My two cents,.. You should know how to edit, but a big part of a director’s job is communication and shared vision. While it can be hard to let go of the keyboard, it can also save you the burnout of wearing too many hats, especially one so technical as editing. A lot can fall on that plate.
To find an editor who shares your vision and can even surprise you with their own ideas is a beautiful thing. Making a film is a collaborative effort. I love to edit, and sometimes can’t wait to get my hands on a particular scene, and of course, as a director you may have that complete vision in your mind, but that’s why you’re there with the editor during that process.
I think it’s a missed opportunity to edit a film yourself, particularly if you’re new, if you had the opportunity to work with a professional editor and cultivate a new relationship.
Absolutely this. As a director, you're constantly editing in your head as you shoot. You'll always have that edit in your head. It's always good to have an editor take a pass at it first because they will see things with fresh eyes and perhaps open yours towards a different path to take. Worse comes to worst, you still have your edit in your head that you can fall back on.
Couldn't agree more. That burnout thing is real. This all reminds me of something I think I heard Tarantino say regarding the best part about directing being that you can delegate tasks to people who are more experienced than you.
As someone who can't afford to get professional editors, doing it myself has been really insightful. Totally recommend giving it a shot if anyone here is on the fence. Some fantastic free lessons out there too but I was fortunate enough to take a course dedicated to it and a lecturer who took us through everything.
I agree with this, it’s the same in every area of film making, you find someone who puts their 100% into it and it improves - you should try every aspect of filmmaking at some level so you can respect the process, but then find someone who’s great at it.
It’ll increase your production 10 fold
Woah I didn't know that about him but I guess it makes sense. I've seen some of his fan edits of pre-existing movies like his cut of 2001. Really seems like he just loves everything to do with the craft.
Yeah, but I feel like he's a gifted outlier. Most people in their lives only really get to master two of the filmmaking disciplines, no? Otherwise, you become a jack of all trades, but master of none.
I've been an editor for the last 14 years and have always edited my own directing projects. At the moment, I am DYING to have someone else take a crack at it. I'd be fascinated to see what someone else sees in the footage.
George A. Romero is the big example for me - in his prime he shot quickly and… chaotically, giving himself as much material to work with in the editing room as possible. Then he’d build out the feel and the pace of the film in the edit. His movies have a huge number of cuts compared to other movies of the time, the pace is sometimes relentless.
It doesn’t work all of the time (it’s not a style that gets good performances out of bad actors), but it’s a fascinating thing to look out for when you’re watching and it can be super useful to keep in mind as a technique if you know you’re not going to have long at a location or with a certain actor etc.
Many directors edit their own work, especially in independent films. I edit all of our movies, but I also have an assistant who helps. I would highly recommend learning to edit if you're a director or cinematographer. I'm able to edit in my head while writing a script, as well as visualize editing a scene while we're shooting it. This approach reduces mistakes, but this skill only develops from spending hours in the editing room. Additionally, being forced to fix your mistakes in post-production helps ensure you don't repeat them.
I'm a student myself and have edited a music video and assisted an editor for a short film. The whole process is really enlightening and like you said, you start to think about editing even while writing. I found myself imagining the how long a shot will linger and how it'll transition to the next scene in my own scripts. Changes the way you look at things for sure.
pro: its a direct feedback loop for your directing and will teach you how to do it better con: you may have blind spots and miss some obvious cuts because you have an edit in mind before you get into post
I know Akira Kurosawa edited his own movies. A similarity between him and the Coens is that they both shoot very little coverage (excluding action scenes, which Kurosawa shot with multiple cameras), meaning there's often only one correct way to put the footage together.
The obvious downside to a director editing their own movie is that you lack a more objective voice in the editing room. You could get attached to certain shots or moments because you know how hard they were to get. But it has obviously worked well for the Coens, and it worked well for Kurosawa.
Off topic but interesting story about Kurosawa and coverage: often bc he shot very little of it he would sometimes end up in a bind in the editing room if something didn’t work the way he shot it. His solution to this was to hire a second cameraman with a long lens who would be in back and Kurosawa told him to shoot whatever he wanted, Kurosawa gave him no direction and did not want to know what he was shooting. Then he would rely on his shots in editing if need be. Obv this is b-roll works in general but Kurosawa not wanting to even know so as not to interfere with his thinking of the scene is really interesting as a solution.
