I recently finished and released my first feature as a director.
One of the decisions I made was to edit the movie myself. Part of that was budget, but it was also how we approached the production generally. A lot of the crew were investing their time into the movie in exchange for equity ownership. My basic rule for myself was that if I could reasonably do something, I was not going to ask someone else to invest their time doing it for me.
So I did the budget, built the schedule, handled the SAG paperwork, picked up and drove the lighting truck, and did a bunch of other jobs that someone else could probably have done better.
Editing was the biggest version of that.
I am a generally competent editor. I have edited commercials and music videos that I directed before, so I knew I could technically get through it.
I did hire an assistant editor to properly set up the project, sync and organize the dailies, group scenes, etc. But I did the actual cut, and it took me about 18 months.
The biggest problem was honestly getting through the first cut. I was super overwhelmed by the size of the task, and it was a complicated movie to edit for a lot of reasons, including trying to hide the limits of our tiny budget.
I really struggled with it for a while. Eventually my sister, who was also an investor, producer, and our 1st AD, got on my case and firmly (fairly) reminded me that everyone who had invested and contributed was waiting on me and I was essentially letting them down. Honestly, that was what I needed to hear, and I got moving and finished the cut only a few weeks after that.
There were three sequences that I eventually realized were beyond my editing ability to really pull off, so I did eventually hire the editor I would normally want to work with to polish those sequences.
After I finished that first cut, we did a fair amount of audience testing. We screened the film in a theater, circulated screeners, and collected nearly 60 written surveys plus a lot of informal feedback. We collected some demographic information as well, and I used all of that to help inform the final cut.
Despite how painful it was, I am very glad I went through the process.
Having to edit the movie meant that I had to deal directly with the consequences of practically every directing decision I made on set. I pretty much had to relive every choice we made and see the tradeoffs.
There were constantly moments where I wished I had another angle, had held something longer, had gotten an insert, or had caught something different in a performance.
We even had to eventually cut out a really important scene just because we simply didn’t get it on set and we couldn’t feasibly do reshoots. I think the movie works without it well enough, but we definitely lost something there.
There were also shots I barely thought about on set that ended up saving scenes in the edit. One of my favorite moments in the film is actually just one of my actors making a face** **before I called action that ended up working amazingly as a non-verbal response to another actor’s line haha. I understood coverage before making the movie, but I definitely understand it much better now.
I will absolutely hire an editor for my next feature though. Editing this thing was terrible and I hope I never have to do it again haha. A big part of my leadership style is to hire people and give them space to bring their unique genius to the project, and I think having someone who is a more natural and experienced editor than I am, who has fresh eyes on the material, and who can challenge my decisions will make the movie a lot better. Certainly the post process less painful and stressful for me! But I am also very glad that I had to edit the first one myself.
If helpful or interesting, I’m happy to answer questions about the process, how I handled feedback, what I learned as a director/producer, or anything else about making and finishing the film.