How To Become an Assistant Editor: Get a Little Lucky
Update: This post is the story of how I navigated getting my first industry job. If you are looking for what you need to know to be an Assistant Editor take a look at the (free) Assistant Editor Crash Course
Let’s say you’ve just graduated film school, and know you can edit. Or maybe you have no formal training, but are super interested in the craft. You want to be be an editor.
In both cases though, you’ve probably figured out you’ll need to first become an Assistant Editor. I was right there too.
While there are certainly a lucky few who somehow managed to skip that step, it’s the best way to the Editor chair. Not only do you learn the ‘how and why’ behind the post-production machine, you get to cultivate your skills while being an arm’s length away from someone who has it. That’s invaluable. And for the record, being an Assistant Editor does not have to simply be a stepping stone to the next level; it is a good and well paying job in and of itself.
So…we agree. Becoming an assistant editor is your way. Great!
Now, a couple of quick disclaimers out the way:
1) When I say the end goal is Assistant/Editor, I’m refering to the TV and Film world. Not Corporate/Web/News/Live Events, though those will likely play a part.
2) I’m assuming you already know this is the job for you. Because unless you’re supremely lucky, this is a going to take a little while. Think years. Be patient and kind to yourself. Stay humble, but celebrate all milestones like they’re big ones, because if you aren’t enjoying the journey atleast most of the time, I think you’re doing it wrong and/or it may not be for you. That’s okay too. It’s never to late to make some new choices.
3) I’m not a big deal. I’m not even a little deal. In fact, I barely have a handlful of episodes under my belt as a ‘senior’ picture editor. So that may make it seem like I’m an unproven or niave resource and you’ll rule me out. Fair enough. BUT! Since I just finished this part of the journey myself, I think it’s pretty fresh in my brain and far more likely to still be applicable compared to some charming Oscar-winning legend who cold called MGM’s editor’s room back in the day and because of their tenancity and no-quit attitude were told they’d have a job if they could hightale it down to the studio lot in the next hour!
4) There’s actually no real definite path here. There isn’t a standard certification process that shows potential employers that your getting increasingly qualified to make the next level up. You’ll have to make jumps yourself. Even though you feel (and maybe are) talented & qualified, people will have to take chances on you with money and their own reputation on the line. Be okay with your own CV not looking like everyone elses.
5) My advice is Toronto-centric. But I think a lot will apply in any mid-sized city.
6) We’re not talking about how to use the software in this post. I will assume you know it already, or can find a tutorial to get you up and running. If you need a good starting spot try this two posts, Jonnyelweyn.co.uk WillBlanksblog. (Honestly you could just read these and skip mine)
And for what its worth, you can competely skip the advice ahead too, and go straight to the DGC and enter their trainee program . Or you can hope your film school friend hits their stride and brings you along with them. Or you can get an internship at distribution company and learn the industry from that side. Or you could volunteer for a Master’s student film and try to meet young industry professionals who are also offering a hand. Or get your professor to recommend you for a job. Or you can freelance as a corporate video editor with motion graphics thrown in for incredibly cheap rates while you build your skills…
The point is, again, my advice and path are just one possible way out of hundred. Mix, skip and drop whatever you want. Hopefully, at times when you feel like you’re stuck in a shitty position, you’ll remember that you’re actually still inching forward.
Here’s how I found my way to my first AE-gig.
The Balancing Act
I know what it’s like.
Being unsure and anxious now that it’s finally time to start your life (okay, no one really says it in those words, but that’s what we’re thinking).
I may not have had a pandemic to go through, true. But I did have a (supposedly once-in-a-lifetime!) recession to climb out of, and that made job prospects fairly bleak at the time.
If you’re just coming out of school (highschool or undergrad), and don’t have access to industry connections or the money to keep you afloat (ie Mom & Dad), there’s an extra level of stress to all this. It’ll mean you’ll basically feel the pull in 3 directions:
1) Needing money to survive
2) Wishing for work that meaninfullly builds your skills/gets you closer to your career asipirations,
3) Finding time to socialize and enjoy life
The “pick 2” riddle never really goes away in life, but this is a particularly tough balancing act. I totally get it. It doesn’t help when a few of your peers are somehow immediately taking off in their careers too, or seemingly have so much fun doing nothing. A sinking feeling may grow in you; that you’re being left behind. You’re not. Everyone will have their own values and priorities (and social media highlights), but just strive to find the right balance between all three directions.