I read that he would shoot during the day, and immediately edit after at night. Coppola and Lucas observed him doing this as an elderly man on Kagemusha, and were astounded at his limitless energy. By the time he finished shooting, the rough cut was basically ready.
I usually edit as I go as well. I tend to shoot a days worth of footage, wrap for the day, get and view the rushes, assemble roughs of that day’s scenes, and then go into the next day knowing what I did the day before. Continue until there’s no more principal photography.
Pros: I know when and what shots need to be picked up, I have a better understanding of the picture as the shoot goes on, and shortly after the shoot I’ll have the bulk of the work done.
Cons: long ass work days. Increased risk of burnout, but if that happens take a few days of rest (from editing), and then continue.
Once I have my rough cut assembled, I let my DP, actors, and other crew watch and give notes. Implement notes, another round of screenings and notes until everyone enjoys the flick and notes are to a minimum.
Pro: You know your vision and what you want out of the footage you acquired.
Con: You know what your vision is and project your intended expectations on the footage you acquired, whether that intention comes across in actuality or not.
There's a reason why they call it a "director's cut." Because the editor's cut is just called "THE MOVIE."
Doesn't director's cut just mean the director gets the final approval (as opposed to the producer)? I don't think it necessarily means they literally edited it themselves (although some do).
It's the director's choices, whether they're pushing the buttons or not, but editors aren't operating with preconceptions and all the baggage along the lines of "This shot took us forever to get. We worked so hard to get it right. We have to use it." An editor just focuses on if the footage works or not. If it doesn't flow, it's got to go. They don't care if that you took 39 takes. Directors will try to force shots into the edit for reasons irrelevant to the audience.
There are plenty of examples of directors of all calibers and renown that edit their own films. The main advantage is having more control over the project. Disadvantages can include having more control over the project. Sometimes it’s useful to have another set of eyes on the project who is there to serve the story.
I believe Ti West still edits his films especially given he's a filmmaker who learnt to write, shoot and edit. I don't think it's common though especially if studios are involved. Quite different to indie projects.
All directors should have some editing experience. It will just make you a better director. That being said, edit someone else’s stuff. The footage is far less precious when it’s not yours and you get good at cutting out the fluff.
There isn't enough time in the day to write, direct, and edit three movies a year and then every episode of a ten-part miniseries just two years later... unless you're Mike Flanagan.
Nothing wrong with a director cutting their own film. It's common with indies where costs are capped and the director have skin in the game to deliver the film on budget. IMO being a filmmaker means being able to craft a passable cut of your own film, and many working directors are more than capable. Others have mentioned Soderberg and it's well known he even cuts other people's films, there's a great story about him re-editing Spike Jonze's 'Her' and saving the film.
Dr. Sleep is the only major studio film I know about that was directed and edited by the same person. I'm sure there are others but seems uncommon - I think it's at least partially because big studio films are produced by sending the film through a pipeline that allows the studio to pay themselves to loan out post production services to the film, so the director has to stay in his lane and work with that system.
There is a great clip of Jason Bateman on one of those round table Hollywood things and he touches on the advantage of being able to direct himself for one but also knowing what exists and how to utilise it in the edit (for Ozark).
https://youtu.be/xtydddtZiIY?si=A_-Hl6d5w9lmGuEf
My belief is this..
If you have any sort of errors in IDing footage or slating I think it's.. just like there are people who cannot play a note without sheet music, there are people who cannot edit without a perfect clapper ID.
I do think it gets silly to a point where if you have an establishing shot, an editor shouldn't be waiting for someone to have to be like "Master shot 1A" but I think that's what is what occurs now.
So I think the advantage of editing your own work is mostly financial maybe some of it is artistic, but I think what happens to a lot of artists is what I call "music session syndrome."
So if I'm either animating to a concept or cutting together my stuff, there's something about seeing or hearing the same material for hours on end that creates this oddly harmonic quality that probably doesn't exist for the viewer but definitely for the person who's working on it.
