This is a video essay about guns in movies I cut for the fairly new website Capital about politics, media and culture in New York.

The high quality Vimeo version is above. You can also watch this at Capital here.

Hope you find it a blast!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

Here is the final part of a six-part video essay series I was involved with for the Museum of the Moving Image. I edited and co-wrote this chapter and let's just say it will hopefully stir a great deal of discussion. I am also very proud of it and how it allowed me to bring out my skills as an editor that I do not often use. This is a cross-post with my film blog, where you can read more about the editing here.

You can also view this piece directly at the Museum of the Moving Image website here.

Hope you enjoy it!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

Here is the fifth part of a six-part video essay series I was involved with (and was credited as a producer) for the Museum of the Moving Image. I actually cut chapter 6, which I will write a more detailed post here when it goes live on the Moving Image site soon. You can also view this part here.

Hope you enjoy it!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

Here is the fourth part of a six-part video essay series I was involved with (and was credited as a producer) for the Museum of the Moving Image. I actually cut chapter 6, which I will write a more detailed post here when it goes live on the Moving Image site in about a week or so. You can also view this part here.

Hope you enjoy it!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

Here is the third part of a six-part video essay series I was involved with (and was credited as a producer) for the Museum of the Moving Image. I actually cut chapter 6, which I will write a more detailed post here when it goes live on the Moving Image site in about a week or so. You can also view this two part here.

Hope you enjoy it!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

Here are the first two parts of a six-part video essay series I was involved with (and was credited as a producer) for the Museum of the Moving Image. I actually cut chapter 6, which I will write a more detailed post here when it goes live on the Moving Image site in about a week and a half. But I am quite proud to be part of this and feel the entire series turned out fantastic. You can also view these two parts here and here.

Hope you enjoy it!

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com.

How often have you editors out there sat down on a project started by another editor and stared at their timeline in disbelief? There's that sinking feeling that, with a deadline approaching, you will have to devote time sorting out the video and audio tracks to properly output a textless master or to simply provide an organized audio track layout for the sound mixer. This goes back to the notion I introduced in an earlier blog post when I talked about how we need to think backwards to achieve the edit. There is a sloppiness out there in the editing world that is baffling, considering how often projects are passed from one editor to another. Do certain editors simply not have any consideration for whoever takes on the project by the way they sweep the organization under the rug in the hope that no one will notice?

This is what irks me often about tackling a project started by another editor. Often, I have followed an editor who allegedly has more experience than me (which is why they get the gig first while I get the scraps), but yet their timelines reek of amateurishness. An editor who had cut a couple of feature films worked on an MTV show and decided to randomly place dialogue, sound effects and music all over a 12 track timeline. At some point, I would notice the music track take a dip and discovered that the editor cut a sound effect into the middle of one channel of a music track. This particular MTV show was not going to a sound mix, but was going to be output directly to tape from the Avid. The problem was that we also had to output a split track master, which required that I perform surgery on the audio tracks. Like taking that sound effect cut into the middle of the music track and making the song whole again.

This wasn't the only time I have had to perform timeline surgery on other editors' work. I did an on-line session last year for a documentary in which text was embedded within video clips on the Avid timeline requiring me to step-in once, twice and occasionally three times to get the text clip out of there and moved to a higher track in the timeline. Imagine having to do this again and again for an 80-minute film. It also did not help that this documentary went bonkers with dissolves and superimpositions, which resulted in me having to clean up the timeline in a way that preserved the many poor editing choices and the multiple video tracks those choices required. It was brutal and, on top of that, I spent days performing surgery on that timeline before I had to spend a great deal of time color correcting it. This was time that was not budgeted by the producer, despite the fact that I had provided them with a guideline months before about how the timeline should be provided to me that apparently went completely ignored.

It has gotten to the point where it has been more likely to receive a messy timeline than one that has been properly organized. This raises a couple of obvious questions. Where are these editors learning their skills? More importantly, why are those editors consistently being hired for gigs over me? Do producers often respond to just an editor's personality while not being technically knowledgeable enough to realize the disaster being wrought by their lack of basic organizational skills? When I have stepped into these situations where I have had to waste time performing timeline surgery, there has not been a shortage of praise for the previous editor by the producer even after I tell them that I need to sort out the mess they left behind. Considering the shrinking budgets for post-production these days, perhaps some of these editors do not realize they have to take it upon themselves to sort out their timelines as opposed to leaving it to a non-existent assistant editor or kicking the can to the sucker that happens to take over the job.

