Judith Allen - Editor

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Job satisfaction

There's something vaguely depressing in studying editing (and indeed working as an editor), in that the only cuts that people will tend to comment on are the bad ones. Most of the job is making the entire film look as if it flows naturally - sentences into one another (even if spoken days apart when filming), a character's actions and reactions making logical sense as the cause and effect of another's, giving moments of significance the exact emphasis they need without signalling to all far and wide "HEY, LOOK AT THIS" (though this can be unavoidable with a learned audience who know the tricks, and all you can hope for is to be subtle with it even on that level), turning 360 degree camera angles around a table in a dinner scene into a conversation where everyone's looking where they should be irrespective of the fact that half of the actors may have gone off to the lunchtime grazing tables, giving all necessary information but not dragging it out in the telling... the editing should stay invisible, in much the same way as the majority of editors seem content to sit back and watch as the cinematographers are credited for the length and timing of shots*, the director and writer for the storytelling, and the actors for the sound effects added in post.

So really, the greatest compliment one can receive at the end of a scene is a comment on the story itself - an "oooh, that's not going to last long" in reference to the newly formed relationship between two key characters or an "oh my god, he's mad" after a key incident with a character (assuming of course that that was the impression you intended to convey) is praise of the highest order. It's also an opportunity to discuss those strange people who have numerous issues that you’ve been getting to know recently. And just being able to do that makes any other potential gripes about the job disappear.

*This does happen. Though like the directors and writers, they’re also often blamed when it doesn’t work.