How many of you editors are introverts?

[Stephen Smith]

It isn’t unusual to have two people sitting on the couch in my edit-bay chiming in with their opinion. I work a lot with clients and that is part of the job. Maybe it is because I do a lot of corporate video (Work with their Marketing person) and TV spots (Work with Ad Agencies). Interacting with people is a big part of my job.

Stephen Smith

Utah Video Productions

Check out my Vimeo page

[Todd Terry]

[Stephen Smith] “It isn’t unusual to have two people sitting on the couch in my edit-bay chiming in with their opinion.”

This is precisely why I purposely have uncomfortable seating in my suite. I used to have theatre seats… vintage art deco seats rescued from a Hollywood movie palace… but they proved to encourage too much lounging.

The room looks inviting (cool lighting, artwork, client platform, phones, etc.), but my hard-as-bricks chairs now will often have a client saying “You seem to know what you are doing, I’ll be back this afternoon,” which I love to hear 🙂

I was thwarted once, though… when one agency creative director started bringing her own cushion to edit sessions. Foiled again!

Unfortunately (for him), my other editor has the vintage “I Love Lucy” couch to deal with. I love the look… but I put it upstairs in his suite to shift the camping out elsewhere.

I by far do my best (and fastest) work alone… and my other editor would definitely say the same. I don’t think he likes it when I barge in myself.

As we (sarcastically) say here, “There’s nothing better than art by committee.”

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark Suszko]

I have to agree with Todd that editing alone is more “fun”. But I don’t really mind having the client sit in, if they know what they want. The dynamic is very different with a co-pilot, though. You spend more energy explaining ideas and “selling” them, or showing examples, then getting approvals to go ahead. Or if they have a really bad idea, you may have to gently let them down by wasting a little time to humor them, before they see it was bad for themselves and let you revert to the better plan you had all along.

But, if you’re patient in these scenarios, you soon build enough trust that the clients tend to give you your head and let you go it alone from that point forward.

This is why the best technical editor isn’t always the best hire at a post facility. You also have to have great interpersonal and verbal communication skills, an ability to teach and educate a client, even as you’re taking direction from them, without insulting or hurting them. When you work on a project side-by-side with the client, they leave with much more emotional investment in what you’ve done together, so they go to bat with their bosses for approving the cut you collaborated on, instead of sending back lots of fickle and meaningless or damaging changes later.

So yeah, solo flying is rewarding and efficient. Dual-piloting is more work, and takes more time/cost, but can also get you to a good place. A good editor should be able to handle either mode of working.

[Mark Suszko]

I have to agree with Todd that editing alone is more “fun”. But I don’t really mind having the client sit in, if they know what they want. The dynamic is very different with a co-pilot, though. You spend more energy explaining ideas and “selling” them, or showing examples, then getting approvals to go ahead. Or if they have a really bad idea, you may have to gently let them down by wasting a little time to humor them, before they see it was bad for themselves and let you revert to the better plan you had all along.

But, if you’re patient in these scenarios, you soon build enough trust that the clients tend to give you your head and let you go it alone from that point forward.

This is why the best technical editor isn’t always the best hire at a post facility. You also have to have great interpersonal and verbal communication skills, an ability to teach and educate a client, even as you’re taking direction from them, without insulting or hurting them. When you work on a project side-by-side with the client, they leave with much more emotional investment in what you’ve done together, so they go to bat for the cut you collaborated on, instead of sending back fickle and meaningless changes later.

[Andrew Rendell]

I dislike being alone for extended periods of time. I really value what I’d call the unexpected and unanticipated usefulness of colleagues – having people around to talk things through with can really help get things straight in my head.

I think the collaborative nature of editing is what drew me to it twenty five years ago and what keeps me interested today (not having more people choosing the shots or the timing of a cut, that’s just a waste of everyone’s time, but things like the interaction between cutting pictures and sound with writing the script).

Also, when the filming is lazy “interview plus b-roll” instead of properly thought out sequences it can be soul destroying to have to wade through it on one’s own.

I’m not sure where I am on the extravert – introvert continuum, there are things I do which are solitary and part of the inner mental world (oil painting and experimental music) and there are things that I do which are social. I don’t think I could exist without both, but as a freelance cutter I make my living in the sociable side.

[Andrew Kimery]

For me, the solitude is one of the highlights of editing as a profession. I find Interacting with people draining so I would never want to work in an environment where the client is in the room with me a lot. If the relationship is very relaxed and collaborative I can cope with that better but I still prefer to cut alone.

[Mark Suszko]

And yet…. some of the sweetest moments are when you play back a sequence to the client sitting beside you, and see their face change from “what is this I don’t even…” to: “OMG, you are some kind of wizard!”. I was lucky enough to have a few of those kinds of moments in my career. The collaborative dynamic, when it is clicking, is a very powerful thing unto itself. Instead of trying different things, like whacking at a piñata, blindfolded; you can get instant feedback and avoid going down a lot of blind alleys.

All our edit suites have the client sit alongside, instead of behind the editor, on a couch or divided by a “console trench” like a network control room. The semiotics or subtext of that arrangement is that we are partners, not a soldier executing orders from a General at the rear.

[Stephen Smith]

I don’t consider clients in the edit bay to be pest or unwelcome guest. This is their video not mine and they are paying for it. The first client I worked with in the edit bay was a Creative Director who moved here from one of the biggest Ad Agencies back East. I learned so much from him and I’m a better editor today because of it. I agree that working with a client can be nerve-raking because your creative abilities are on the spot, but collaborating with a client and building something great is very rewarding.

Stephen Smith

Utah Video Productions

Check out my Vimeo page

[Aaron Cadieux]

Steve,

I hear you on this. There is NOTHING worse than having someone else sit in on an edit session, especially a clueless client. I remember one particular annoying client that gasped and said “oh, that looks terrible” when I imported a still image into a Premiere timeline. The image was high-res, so it initially was unidentifiable on the preview monitor. I had to stop and explain to her that I hadn’t scaled it down yet.

– Aaron

[Stephen Smith]

Aaron,
Your comment reminds me of FCP, when you brought on image into the View it would stretch the image to fit the screen, why I have no idea. But you would always get comments on the still photo looking funny. If you work with clients occasionally in the edit bay it is only inevitable that you will have a client who has never sat in an edit before and has very little experience. You will get a lot more questions about stuff such as the photo looks strange but it provides a great opportunity to explain to the client what the editing process is and what to expect.

Stephen Smith

Utah Video Productions

Check out my Vimeo page