Look at the picture above of a timeline for a project that I am close to finishing for the Museum of the Moving Image. This was something that I cut at home on Final Cut Pro and will most likely never need to be passed to another editor, as all I will have to deliver are compressed and uncompressed Quicktimes. Even knowing that this will not be tackled by another editor, the timeline is still clean and organized. Video tracks 1-3 contain video. Tracks 4-6 contain the text. I have 12 audio tracks. 1-6 contain dialogue from the movies I am using. 7-10 contain sound effects and 11 & 12 are for the music. The thing is that I did not wait until the end of cutting to organize these tracks. I just did this as I was working because it was a lot quicker. When I discovered I needed more tracks for the movie dialogue, I simply opened up more audio tracks and moved the sound effects and music down. I cannot quite understand why this is so difficult. And, as you can tell, this was a pretty complex piece with approximately 350-375 cuts in a 15+ minute running time. When I perform my final sound mixing pass on this, I know exactly where to go when I am thinking something like, "Perhaps, that sound effect is too low" or "That section of the music needs to ease in more smoothly." Spending time looking for sound elements in the time line is giant waste of time. If I left it a complete mess and another editor took over, I am sure they would not appreciate it.

It is time for certain editors out there to step it up in this department because this creates such unnecessary issues and stress especially when you are not the one who has to fix it. Once again, look at the picture of the timeline above and embrace the empty space in it. The more cluttered the timeline looks, the more likely it is one of those timelines that will require my scalpel. The more time spent on re-organizing a timeline is more time taken away from working on the more creative aspects of the piece. Editing is as much about organization as it is about craft and storytelling. The work will only benefit from taking a few seconds to make a new track for sound effects or music. So, please editors, stop throwing clips on a timeline in a way no different from how Jackson Pollock splattered his canvasses with paint. That mess of a timeline is not art.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com. And, yes, I have lost count of how many timelines I have had to perform surgery on.

First, I want to state that, most of the time, I deal with professional clients who are straight-forward, competent and considerate during the process of putting me on hold and confirming me for jobs. Handling a cancellation is never easy, but when the client deals with this professionally, I certainly have no ill will towards them. I never take it personally because I understand this is a business. But, the reality is all freelance editors have at least one horror story about getting booked for jobs. This is one of them.

INT. EDITOR'S APARTMENT - DAY

Early September 2007. Our freelance editor is on the computer when his cellphone rings.

EDITOR: Hello.

SCHEDULER: This is [REDACTED] Entertainment. You worked for us about a month ago on that [REDACTED] special for MTV. Well, our producer [REDACTED] thought you did such a good job on it that we would like to put you on hold for a special project in October. Are you interested?

EDITOR: Of course. What is it?

SCHEDULER: It is a pilot show our company is producing for VH1 about home makeovers.

EDITOR: I am definitely interested. What dates do you want to put me on hold?

SCHEDULER: Three weeks starting October 8th.

EDITOR: I'm available. I will block out that time as a hold for you then.

SCHEDULER: Great! This project looks like it will definitely happen, so we should be able to confirm in a couple of weeks. Let us know if anyone else wants to buy the time because we really want you for this.

EDITOR: Sure, of course. I will let you know.

SCHEDULER: Also, our producer [REDACTED] will probably contact you soon to talk more about the show.

EDITOR: Great. Thanks.

SCHEDULER: Thank you. Bye.

The editor turns off his cell phone. He smiles, knowing that this pilot could be his big break into cutting shows and moving away from short-form pieces.

EXT. STREET - DAY

It is September 28th. The editor checks his e-mail on his cell phone. He gets a message from the producer at [REDACTED] Entertainment. It reads:

"It looks like the VH-1 pilot is getting pushed back by a week or two. I know I have you holding from 10/8 for 3 weeks. If we don't start until 10/22 or 10/29 would you still be available?"