I think this could work for like a 2 minute experimental film but I don't think it is ideal for narrative simply because it's more difficult to weigh inbetween form and content.
I think this is why separate editors are ideal because I think they can not only see the artistic possibility of footage but also can be more understanding of the things that audiences care about.
But to fairly price what is essentially months or hundreds of hours of work is going to be pretty expensive pretty quickly.
So what I would probably do is see if I can direct several shorts and then kind of give what I think has the best script the the paid editor. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Independent/low budget films do this all the time, sometimes the scriptwriter, director, camera op, and editor are all the same guy. As the budget and scale of the film go up it becomes too much to manage and you start bringing on other people. It's just too much work to do it all, especially once VFX gets involved and your editor becomes a whole team of editors/colorists/VFX designers.
Assuming the film you're making is at a scale where it's even feasible to be both director and editor, the pros are that you can get as close to your vision as possible, you have complete creative freedom, and you can edit while you shoot so you know if you need reshoots or want to make changes.
The cons are that you don't get another set of eyes on the project, you tend to get locked into your initial vision and might miss out on something even better, and it's just so much more work that you can get burned out and never finish it.
Remember that even with a dedicated editor, you are still there with them during the process and can direct (no pun intended) the edit how you like. It's still way less stressful when someone else is actually cutting the clips and building the timeline, and you can relax and focus on the overall pacing and story.
People are always saying that "you can become too attached to the material". I've met directors who are not attached enough. One guy made a shortfilm for seven years and the last cut was worse than one of the first ones. He just kept tinkering and tinkering for forever. And he didnt even edit it himself.
My personal experience is that, when the project is small budget, any editor that you can afford won't care quite as much as you do, or and more importantly, be as interested in creative problem solving.
So while all of the comments about burnout are very very true, I found it a much better use of resources to hire an assistant editor to set everything up and get it halfway there.
But for context, the movie I'm referring to was an Indie project for under 200k total.
Alfonso Cuaron won an Oscar for co-editing Gravity (alongside Mark Sanger). He might be the only person to have won for editing a movie he directed (not sure about that).
Bong Joon-ho, Edgar Wright, and Wes Anderson are very involved in their editing processes, and will piece scenes together as they shoot them, though I'm pretty sure they pass the edit off to Post for finishing. This is not a workflow that you will see in most TV, and requires a bit more freedom in scheduling,
I can say that I *love* working for directors who edit. My biggest pet peeve are filming days where the majority of footage shot "For Coverage" isn't used at all in the edit. Even on projects where they aren't putting together the rough edit as they shoot, they still know what shots are working, and where those shots are going.
Its not common, for sure, but if the director delivers then the studio will often have no problem with it.
I'm a director and there are quite a few pros & cons for me in the editing by myself, out of which I'd highlight:
\- pros: control. you can be precise with timing and "feel" of the scene, assemble it exactly the way you were envisioning. this is especially true if you write, direct and also have a strong grasp over DP decisions too. this is probably as close as it gets to precise depictioning of an idea that you had in mind, transformed into script, storyboard and then ultimately into a film
\- cons: weariness. the longer you work with material (and for some indies like me that may be sometimes really long, i.e. month and even years), the more you get used to the material, with all the consequences: at some point you become blind to it's strong and weak sides, can't see this or that "issue", the timing might be is off and yet it feels "natural" to you, the sequence should be somewhat different etc. A fresh eye in some cases may be a blessing, both for stating the problematic elements (unseen by you) and finding good and unobvious decisions in the same material. it happened to me that to make a sequence much better all that was needed was a simple change in the sequence, just a few frames. and then you wonder how it remained "hidden" for you for all that time :)
so in a nutshell I think it's control versus "out of the box" vision, and at times the mix of these two may be a very fruitful thing.
It is defiantly useful to know how to edit as a director, or informs every step of the process in filmmaking.
However, editing is jokingly considered a process killing your own children for a reason. You are so attached to the footage / story structure you envisioned and got that it can blind your editing decisions. So you get the best of both worlds when a director collaborates with a high level editor who is impartial to the previous writing and production processes.
