears in the finished film. It tells the editor, and the budget, how much material must be managed and reviewed.

How long editing takes

Editing schedules vary widely, but planning needs rough numbers. A common way to budget is minutes of finished screen time per working day, or editing days per finished minute.

What makes a good editor

Technical skill with editing software matters, but most editors say the job is mainly about taste, patience and people. Good editors watch closely and remember what they saw. They feel rhythm, notice when a performance is truthful and know when a scene has said what it needs to say. They are also calm under pressure, discreet with confidential material and able to hear criticism of their work without taking it personally. An editor spends long hours in a dark room with a director who may be anxious about the film; trust and diplomacy are part of the craft.

• Watch everything, then forget what was hard to shoot. The audience never sees the effort, only the result.
• Serve the story first, then the performance, then technical polish.
• Keep a fresh eye by taking breaks and watching cuts at full length, not just scene by scene.
• Learn the language of every department so you can explain what you need from sound, colour and effects.

In Canada, editors on many productions are represented by the Directors Guild of Canada in its districts, and the Canadian Cinema Editors is the professional honour society that recognizes excellence in the craft with the letters CCE.

How this course works

Each lesson combines ideas, worked examples and practical exercises. Lessons 2 to 7 build the core craft: theory applied, cuts and transitions, continuity, rhythm, dialogue and montage. Lessons 8 and 9 cover documentary editing and sound. Lessons 10 and 11 cover the technical side: systems, media management, conform and delivery. Lesson 12 covers working as an editor and the capstone, in which you plan and cut a short scene from a described coverage plan. All films discussed are described in words; we never reproduce frames from other works, and you should not either.

Reading the footage before cutting

Before an editor makes a single cut, they watch. Many editors insist on viewing all of a day's dailies at full speed, making notes on performances, camera moves and technical problems, before they start assembling. This first viewing is the only time the editor sees the footage as an audience might, without knowing what comes next. Impressions from that viewing, such as a moment that made them laugh or a take that felt false, are valuable later when familiarity has dulled their reactions. Some editors keep these first-viewing notes for the whole project and return to them when a scene stops working.