The editor types his reply:

"My schedule is clear, so I can start at a later date. If you can give me a better idea of when the exact start date will be, that would be great. Thanks."

INT. EDITOR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

It is October 15th. The editor checks his schedule and notices the time put on hold for the VH1 pilot a week from now. He types the producer an e-mail:

"I was just checking in to see if a start date for the VH1 pilot has been locked in yet. Thanks."

EXT. TRAIN STATION - DAY

The editor awaits his train in Queens. It has been four days since he sent that last e-mail and has received no response. And the supposed start date is Monday. He shakes his head in frustration as he checks his e-mail on his cell phone yet again.

INT. EDITOR'S APARTMENT - MORNING

It is October 22nd. The editor, having slept in late, goes about his usual morning computer routine of checking his schedule, looking on post-production job sites for work, etc. Seeing that he set aside time for the VH1 pilot starting that day with no confirmation or cancellation, he types out an e-mail:

"Sorry to bother you. The last time you e-mailed me, you said the start date would be either 10/22 or 10/29. Obviously, it wasn't today, but do you have any updates as to when it might possibly start? Thanks."

INT. EDITOR'S APARTMENT - THE NEXT DAY

The editor gets a call and sees the number is [REDACTED] Entertainment.

EDITOR: Hello?

PRODUCER: Hi. This is [REDACTED], the producer for the VH1 pilot. Sorry we did not get back to you.

EDITOR: I just wanted to know if the pilot was still happening and when it was going to start.

PRODUCER: It is definitely going to happen. We just ran into some delays on the production side, but we really liked the work you did for us for and want you on this project.

EDITOR: Thank you. I have been looking forward to working on this.

PRODUCER: Great. Let's put you on hold from November 12th to November 30th. Is that time good for you?

EDITOR: I'm open during that time for now.

PRODUCER: I should no doubt be able to confirm this a week from now.

EDITOR: That's fine with me.

PRODUCER: I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

EDITOR: Bye.

The editor hangs up his phone and immediately blocks out the three weeks for the VH1 pilot on his computer calendar.

EXT. SUPERMARKET - DAY

It is now November 9th, the Friday before the edit is supposed to start and the editor has heard from no one. While shopping for food, the editor checks his cell phone for e-mail and sees he just received something from the producer. It reads:

"Not looking like this pilot is going to happen anymore. There might be a week here or there that we can give you on some other project though. Let me know if you have any questions."

The editor pockets his cell phone, dejected.

EXT. STREET - DAY

It is the middle of January. The editor is walking with his friend, a freelance video graphics artist.

EDITOR: Do you still do graphics work at [REDACTED] Entertainment?

FRIEND: I was just there a few weeks ago.

EDITOR: They put me on hold for this VH1 pilot about home makeovers, but I was beginning to feel like they were leading me along. They kept changing the date and then taking forever to get back to me.

FRIEND: A pilot for VH1 about home makeovers?

EDITOR: Yeah.

FRIEND: I think they lied to you. They were working on that show when I was there.

EDITOR: Really?!

FRIEND: They used that other editor [REDACTED]. She worked on the same MTV show you did the last time you were there.

EDITOR: Her?! I remember having to go in and show her basic stuff about Avid Import Settings. Didn't she move kind of slow?!

FRIEND: If it makes you feel any better, she did such a bang-up job on the pilot that they scrapped the whole project altogether. VH1 thought it was a complete mess.

EDITOR: Somehow, that does not quite make up for them wasting my time or the bruised ego since it seems they just wanted to hire [REDACTED] to cut it anyway.

FRIEND: I work for {REDACTED] Entertainment and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

THE END

What are your thoughts on the subject?

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com. And, yes, some of the dialogue and locations have been changed for dramatic effect, but the story is true.

Ten years ago, I remember when the big question regarding master delivery was whether it would go to Beta SP, Digital Betacam or whether we had to pull out one of those monstrous pieces of D2 stock that came in a case that looked like it could contain a bomb. Luckily, my professional editing career started with cutting on Avid, as I vividly recall the CMX editors threading up the dreaded 1" machines and laying off to them for broadcast masters. Those times were simple. There was only standard definition back then. Every source we had was 29.97fps (or 25fps for those in European countries). All of our masters were exactly the same standard and were output from the Avid the same way they were ingested. There was no plan of attack necessary for final master deliveries, so all that editors had to worry about was the cutting.