If you can’t get balance in the day, then you should aim for balance in the week. If you can’t get it in the week, than you should strive for it through the month. If you can’t get balance in the month, you better make sure you find it in the year.
Survival Money, Survival Living
If you have zero buffer savings when graduating, honestly…just get ANY job. Drop the ego. Don’t worry about what your parents or friends may think. Fast food, warehouse, uber driver. Whatever.
I needed to go through 5 jobs before I got my footing as an AE.
Once you do have some savings or a part-time job to tide you over, start the job hunt for…
— 1 —
A job that is even tangentially related to editing.
May 2012. One month post graduation; I had just moved back in with my parents, in the GTA. I am super grateful to have had their support in that tangible way, though I did feel a sense of FOMO immediately. If you can save money on likely your biggest expense (rent), then seriously consider if you should take advantage of that, even if it means sacrificing social life and maybe a bit of pride too.
My first job was off a craiglist ad; it involved taking children’s dance recital and competition videos and plopping them on a timeline in premeire pro, adding a bunch of dissolves between the routines, and then spitting out files to be burned on to DVDs. These DVD’s would then be mailed to the 8 year old’s parents who ordered them at said recital.
That’s it. That was the whole job.
$12/hour.
The contract length was only 2.5 months.
Is it boring? You bet. But you’ll learn from random troubleshooting moments in the software. You’re getting to see what a very quick and dirty workflow looks like. Yeah, the DVD part probably doesn’t happen much anymore, but those kinda jobs 100% still exist.
Because the location of this office was so far and off the main train/bus lines (in industrial Vaughan!) it made for a long commute on public transportation. I had no bandwith or time left to socialize.
I know it doesn’t need to be said, but be kind to everyone you meet at your first job. Not because ‘you never know where they will end up’ (which is true), but because you aren’t better than anyone or too good for this. It’s so easy to be cocky at this point.
— 2 —
When that contract was winding down, I joined a few friends and made a micro-budget feature film (for $1000!). I was just inches above the poverty line when I left the job. So yes financially, not the smartest choice but I did get a great swing towards the other 2 values (meaningul work + socializing and enjoying life). A few months later, we ended up going down to NYC for a few small film festivals too. Great times.
But first! The film was a lesson in how chaotic even an extremely small feature would be without organization. I struggled in the first half to keep up with the shoot days. The 2 cameras’ (Canon 60D) cards came fast from set. Transcoding, syncing and grouping took a lot of time, and only then could I even get to the edit. I quickly looked for new worklows and found the then-nascent and buggy Pluraleyes. It got me 60% of the way there with the sync. The rest was manual sync by sight.
$0/hr.
I had a few hundred dollars left in my bank account when we were wrapping up.
— 3 —
My second job involved another craiglist ad. A wedding videographer was in desparate need of an extra hand. Because I said I could sync even the trickiest footage (the software I had just learned) they gave me the job. Impeccable timing because I had moved to Toronto 2 days earlier, and had 1 month to pay my brother back who had fronted me the rent money.
Wedding videos are a GREAT place to learn and practice editing. There’s a clear arc and obvious story to the day. Great speeches - er, well moments of a speech (80% of wedding speeches are pretty forgettable/the same, but hey, there are a few lines that hit super hard). If you somehow haven’t seen modern wedding videos…the game has seriously been elevated. You should try to get in at the bottom of a company that has been doing this for years, and is pushing themselves in their cinematography game too. You don’t want to join a flakey young kid who just needs a summer job.
I treated that job like I was editing the endings of the most heart-warming romcom. Showed up early and stayed late, basically everyday. And let me be clear: if you edit a ‘same-day-edit’ video (the one’s that play at the wedding reception that same evening) you will NEVER be embraced by a more invested audience. You haven’t said a word to the bride and groom who are complete strangers to you, but they will be hugging you in tears when you are leaving.
Probably should have made it a point to socialize more at this stage. But I had found myself in a company of only 3 people, so it felt like everyone was needed all the time.
$450/week. ($11.25/hour. No overtime).
Seems like a slight monetary step back, but I was getting into the actual craft of editing and simple storytelling too.
