Blow Out
Orion Pictures
An Assistant Editor takes on many roles depending on the nature of the project at hand, but at the end of the day is a gun for hire for their editor—their best friend in the trenches for whatever their needs may be.
The assistant editor's role typically starts at the helm of media ingest (barring their isn't a media manager in the budget), taking over from the DIT who's intercepting and organizing the media shot during production. The DIT is something of a bridge between production and post, the last line of defense before the media is handed off.
Once the media is handed off, the assistant editor typically will start syncing and organizing stringouts per their editor's preferences. This can be as simply as a sequence of best takes, or as involved as an early assembly cut of the project at hand. The specific nature of the project also could mean more involved organization—narrative will typically be less involved than documentary, for instance, considering docs shoot so much more footage than a contained narrative short or feature.
Although film and TV are more of our bag here at NFS, that doesn't mean assistant editors aren't active or important for other mediums. In fact, I've worked as an assistant editor for everything from Call of Duty trailers, shoe commercials, to space launch social media videos for Blue Origin. It's an important role for any edit in any context, and is essential to keeping the gears of post moving smoothly under tight deadlines.
Then, finally, once the editor is all done with their edit they will typically send back to you for finishing deliverables.
Various Assistant Editing Tasks
The Fablemans
Universal Pictures
What is often considered the end-all, be-all of post-production, the Editor is centerpiece of any post team. They're the creative talent behind the team responsible for putting the movie itself together—and, on small projects, can sometimes take up many or all of the titles on this list.
On a professional, big budget production, however, the editor is simply the creative working with directors and producers to make the best movie (or episode or trailer or etc.) possible. They're cutting on their NLE of choice to make the project flow and tell the best story the footage they have at their disposal allows.
Something to keep in mind for editing that is often overlooked is the order in which cuts are put our, each getting finer and finer as they go. The order is:
The assembly cut is pretty much how it sounds: putting together the project exactly by the script, assembling (if you will) the backbone of the cut to build from later. This can be tedious, but the more work you put in here the easier your life will be later.
A more refined cut where you're refining what works in the assembly, and reworking what doesn't. This doesn't have to be a perfect finished product, but this is where you start playing around and bringing your project closer to where it will ultimately live forever as your lil baby. In fact, think of this as the formative teenage years of the cut. It'll be grumpy, but it's essential to becoming the grown up we all believe it can be.
This is where we're going to college! Or trade school, or the workforce, as you will. The fine cut is when the project is nearing the finish line and we have the cut in a spiffy place, and where producers and directors will often come in hard and fast with all of their (sometimes differing, yikes) opinions.
This is when we're finally finished, and we ship off to sound and mix. Don't get your hopes up, though, as "lock" is a term that is sometimes used loosely in this industry...
Once this is approved, you'll typically send off to
Editor's Checklist
The Conversation
Paramount Pictures
You've done it. You have a movie edited that everyone is happy with, and you want it to look and sound extra pretty. This is when Finishing enters the mix.
The players here come in many shapes and talents, from the composer, to sound editors, to VFX artists putting the final touches on your project. We've broken these stages down as best we can below for your eyes and brain to learn up.
As is mostly self-explanatory, a colorist—either a singular agent or small team—will come in and make the picture of the project look the way it was intended. A colorist is often given a look book or general direction by the producers or director, and then will adjust overtime via a notes process.
These is a bigger process to unpack, with several different teams working on several different aspects of sound. The bare essentials however are the sound editor and the composer. The sound editor will take the audio integrated into the edit—SFX, music, and production audio—and clean up the mix so that it sounds level and clean as can be.
The composer of course will compose original score to the picture with direction from the creatives they're working with. Sometimes they're working off of temp used in the edit, sometimes they're creating something entirely from scratch to fit the vision of the final project. It's one of my favorite aspects of filmmaking.
These are of course all the fancy effects added to the final project to really send your project to the next level. While often times we assume this means big explosions or monsters or something, in many cases a VFX artist will do something as simple as touch up the blood in a shot, or add in a set piece with a continuity error, such as a poster or lamp or something. It all depends on how it has shot and the intention of the director.
A VFX artist is typically delivered a clean, Hi-Rez picture plate (similar to what you would deliver to color), that the VFX team will work their magic on, and then send back to add to final picture.
Once all these assets are approved through various rounds of notes, the various color, mix, and VFX houses/artists will deliver the final versions of each back and an AE (or sometimes editor or finishing editor depending on the size of the team) will merge all of the assets for the final product.
Now, your baby is a real-life human, and they must deal with the woes of life and taxes as we all do. But before all is said in done, there's one last step...
In the Mouth of Madness
New Line Cinema
Now, finally, once color, mix, and VFX are all approved, and the AE the final step: final Exports and QC.
Depending on the nature of the project the delivery specs could vary extensively, some changing over time. Here are some some common examples below that you'll likely come across in your post-production career.
In conclusion, post-production is a duanting, all-encompassing process with a myriad of steps and facets. It can be scary in confusing, but the longer you're in it, the easier it comes. There are all kinds of things we could explore deeper, and we're happy to! If there's anything you'd like a deeper dive on, or any specific niche questions, feel free to comment with any and all.
Happy post-ing, soldiers.
