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Looking for advice – Sharing an edit room
Hello everyone!
I am looking for advice on this situation. I will consider everyone of them, from any side the coin may land.
I am working as a promo producer for a new tv station in Montreal and we are planning our new edit suites. We have discussed and agreed on technical and ergonomics. One sticking point is about sharing the big room between two editors. The room is 10 feet by 12.Our production manager thinks it’s acceptable to have two edit systems in the room and having two editors in at the same time working on different projects. The only caveat is that the editors have to wear headphones all the time.
I think that wearing headphones is fine for short period of times but wearing them all day uncomfortable and can lead to hearing loss. I think that productivity too will suffer having a coworker in the same room.
As an editor, i am expected to edit, do graphics, record narration and mix 7 promos for our shows every two weeks. My point of view is that I would prefer working shifts instead of sharing the room.
As producers, editors, directors and managers, what are your views about edit room sharing?
Thank you.
Claude St-Arnaud – Editor
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9 Replies
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That’s not a “big” room.
If the two editors are collaborating on the same project, i.e. one is doing graphics or audio while the other is cutting for the same project… then 2 in the room is okay. If they are doing independent work, that’s a stressful situation, and they should share the room in shifts, one at a time.
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A few places I work have iMacs for editing in their open plan production offices and it is far from ideal. If the editor is working alone on headphones it’s manageable but not great. If and when either or both editors have a producer/director in with them, then it will be a nightmare as both teams are trying to watch their cuts and share comments. It will be very distracting and harm either productivity or quality, or both in my opinion.
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You both reflect my feelings on the subject, but I wonder about the other side of the coin. if there are other reasons for that kind of arrangement, besides cost. Then again, I know I am far more productive when i’m alone in a room or with a director working with me. I was editing in an office space a few weeks ago, the constant conversations and people moving around were very distracting… not very cost effective in my opinion.
Claude St-Arnaud – Editor
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Even worse is multiple people sharing ONE workstation. Forget about the little things like personalizing a space to make it feel unique to you. Suppose you can live with a sterile desk and wall or cubicle. There’s still going to be many little things that vary between people that will drive you nuts, setting and re-setting, from the tilt friction of the shared chair… to the sensitivity and even type of mouse used, the type and state of the keyboard, the settings for the screen, the custom-programmed shortcut keys, placement of menus, patch bay settings, speaker sound levels, lighting levels, etc. etc. etc. It makes your every visit to your workspace feel alienating, sterile and hostile. You start every day in a bad mood, hating the other SOB who changed something and didn’t re-set it before leaving. It’s not an environment conducive to collaboration or creativity. It’s some manager’s version of a torture chamber, with project completion your only means of escape.
Between the ascetic, anaesthetic techno-Skinner Box and over-plush customized toy-bestrewn Xanadu atelier, there has to be *some* kind of middle ground.
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I freelance at one shop where editors and graphics designers are all in one larger “bullpen” style room. As many as 7 maximum, but a larger room than you describe. The workstations line the perimeter wall.
It’s fine and does offer some benefits from bouncing ideas off of each other. Sound is the biggest downside, since you have to mix with headphones. The trouble is that not everyone is mixing, so sometimes the designers are watching something on YouTube or just chatting amongst themselves. So if you are on headphones, they don’t totally shut out the exterior distractions.
Furthermore, mixing on headphones is not ideal and you can tend to mix falsely unless you find a way to “calibrate” your hearing.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
putting folks on headphones without their own suite is simply a bad practice.
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Fortunately for me, my employers saw the light of day and decided that one editor per room at a time is quite sufficient. For some reason they want to make the room smaller by a bit but hey, I’m not going to complain, this way, the only person I am going to share the room with is a director or a producer. Fine by me. Thanks for your input everyone, you are great!
Claude St-Arnaud – Editor
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amazing how few “employers have ever done what we do. Kind of a shame.
Sometimes ya just have to laugh like you think they are kidding and rock on. -
These are words of wisdom, if I have ever heard any 🙂
Thank you Grinner!
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