A contact of the Wedding Video Company owner noticed his production values and asked him to shoot a few behind-the-scenes videos for a corporate project at their ad agency. So the owner brought me along to assist there as well. More great practice.
The owner was then told by this friend that at their ad agency, they just used interns to do most of their grunt video work. A few days later, upset about something else, the owner lashed out at me and the other employee, and stated that he could be getting our level of creative work “for free from kids”. After going the extra mile for nearly a year straight, it felt like that comment crossed a line.
A week later I gave my notice. I’m not sure if the owner ever put two and two together of why, because he did reach out to me to do a few quick “same-day-edits” here and there.
Cold Water Cowboys aired on Discovery Channel Canada, from 2014-2017
— 4 —
The First ‘Industry’ Job
I scrambled to find another job. Again, I burned through my savings over the next 2 months. This was a rough time, mostly because I felt like I had needlessley put myself in this position. Ton’s of emails going out. No responses other than a few weirdos trying to get free labour. But then I found a posting for a “story assistant” yet again on Craiglist.
That ended up being a job as a “Logger" on a large reality tv show (Cold Water Cowboys). This was a non-union, unscripted project. Shows like this shoot insane amounts of footage and need loggers to come in and create a report of all footage as it comes in from the field, including all dialogue spoken. This is so that Story Producers can help define and craft a storyline through (sometimes) disparate moments on the page. They then hand over their paper edit to the show’s editors who will piece it together and make it sing.
I explained my comfort with ingesting/transcoding/logging, with a eye toward making story beats out of whatever footage was available (These were all skills I picked up from the previous 3 projects; wedding videos also teach you to work with whatever was captured). That was all in my favour. But the show was (obviously) going to be using Avid Media Composer, software I had never touched.
You should learn AVID if you want to be ready to jump in. Lucky for me, I still got the job! And the logger position is one that involves a very gentle learning curve, as it’s mostly typing up a description of what’s happening in the footage.
So I was able to dip my feet and learn quietly and quickly. I also asked the assistant editors a few questions now and then, and they were more than happy to give quick tutorials when they could.
$750/Week (9hr standard days, occasional 12-14 hours. No overtime)
Many of my fellow loggers were young people in the exact same headspace as me. A bunch of us clicked instantly. A few are still counted among my best friends today, a decade later. This made the job so much fun. And good thing, because the job itself was terrible at first.
I don’t know why I hadn’t hit this wall before this point, but watching footage all day made me almost sick. I could not watch TV when I got home. I didn’t even want to sit at my computer (and I’m a nerd!). I was totally drained. I had an adjustment period of about 8 weeks before I could handle it, not that I let anyone know. I pushed through, it normalized, and I put in long hours again. I gained trust through consistency. When I was given the chance to do a few “assistant editor” tasks, I jumped at them. Most of these ended up being a few overnight exports. I was socking away as much money as I could. And I was clearly getting meaningful work for the first time. That’s 2 value checks.
I learned as much as I could in that job. The multiple versions of cuts that go out (Assemblies> Editors cuts> Rough Cuts>Fine Cuts>Network Cuts>Picture Lock), and who all gets a say in each one. I learned a bit of office politics and edit-room etiquette. How to try and predict what your editor might be looking for. There were so many hairy moments, especially because it was a first season, but the show was still getting done.
Nearly a year later, with my contract winding down and the season nearly finished handing over final deliverables to the network, I wanted a good break. I had never travelled internationally before and had been really feeling the itch since I started undergrad. I was also intensely jealous of everyone who had such wonderful travel stories. So, after a bit of research I bought a one-way plane ticket to Morocco that was scheduled to take off the very next day after my gig ended.
I did this for 2 reasons: 1) if something at work came up, I could not be extended by even few days and be tempted by a few more dollars and 2) So that I was fully committed; I didn’t want to until after my job was over to to book my flights, lest I got scared sitting around in my unemployed downtime. (An unintended 3rd benefit is that your colleagues will definitely remember you if you actually follow through on a grand adventure)
Yes, I was afraid to leave. I had mountains of student debt still. I also felt like I was killing whatever momentum I had just started in building my career. But I realized something: if I could get an industry job with essentially no real experience, then I could surely get one with a legitimate show on my CV. Besides…I needed a big swing to collect some more ‘enjoy life’ moments. I needed to make that balance right.
