u/thesixofspades

I left this company in 2020, but have been back freelancing intermittently over the last six months. They have an editor who has been there for about 4-5 years, however his work is fairly lackluster. He is by no means bad, but just doesn’t an eye for making something really stand out. That brings me to two issues:

1. The company has asked me on occasion to re-edit his work. Sometimes it’s just doing punch ups, a couple times it’s been wholesale reworking of the project. The times I have done this I have been asked by management not to bring this up with their editor, which doesn’t entirely sit well with me, just makes me feel like I’m sneaking behind his back to fiddle with his edits.

2. Management has asked me to collect my thoughts on how to make their editor better. They didn’t go into extensive detail on what they’re looking for, just that I understand the workflow and can give better advice than they can.

I’m at a loss for where to go with this. I don’t like feeling like I’m stepping on his toes, and honestly I’m not sure where to even begin as far as advice goes. When I’ve re-worked his projects there are things I know I could bring up about pacing, deciding what clips to use, etc., but for me I tend to edit a lot more by feel, and not really sure how to translate that into actionable advice.

Ultimately, I think what helps me do better work is the fact that I am primarily a motion designer, and can use that to my advantage when video editing. That’s mostly why they’ve been bringing me on for freelance work, is that their editor only has a very basic understanding of After Effects, so I do a lot of supplementary animations on branding graphics that he then plugs into the edits.

Just wanted to post this and see if anyone else has thoughts or things that I should keep in mind going forward.