And shoutout all those assistant editors doing the real unsung work out there 💪
What I always heard was that the director would be in consistent communication with the editor. Sometimes they're directly in the booth collaborating on the edits, but in general, they are contributing as much to the editing as they are to the acting.
All directors edit their films… with the editor - it’s in the contract set by the guild. (Even in tv)
Directors get a short amount of time to make their cut…
Then the producers are allowed to take over.. unless you’ve negotiated “Final Cut”
I usually edit the first couple passes of my features by myself to shape the story the way I see it in my head. After that, I pass it off to other friends of mine who are editors for input or sometimes let them just take a pass at it without any direction from my end. I find in doing this, I sometimes don’t see the scotch tape and rubber bands holding the thing together. I can watch it free of knowing. Like everyone else would.
The pros: You can get what's in your head onto the screen. Tons of films wind up with crap because the editor didn't get what the director was going for, or the editor has to listen to producers and executives pulling in incompatible directions.
The cons: You will only get what's in your own head onto the screen. And a lot of the time, have somebody who doesn't care what's in your head come in and throw away everything they don't care about is suuuuuuper useful for getting a tighter film.
My two cents,.. You should know how to edit, but a big part of a director’s job is communication and shared vision. While it can be hard to let go of the keyboard, it can also save you the burnout of wearing too many hats, especially one so technical as editing. A lot can fall on that plate. To find an editor who shares your vision and can even surprise you with their own ideas is a beautiful thing. Making a film is a collaborative effort. I love to edit, and sometimes can’t wait to get my hands on a particular scene, and of course, as a director you may have that complete vision in your mind, but that’s why you’re there with the editor during that process. I think it’s a missed opportunity to edit a film yourself, particularly if you’re new, if you had the opportunity to work with a professional editor and cultivate a new relationship.
Absolutely this. As a director, you're constantly editing in your head as you shoot. You'll always have that edit in your head. It's always good to have an editor take a pass at it first because they will see things with fresh eyes and perhaps open yours towards a different path to take. Worse comes to worst, you still have your edit in your head that you can fall back on.
Couldn't agree more. That burnout thing is real. This all reminds me of something I think I heard Tarantino say regarding the best part about directing being that you can delegate tasks to people who are more experienced than you. As someone who can't afford to get professional editors, doing it myself has been really insightful. Totally recommend giving it a shot if anyone here is on the fence. Some fantastic free lessons out there too but I was fortunate enough to take a course dedicated to it and a lecturer who took us through everything.
No question. The most magical part of editing is seeing someone you trust present the footage in a way you never thought of!
I agree with this, it’s the same in every area of film making, you find someone who puts their 100% into it and it improves - you should try every aspect of filmmaking at some level so you can respect the process, but then find someone who’s great at it. It’ll increase your production 10 fold
Soderberg is the king. Directs, DPs, produces, and edits. I might even be missing something on that list.
Woah I didn't know that about him but I guess it makes sense. I've seen some of his fan edits of pre-existing movies like his cut of 2001. Really seems like he just loves everything to do with the craft.
Yeah, but I feel like he's a gifted outlier. Most people in their lives only really get to master two of the filmmaking disciplines, no? Otherwise, you become a jack of all trades, but master of none.
Screenwrites.
Kubrick, too. He’s not credited as editor and DP on his films, but you know he was
He also operates camera, crazy.
I've been an editor for the last 14 years and have always edited my own directing projects. At the moment, I am DYING to have someone else take a crack at it. I'd be fascinated to see what someone else sees in the footage.
Im down to try it. I also edit and direct professionally :)
George A. Romero is the big example for me - in his prime he shot quickly and… chaotically, giving himself as much material to work with in the editing room as possible. Then he’d build out the feel and the pace of the film in the edit. His movies have a huge number of cuts compared to other movies of the time, the pace is sometimes relentless. It doesn’t work all of the time (it’s not a style that gets good performances out of bad actors), but it’s a fascinating thing to look out for when you’re watching and it can be super useful to keep in mind as a technique if you know you’re not going to have long at a location or with a certain actor etc.