So I went on that trip.
Me! Hardcore posing underground in the Portuguese Cistern in El Jadida, Morocco.
— 5 —
4 Months later, while serenely enjoying déjeuner on the grounds of a castle in Nantes, France, and trying to push down the horror that was my bank account balance…I got a call from a producer on the show asking me if I would want to return as an Assistant Editor on Season 2. 🎉
This was the first time I got hired as an Assistant Editor. Just to make it clear, it took 2.5 years after graduating for me. I would AE for another ~7 years, before “sticking” the landing as an editor.
As a final point of reference, I was offered $950/week. You can (and should) ask for a higher rate.
Keeping Momentum + Miscellaneous Thoughts
Success in this field means you will be “looking” for a job every 6-9 months. This is actually a blessing and a curse. It is of course a burden to have to worry about where the next cheque will be coming from.
So let’s talk about that first:
Each new contact you work with and for should be left feeling more than happy to sing your praises. After a short while, you will be stacking gigs.
One of those contacts, especially in the reality TV world, will be your Post-Supervisor. Yes, editors are important, but the mentor-mentee relationship doesn’t exist in reality TV like it does in film/scripted TV (and even that is changing as the assistant editor role becomes increasingly about tech). So you might not forge as close a relationship with the editors as you might hope.
But Post-Supervisors? They’re the one’s that do the actual hiring for the post-production team, so it only makes sense that they talk to their fellow colleagues across the city/province/their network to find new staff. You want them to be inquiring about your availability. So, as if you need a reason to be a nice person, make their life as easy as possible on the show.
Now for the somewhat unexpected upsides to working contracts:
While it may not feel like it at first, over time, as you continually get gig after gig, it will (hopefully) cultivate in you the sense that you will land on your feet again, no matter what.
But even more practically:
1) You get the perfect chance to ask for a raise. And when you jump to another company’s project, you don’t have to bring any loyalty rates with you. Ask what is fair and what you feel you deserve. Everyone in the salaried world knows that the largest income increases come from a new employer, not from raises.
2) Having a really bad experience on a project? If its not dangerous or seriously harming your mental health…then just hang on. It will be over in a few months. And you will learn what (or who) to look out for next time. (Do take care of your health though)
3) Ending a job gives you a clear moment to take a little perspective and consider if you’re still enjoying what your doing. Some people hit walls in their careers, others pivot. At no point do you have to keep going down a road just because it was working for you before. Not having a salaried job means you don’t have that (comforting) tether.
You may have read all the above history and thought “Well you just got lucky”. That’s exactly right. I did. It does come down to luck. That’s the wonderful thing about not having solid ground for too long. It forces you to look elsewhere. Literally every ‘new’ job I got in the post above was because the last one ended. Or I quit. The trick is just surviving long enough to get to the next waypoint (and having fun getting there)
—
More Resources
Absorb as much as you can to learn the craft and the industry.
I’ve put together a 60-minute course which goes over the day-to-day tasks of an Assistant Editor. While it does dabble a little into Avid Media Composer, the course is designed to show what the structure and worfklow of the post production world. Taking the course will allow you to know essentially what any AE job will require you to do, making you far more more in-demand.
But beyond me….
Ask questions to your peers and superiors. I learned a ton from just small talks with online editors - they gave me quick (and sometimes brutal) feedback on what a prefered turnover should look like when it came time to pass the project on to them for coloring.
Attend editor meetups and conferences, like the CCE’s EditCon (Just don’t go asking people for a job while there)
Read, watch, listen.
OptimizeYourself.me (the name might not sound like it, but it’s a great editor resource)
TheRoughCut (Podcast),
FCP.co (Yes, IMHO FCPx is great!)
Youtube Channels (like This Guy Edits)
—
Moving on to the editor chair is of course another big step. As is the decision to stay in reality TV or jump into the Union and/or scripted world. As are countless other forks in the road.
You’ll quickly find that ‘getting in’ was not your biggest hurdle. And neither is there a clear moment when you feel you have truly made it. There will always be some other goal.
So, when you realize the goals of yesterday are your ‘normal’ today, take the time to enjoy it. And then please remember to turn around and share how your journey brought you to achieving them :)
Good Luck!