Film Editor Career Information

A film editor arranges film footage into its final narrative order. As a film editor you take all scenes, which were shot multiple times over months or years, choose the best shots, and combine your chosen fragments into a coherent whole.

A job as a film editor is one of the most interesting positions in the film industry. You’re not simply putting the scenes into chronological order and cutting down dialogue; you’re choosing and arranging images to provoke visceral and emotional responses. You’re storytelling through images, a narrative far more subtle yet as important as the original written script.

Your work can create sensually provocative moments without ever a shoulder being bared, or push the boundaries in experimental cinema. It can lay bare the truth of a relationship between two people, or fool the audience into a lull of safety when all evidence points elsewhere. In other words, you shape how the film narrative is received and processed by the viewer.

Your daily tasks focus on manipulating the plot, score, and graphics with software and cinematic techniques. You work very long hours and because this is a software driven process, most of those hours will be alone with your computer. You most commonly work on films but can also work on smaller productions such as television shows, music videos, or commercials if you want a more timely, less intense process.