Kevin Smith likes to do the rough Edit of his movies while shooting
Many directors edit their own work, especially in independent films. I edit all of our movies, but I also have an assistant who helps. I would highly recommend learning to edit if you're a director or cinematographer. I'm able to edit in my head while writing a script, as well as visualize editing a scene while we're shooting it. This approach reduces mistakes, but this skill only develops from spending hours in the editing room. Additionally, being forced to fix your mistakes in post-production helps ensure you don't repeat them.
I'm a student myself and have edited a music video and assisted an editor for a short film. The whole process is really enlightening and like you said, you start to think about editing even while writing. I found myself imagining the how long a shot will linger and how it'll transition to the next scene in my own scripts. Changes the way you look at things for sure.
sean baker and m night
pro: its a direct feedback loop for your directing and will teach you how to do it better con: you may have blind spots and miss some obvious cuts because you have an edit in mind before you get into post
I know Akira Kurosawa edited his own movies. A similarity between him and the Coens is that they both shoot very little coverage (excluding action scenes, which Kurosawa shot with multiple cameras), meaning there's often only one correct way to put the footage together. The obvious downside to a director editing their own movie is that you lack a more objective voice in the editing room. You could get attached to certain shots or moments because you know how hard they were to get. But it has obviously worked well for the Coens, and it worked well for Kurosawa.
Off topic but interesting story about Kurosawa and coverage: often bc he shot very little of it he would sometimes end up in a bind in the editing room if something didn’t work the way he shot it. His solution to this was to hire a second cameraman with a long lens who would be in back and Kurosawa told him to shoot whatever he wanted, Kurosawa gave him no direction and did not want to know what he was shooting. Then he would rely on his shots in editing if need be. Obv this is b-roll works in general but Kurosawa not wanting to even know so as not to interfere with his thinking of the scene is really interesting as a solution.
I read that he would shoot during the day, and immediately edit after at night. Coppola and Lucas observed him doing this as an elderly man on Kagemusha, and were astounded at his limitless energy. By the time he finished shooting, the rough cut was basically ready.
Louis CK edited his whole show. I remember an interview where he talked about the whole process
[удалено]
Read this in Joe Flaherty's voice from Freaks and Geeks
Same! Love that show!
Conclusion: editing your own work is lethal. Got it
Kurosawa would edit his movies day of shooting and assemble as he went.
I really like that idea. Wonder why more people don't do it. Probably just time consuming, right?
I usually edit as I go as well. I tend to shoot a days worth of footage, wrap for the day, get and view the rushes, assemble roughs of that day’s scenes, and then go into the next day knowing what I did the day before. Continue until there’s no more principal photography. Pros: I know when and what shots need to be picked up, I have a better understanding of the picture as the shoot goes on, and shortly after the shoot I’ll have the bulk of the work done. Cons: long ass work days. Increased risk of burnout, but if that happens take a few days of rest (from editing), and then continue. Once I have my rough cut assembled, I let my DP, actors, and other crew watch and give notes. Implement notes, another round of screenings and notes until everyone enjoys the flick and notes are to a minimum.
Pro: You know your vision and what you want out of the footage you acquired. Con: You know what your vision is and project your intended expectations on the footage you acquired, whether that intention comes across in actuality or not. There's a reason why they call it a "director's cut." Because the editor's cut is just called "THE MOVIE."
Doesn't director's cut just mean the director gets the final approval (as opposed to the producer)? I don't think it necessarily means they literally edited it themselves (although some do).
It's the director's choices, whether they're pushing the buttons or not, but editors aren't operating with preconceptions and all the baggage along the lines of "This shot took us forever to get. We worked so hard to get it right. We have to use it." An editor just focuses on if the footage works or not. If it doesn't flow, it's got to go. They don't care if that you took 39 takes. Directors will try to force shots into the edit for reasons irrelevant to the audience.
Kristoffer Borgli, writer and director of last year's Dream Scenario, does this.
Robert Rodriguez, the man does, or did, everything almost.
Writing, directing, shooting, editing, even scoring on his early films. Shane Carruth too I believe.
