The editing stage for this film was very different to editing I have done for previous projects in a number of ways. The main difference was that all previous films/videos/sequences that I’ve made have been solo projects, so all the editing was done by me alone. For this film we had several people contributing and the vast majority of the editing was done in pairs. This was a new experience for me, and I found it to be a positive one overall. It helps having a second pair of eyes in the suite, so you can get a second opinion and for general moral support.

Another big difference from editing I’ve done in the past was the methodical process that we went through. I had not edited a film before that had so much dialogue, so I had not experienced the process of creating an assembly cut, going through every single take and selecting the best ones for a rough cut. The majority of these early stages of the editing were done by Dylan and Jenny, so I did not personally engage with it as much as them, but I was involved in some of the early process which was a good learning experience.

My key role in the early editing stages was to give my opinion on how certain sequences should be changed to flow better or convey the tone of the film more clearly. This usually involved sitting with Dylan in the edit suites and going through it together. I also sourced the music and sound effects for the film, which was quite a difficult process itself because of the sheer amount of royalty free music available online.

A big challenge of the editing was the continuity aspect, because straight off the bat we found a large amount of continuity blunders while sifting through the footage. Few of them were fatal, but there were certainly a number of unfortunate cuts that exposed discontinuous elements in the props, actors and blocking. We managed to find workarounds for the majority of these, but there were a couple that we really couldn’t do anything about. For future projects I’ll remember to be extra mindful of continuity, probably even have a dedicated continuity person.

Interestingly, during the editing process we cut a few lines out, which was something I had not expected to do. For a few of the lines we found that the delivery was off or the cut was discontinuous or it just didn’t feel right so we got rid of them. In most of these cases, I think that getting rid of the lines actually added humour and enhanced the tone, rather than reducing it as I might have thought.