The First Step

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"What does an assistant editor do?"
"How do you find a position as an assistanteditor?"

Assistant editor Nicole Sevanne syncs dailies for a pilot posting atGlue Inc., in New York City.

You have just received your well-rounded liberal arts degree, withlots of college editing experience.

You have participated in professional associations like the SMPTEand are familiar with the Web newsgroups on editing issues. You mayhave attended a workshop in Rockport, Maine, or at the Digital MediaEducation Center in Portland, Ore., or at Moviola in Los Angeles or NewYork. You actually have a good portfolio and demo reel.

Your parents and friends are growing almost as anxious as you areabout what you are going to do. You would like to become an editor; youare pretty good at editing and find the job fulfilling. But how tostart?

There are three traditional paths leading to the position of editor.The majority of today's working editors have chosen one of theseroutes. The three paths are finding a job in broadcasting or corporatecommunications; finding an apprenticeship or assistant editor position;or writing a business plan, raising money, and starting your own shop.None of these paths is easy, and there is a high degree of frustrationand failure in each.

I would like to address what I consider the best choice of thethree: finding an apprenticeship or assistant editor position. If youcan talk someone into giving you an apprentice editor job, you haveeverything it takes to be a top-notch editor: personality,perseverance, organizational and research skills, and tremendousdiligence.

Apprenticeships are exceedingly rare these days. Assistant editorpositions are also far less available than they used to be in the daysof linear editing suites. Assistant editor jobs and apprenticeships aremost commonly found in long-form programming — especially infeatures. Compositing facilities also feature assistant positions, butthey are frequently more graphics-oriented than editing-orientedjobs.

Things are much different now from the days when I was an assistantto some legendary editors, such as Greg Feather-man, Dave Rosenblatt,and others. In the linear days, an assistant editor changed tapes— fast — and if the editor was happy with you, you wereallowed to ride the audio or program the character generator. Theprimary purpose of the assistant editor was to make the editor lookgood. It was your responsibility to take care of the things thatallowed the editor to focus on the edit. If you excelled, the editorwould be grateful and try to help you master the subtleties ofediting.

Anyone can operate an editing system, but few people have the talentto become editing craftsmen. Having a top-notch editor assist you inthis long-term endeavor is the best way to learn the craft.

“I do think that being an assistant is one of the best ways tobecome a top editor,” says Ken Sirulnick, president of Glue Inc.in New York. “We do a lot of work with documentary producers herein NYC, and I know that many long-form editors let assistants cutscenes from time to time, or at least rough them out before editorscome in and tighten up the cut. This is an incredible opportunity for aperson looking to become an editor.”

“I see my job as very much an apprentice role,” saysassistant editor Steve Pang, who freelances in London. “I amthere to support the editor and as far as possible make their job aseasy and hassle-free as possible. This usually entails a huge varietyof tasks, almost none of which are particularly creative.

“But all the time I'm trying to learn as much as I can fromthe editor: watching cuts and changes being made; sitting in onmeetings and discussions about the edit. There is a gradual osmosis ofknowledge that takes place, I think. And the great thing aboutnonlinear is that when you get a bit of downtime, it's possible to tryand cut a scene or two yourself.

“I think it's important to strike a balance in your approachto the job,” Pang says. “If you get too entrenched in theassistant's mentality, there is a danger you will never make that bigleap to editor.

“But similarly, if your eye is totally on the prize of beingan editor as quickly as possible, you might end up not doing your jobproperly, which will only let your editor and the project down.Although my goal is to eventually cut feature films, at the moment I'mhappy being as good an assistant as I can and learning as much aspossible from more experienced people.”

Bob Turner has edited video on nearly every piece of equipment evermade, and has been a videotape editor since 1976. His recent projectsinclude an educational video for the city of Boston on disasterpreparedness. Reach him at bobturner@attbi.com.

FREELANCE ASSISTANT EDITOR DAN BRAZELTON (FROM LOS ANGELES, nowworking in Tokyo) summed up the assistant editor job rather succinctly:“The assistant editor's job is to relieve the editor of alllogistical and technical issues so they can focus on the creative jobof editing. The assistant editor is responsible for all sync, codematching, and delivery to other post departments (sound, online,optical, lab, music, etc.). Oh, and I will get you coffee. If you wantto pay me $35 an hour to do that, I'd be happy to.”

For a more detailed description, see the article “101 Reasonsto Insist on an Assistant” by Pam Malouf in the Motion PictureEditors Guild newsletter (Jan./Feb. '99). This is an excellent articlethat details the duties of and the justification for an assistanteditor. (The article is available online at http://www.editorsguild.com/newsletter/JanFeb99/insist_on_asst.html)

The reason Malouf felt the need to write such a justification isthat the “bean-counters” believe that with new technologythe position is no longer needed, and that editors have too many poorassistants. Editors complain about those coming out of college whothink they are terrific editors and therefore do not need to do“menial tasks” (such as duplication, answering phones,syncing dailies, managing the media, logging, labeling, digitizing,archiving, and other tasks) — even though they have noprofessional experience. This attitude gives assistant editors a badreputation. The result is that it is now harder to get your first gigas an assistant editor.
— BT

ASSISTANT EDITOR STEVE PANG offered the following suggestions tothose trying to find an assistant editor gig: “I started out as atape op, and have found that the knowledge I had of tape, timecode,hooking up decks, and other video-related stuff was useful in gettingpeople to consider me. I also made a point of getting to grips with the‘trickier’ side of Avid at an early stage — I meanreally getting to know the settings and behavior of the application,shortcuts, bugs, and so on. This might seem like an obvious thing todo, but the level of actual, serious Avid knowledge amongst workingassistants varies tremendously.

“Having said that, it still took a lucky break for me to getmy first assistant editing job. An editor at a facility I was workingfor seemed impressed that I knew how to hook up a Digibeta deck to herAvid and gave me a phone number of someone who was looking for anassistant. I made the call and that was how I got my first freelancejob. Things like that can't be planned, unfortunately. As a generalrule, I would say be as good as you can at your job, and the work willhopefully come to you.”

Dan Brazelton offers a different point of view. “Don't worryabout the equipment and the technology. Get generally savvy with it,but don't worry about learning a specific tool. The most important toolyou will use in features will be FileMaker Pro.

“Decide what type of editing you hope to do —commercials, features, dramatic series, or sitcoms. Then find out thenames of the editors of the kind of things you want to eventually cut.Then pursue a job with that editor — any job. Runner, apprentice,gopher, coffee-getter — whatever. Then don't worry about showingoff what a brilliant creative person you are. Just do the best damnedjob you can at that job. If you are a coffee-getter, take notes on whatpeople like in their coffee and deliver it before they ask for it. Inyour spare time learn everything you can, paying attention to workflowand procedure more than technology or technique. Ask questionssparingly. If the editor or other assistants offer to teach, take theopportunity and show respect by listening and studying.

“Learn to listen. Learn to observe. Be a professional. I haveyet to meet an editor or assistant who didn't enjoy teaching andhelping someone else along, but they don't generally waste their timeon people who are flakes. If you are on top of your job, they willnotice.

“Don't lie about what you can't do. Be honest about what youknow and don't know and ask questions. You'll sleep a lot better, andyou won't burn any bridges. Just don't be too humble.

“Most important, if you don't love the craft of editing anddon't enjoy assisting, get out now. Learn a different trade. This is atough business, and not worth it if you don't love it.”
— BT

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorialstaff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.