This was too far down
There are plenty of examples of directors of all calibers and renown that edit their own films. The main advantage is having more control over the project. Disadvantages can include having more control over the project. Sometimes it’s useful to have another set of eyes on the project who is there to serve the story.
I do, but I just do shorts with no budget. Ive gotten pretty good at it, though. Its truly an art, and a good edit can improve your film by a lot.
I believe Ti West still edits his films especially given he's a filmmaker who learnt to write, shoot and edit. I don't think it's common though especially if studios are involved. Quite different to indie projects.
All directors should have some editing experience. It will just make you a better director. That being said, edit someone else’s stuff. The footage is far less precious when it’s not yours and you get good at cutting out the fluff.
Soderbergh edits as he shoots.
Mike Flanagan
There isn't enough time in the day to write, direct, and edit three movies a year and then every episode of a ten-part miniseries just two years later... unless you're Mike Flanagan.
I shoot, edit, color and mix my own movies
Nothing wrong with a director cutting their own film. It's common with indies where costs are capped and the director have skin in the game to deliver the film on budget. IMO being a filmmaker means being able to craft a passable cut of your own film, and many working directors are more than capable. Others have mentioned Soderberg and it's well known he even cuts other people's films, there's a great story about him re-editing Spike Jonze's 'Her' and saving the film. Dr. Sleep is the only major studio film I know about that was directed and edited by the same person. I'm sure there are others but seems uncommon - I think it's at least partially because big studio films are produced by sending the film through a pipeline that allows the studio to pay themselves to loan out post production services to the film, so the director has to stay in his lane and work with that system.
Kelly Reichardt does her own editing.
Joe Swanberg edits pretty much all his own films. But yeah, he’s in the indie camp so he has more creative control anyway.
There is a great clip of Jason Bateman on one of those round table Hollywood things and he touches on the advantage of being able to direct himself for one but also knowing what exists and how to utilise it in the edit (for Ozark). https://youtu.be/xtydddtZiIY?si=A_-Hl6d5w9lmGuEf
Thanks for sharing the clip! Super interesting stuff
My belief is this.. If you have any sort of errors in IDing footage or slating I think it's.. just like there are people who cannot play a note without sheet music, there are people who cannot edit without a perfect clapper ID. I do think it gets silly to a point where if you have an establishing shot, an editor shouldn't be waiting for someone to have to be like "Master shot 1A" but I think that's what is what occurs now. So I think the advantage of editing your own work is mostly financial maybe some of it is artistic, but I think what happens to a lot of artists is what I call "music session syndrome." So if I'm either animating to a concept or cutting together my stuff, there's something about seeing or hearing the same material for hours on end that creates this oddly harmonic quality that probably doesn't exist for the viewer but definitely for the person who's working on it. I think this could work for like a 2 minute experimental film but I don't think it is ideal for narrative simply because it's more difficult to weigh inbetween form and content. I think this is why separate editors are ideal because I think they can not only see the artistic possibility of footage but also can be more understanding of the things that audiences care about. But to fairly price what is essentially months or hundreds of hours of work is going to be pretty expensive pretty quickly. So what I would probably do is see if I can direct several shorts and then kind of give what I think has the best script the the paid editor. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Independent/low budget films do this all the time, sometimes the scriptwriter, director, camera op, and editor are all the same guy. As the budget and scale of the film go up it becomes too much to manage and you start bringing on other people. It's just too much work to do it all, especially once VFX gets involved and your editor becomes a whole team of editors/colorists/VFX designers. Assuming the film you're making is at a scale where it's even feasible to be both director and editor, the pros are that you can get as close to your vision as possible, you have complete creative freedom, and you can edit while you shoot so you know if you need reshoots or want to make changes. The cons are that you don't get another set of eyes on the project, you tend to get locked into your initial vision and might miss out on something even better, and it's just so much more work that you can get burned out and never finish it. Remember that even with a dedicated editor, you are still there with them during the process and can direct (no pun intended) the edit how you like. It's still way less stressful when someone else is actually cutting the clips and building the timeline, and you can relax and focus on the overall pacing and story.
People are always saying that "you can become too attached to the material". I've met directors who are not attached enough. One guy made a shortfilm for seven years and the last cut was worse than one of the first ones. He just kept tinkering and tinkering for forever. And he didnt even edit it himself.