What a difference a decade makes. We now have shows that are shot and delivered in high definition, which due to the various standards at different networks, there was never one hi-def standard that they could all agree on. That is why we have 720p or 1080i, as well as the various frame/field rates those formats use. Also, there has been great advances in recent times on how footage is shot. At first, there were new hi-def tape-based formats such as the dreaded HDV that provided cheaper alternatives to the more expensive DVCPRO HD or HDCAM. Then, our industry quickly moved towards ditching tape altogether and moving towards cameras that record directly to raw files on memory cards.

We are currently in a period when we have introduced so many new formats in so little time and have yet to allow any of them to die off. I have been praying for HDV's death for awhile and that one is still being used regularly. What we also see these days is that production companies have not concerned themselves much about shooting all of their footage in the same formats with the same cameras. Sometimes, due to budget issues, they get whatever footage they can from the camera they can afford to rent at the time.

What has also changed in the last decade has been the emergence of Apple's Final Cut Pro for use in professional broadcasts. Right from the beginning, FCP differentiated itself from Avid by being more than a little flexible with mixing formats in the same timeline. Avid always forced you to set up a project as a specific format. Basically, every tape ingested had to conform to that format before you could use it for cutting. FCP does not stop you from bringing anything into a project. Want to load 29.97 and 23.98? Just change the capture settings and load them in the same bin if you want. Want to mix standard-def and hi-def in the same timeline? Well, depending on how you set up the timeline, one of those formats will just need a render. FCP made it much easier to download a Quicktime from the web and put it in your sequence in less than a minute.

It has become such a free-for-all that editors who cut in simpler times seem to have a problem grasping that they need to keep this in mind. Well, particularly, those editors who started in Avid and gravitated towards FCP. How do I know this? Since I actually worked at a facility that delved into working with hi-def formats earlier than most, I felt pretty comfortable keeping these issues in mind whenever I cut something. As a freelance editor, I have actually been brought into situations where the original editor seemed to have started cutting without thinking about how anything was going to be delivered. I had to perform timeline surgery in FCP to get the various formats shot to conform to one standard.

This gets to the concept that I believe needs to be brought up. You have to think backwards. Try not to take the shot unless you know where you are going. You always have to be aware of how whatever show or commercial spot you are working on will be delivered. There have actually been many times when even the client themselves do not know and, as an editor, you have to gently remind them to find out so that you do not go so far down the path on one format and then change course. You have to show a certain discipline about working with multiple formats that FCP does force you to do as Avid had. Although Avid themselves are moving in that direction as well.

What you also need to keep in mind is that not all delivery is on tape these days. Of course, every show broadcast is delivered that way, but not everything is edited to be aired on television. I am sure most of you have, at some point, cut something meant to be delivered strictly for the web. Most times, a list of deliverables will contain both tape and file formats. You even find yourself in situations where the footage is shot on tapeless HD, but all the client is looking for is a file that's sized, say, 533 X 300, a situation I was in during a recent project. On that one, I still took into consideration that the client may call months later and ask, "You know what, we may want to put these spots on the web or television in full-resolution 1920 X 1080. Do you have that available?" Any time I have HD footage when the deliverables are SD, I simply cut in HD and down-convert the timeline in FCP. You know, just in case.

You have to always consider where you are headed, format-wise, early on, as well as leave yourself the possibility that your client may want something else down the line. Once you know your goal, you work your way backwards to find the most logical way to tackle the project at hand. This is a different era of digital editing. Mixing frame rates, formats and resolutions is something that editors need to understand and especially demonstrate that they know where to guide a project. So clients do not have to call someone like me to unravel the mess they find themselves in when they need to deliver tomorrow and they cannot understand why every other shot is distorted or having weird motion.

