I’ve edited many types of films over my career, but my favorite role is as a documentary editor. I love going through piles of footage and finding a story to tell. But making a compelling documentary is perhaps the most difficult form of filmmaking.
Editing a documentary is often the most involved and difficult niche of the craft. While other types of films—music videos, narrative, commercial, etc.—have there own nuances and challenges, documentary film relies most heavily on the editor. That isn’t to take away from the director’s role, because it almost always takes far more footage, time and thought to direct a documentary than say, a narrative film from a script. The documentary director either follows a story as it’s unfolding, or goes through mounds of research and archival footage to piece together something that makes sense. But the director also relies more on the editor than directors in other forms. I like to think of the documentary editor as extra RAM for the director’s brain. We try things that the director hadn’t thought of, or see a potential story thread that went unnoticed. A documentary isn’t truly made until it gets in the edit room. And even then, there are a million different ways to tell the story. I should also note that most documentary directors I know are extremely talented editors.
If you’re still wondering why I do crossword puzzles in ink, this is the relevant paragraph. Editing documentaries (and even other forms), requires recalling sometimes a single shot out of hours upon hours of footage. As much as you fill out the metadata on your footage (which I highly recommend—that “comment” column has saved my life more than once), you still need to remember where in a particular clip that shot was from, and how it can be used to make a point in your doc. So for me, doing crossword puzzles in ink is training for my brain.
When I begin inking in the crossword puzzle answers, I make a commitment. That means guessing on most clues and not filling them in. I end up making several guesses, memorizing where those guesses are in the puzzle, and finally figuring out if they fit or not. In this way, I rely on short-term memory, directly related to my current project. I’ve found that when I go to edit a project with tons of footage, I can think completely non-linearly. I can see connections that aren’t obvious. I can partially (or sometimes, fully) build a scene in my head without putting a single clip in the timeline.
I obviously don’t think editors need to do crossword puzzles in ink to excel at their craft. But I do think they need to have similar habits or hobbies. Many great editors are also musicians (I’m not, but wish I was). Musical ability is very handy in editing. Reading graphic novels, watching films with the sound muted, reading novels with unconventional narrative styles—all these are ways to improve one’s approach to editing, if done intentionally. Being an editor is more than a job, it’s a lifestyle.
Sometimes I envy people who have 9-5 careers. I don’t know many accountants who stay up all night for no additional pay because they want their work to be “just right”. As a freelance editor, I may go months without work or months without a break. Vacations almost never happen, and anxiety over where the next gig is coming from is ever-present. But it’s still my dream job. It’s a way of life that I can’t seem to give up.
I only hope that they keep printing newspapers so I can keep doing my puzzles in ink.
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