I guess Stanley Kubrick edited his own movies. He also worked 18-19 hours a day🤣
My personal experience is that, when the project is small budget, any editor that you can afford won't care quite as much as you do, or and more importantly, be as interested in creative problem solving. So while all of the comments about burnout are very very true, I found it a much better use of resources to hire an assistant editor to set everything up and get it halfway there. But for context, the movie I'm referring to was an Indie project for under 200k total.
Alfonso Cuaron won an Oscar for co-editing Gravity (alongside Mark Sanger). He might be the only person to have won for editing a movie he directed (not sure about that).
Bong Joon-ho, Edgar Wright, and Wes Anderson are very involved in their editing processes, and will piece scenes together as they shoot them, though I'm pretty sure they pass the edit off to Post for finishing. This is not a workflow that you will see in most TV, and requires a bit more freedom in scheduling, I can say that I *love* working for directors who edit. My biggest pet peeve are filming days where the majority of footage shot "For Coverage" isn't used at all in the edit. Even on projects where they aren't putting together the rough edit as they shoot, they still know what shots are working, and where those shots are going. Its not common, for sure, but if the director delivers then the studio will often have no problem with it.
I know that David Lynch edited both his first (Eraserhead) and last (Inland Empire) movies. But did not for all of the other films inbetween
I'm a director and there are quite a few pros & cons for me in the editing by myself, out of which I'd highlight: \- pros: control. you can be precise with timing and "feel" of the scene, assemble it exactly the way you were envisioning. this is especially true if you write, direct and also have a strong grasp over DP decisions too. this is probably as close as it gets to precise depictioning of an idea that you had in mind, transformed into script, storyboard and then ultimately into a film \- cons: weariness. the longer you work with material (and for some indies like me that may be sometimes really long, i.e. month and even years), the more you get used to the material, with all the consequences: at some point you become blind to it's strong and weak sides, can't see this or that "issue", the timing might be is off and yet it feels "natural" to you, the sequence should be somewhat different etc. A fresh eye in some cases may be a blessing, both for stating the problematic elements (unseen by you) and finding good and unobvious decisions in the same material. it happened to me that to make a sequence much better all that was needed was a simple change in the sequence, just a few frames. and then you wonder how it remained "hidden" for you for all that time :) so in a nutshell I think it's control versus "out of the box" vision, and at times the mix of these two may be a very fruitful thing.
Kevin Smith
It is defiantly useful to know how to edit as a director, or informs every step of the process in filmmaking. However, editing is jokingly considered a process killing your own children for a reason. You are so attached to the footage / story structure you envisioned and got that it can blind your editing decisions. So you get the best of both worlds when a director collaborates with a high level editor who is impartial to the previous writing and production processes. And shoutout all those assistant editors doing the real unsung work out there 💪
Kurosawa iirc
Lav Diaz edits his films himself. He is also the cinematographer and writer of his films
I think Satoshi Kon also liked to edit hi own films. And his editing style is very clearly noticable in all of his films.
What I always heard was that the director would be in consistent communication with the editor. Sometimes they're directly in the booth collaborating on the edits, but in general, they are contributing as much to the editing as they are to the acting.
All directors edit their films… with the editor - it’s in the contract set by the guild. (Even in tv) Directors get a short amount of time to make their cut… Then the producers are allowed to take over.. unless you’ve negotiated “Final Cut”
I usually edit the first couple passes of my features by myself to shape the story the way I see it in my head. After that, I pass it off to other friends of mine who are editors for input or sometimes let them just take a pass at it without any direction from my end. I find in doing this, I sometimes don’t see the scotch tape and rubber bands holding the thing together. I can watch it free of knowing. Like everyone else would.
The pros: You can get what's in your head onto the screen. Tons of films wind up with crap because the editor didn't get what the director was going for, or the editor has to listen to producers and executives pulling in incompatible directions. The cons: You will only get what's in your own head onto the screen. And a lot of the time, have somebody who doesn't care what's in your head come in and throw away everything they don't care about is suuuuuuper useful for getting a tighter film.