And, yes, I have witnessed that first hand when an editor cut an entire feature on FCP mixing 23.98 and 29.97 into a 23.98 timeline and had never once, during his entire time on the project, cut with a broadcast standard monitor. So he brings it into the facility I worked at for a final output (it was to play at a festival in a few days) and I wind up pointing out to him and the director that half the movie has this jittery motion to it. The director sees this, but the editor's defense tactic was to pretend that he just could not see the problem that was so obviously visible to anyone with a pair of eyes. He attempted to cover up his incompetence by pretending the rest of us were crazy. Now, this was a time when there was only standard-def DV. Imagine how a careless editor like this would fare in our current multi-format world.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com. And, yes, the ending of that final anecdote involved me comforting a crying filmmaker as she realized her editor had no clue.

Since I already am an active blogger elsewhere on the interwebs, I thought it would be a good idea to use the blogging function on this site to talk strictly about my thoughts being a freelance editor, whether it be about the technical aspects of cutting on Avid or Final Cut Pro, as well as more general issues regarding the job itself. Though I have had experience as a professional editor for ten years, mostly doing online and finishing work at a post-production facility in New York, I committed fully to the freelance world three years ago.

One of the main issues I have discovered in finding work is convincing potential employers of my capability to work on a particular project. Despite being known as more than efficient and speedy editor, it has been increasingly difficult to not be defined by my first gigs. In my case, my experience has been mostly short packages, as well as online/finishing editing and color correction. These were the only types of projects that came my way when I held a regular job, so this is the kind of work that I started out with as a freelancer. This is something that I could understand to a certain extent, as I knew I would not be able to work on commercials or long-form programming right off the bat. I hoped that my work cutting short-form packages would lead to longer-form programs in the future.

What I did not understand is that once employers see you as an editor of one type of program, then it is very difficult for them to see you as anything else. Much like actors in films are often cast in the same types of roles that audiences want to see them in based on how they were discovered, editors are also typecast as only being capable of doing one type of editing style. In my case, it is a bit more difficult to get work as a creative editor when employers see my experience as an online editor and colorist and assume that anyone who does that is not an editor with strong storytelling skills. Instead, I become known as the guy who bats clean-up when I am trying to be the one who hits first in the rotation.

Beyond myself, I can see how this typecasting affects other editors who are cutting long-form programming. An editor who cuts only reality shows may want to cut a narrative film or show. An editor known for cutting comedy may want to cut a drama. An editor can cut MTV/VH1 package-heavy shows when they really want to edit docs for the Discovery or History Channels. Editors are just as creative as any other member of the production team and crave any opportunity to show their range and stretch their skills beyond their comfort zones.

The question is: What does it take to get that first gig that changes how employers perceive you? If most of your work experience is comprised of working on specific types of projects, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the case that you are ready to tackle something else unless that employer has worked with you for a long time and is comfortable moving you to the next level.

When I worked on a mini-documentary on the NFL Players' Association, which was more ambitious than anything I had worked on previously and had only gotten the gig because someone else dropped out at the last minute, the producer, who I never worked with before, told me at the end of the gig that he would have stepped in had I demonstrated I was not capable of pulling off the piece. Luckily, I proved to him early on that I was not incompetent and cut a pretty complex mini-doc that everyone was more than pleased with. You see, the producer, who often worked at mostly sports channels, had been paired with primarily promo editors, who had occasionally been put on more story-driven projects and had absolutely no idea how to structure and tell a story. I mention this to emphasize that I can certainly understand why employers are certainly wary of editors who have not cut something similar to what they are hiring them for.

There is no easy solution to this, but it is certainly a dilemma that editors like myself face when trying to find a greater range of projects to work on. In some ways, I have benefitted from finding a greater range of work than some other editors because of my proficiency on both Avid and Final Cut Pro. Plus, most editors out there have little experience color correcting and there are not nearly as many full-time colorists out there as much as there are full-time editors competing for gigs. So, even when I envy other editors for getting to work on the types of projects I want to do, there are others who wish they could have as many specialties as me to increase the amount of work they get.

That said, now in the start of my fourth year of being a freelancer, I find myself more wanting to step up the type of work I do to the next level in terms of ambition for both financial and creative reasons. It is important to me, as, obviously, it will make being a freelance editor a more fulfilling career.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

I am a freelance Avid/Final Cut Pro editor who is based in New York City. I blog about films at The Fine Cut, while my work can be found on this site, as well as my editing website: www.stevenedits.com. And, yes, I first edited on a Steenbeck.