So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this first

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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Castor Troy » Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:38 pm

Bauzi wrote:I feel a bit like someone treats beginners like shit and I feel exploited. I study Digital Film & Animation and there is an "job" offer on our black board:

Cutter for musicvideos, cutter for a trailer, internet tv and distribution, administrative work, keeping the website up to date,... for 4 months. Than there might be some project with cash involved.

Are you shitting me? Being a personal bitch for 4 months... for free? >_<



People will do anything to live the dream....

In between editing gigs from 2009-2010, I tried to do the "work as a PA (production assistant) for free and have the director and producers yell at you as you deliver their bagels and coffee" route. But the doorway to get into that is so tiny, it's like having real people trying to actually fit inside a mouse hole. :x
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Bauzi » Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:11 pm

I found a flowchart that can tell you if you should work for free or not:
http://jhische.com/workforfree.html

Surprise! It suggests that you should never work for free for a legitimate business.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby McDirty » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:38 pm

Bauzi wrote:Surprise! It suggests that you should never work for free for a legitimate business.


:lol: Because they have money for sure, that's why. Thanks for the chart Bauzi. I gotta kick out of it. :up:
Castor Troy wrote:People will do anything to live the dream....

In between editing gigs from 2009-2010, I tried to do the "work as a PA (production assistant) for free and have the director and producers yell at you as you deliver their bagels and coffee" route. But the doorway to get into that is so tiny, it's like having real people trying to actually fit inside a mouse hole. :x


Wow! I bet you learned a lot from the experience though. I heard that 1 week of PA work in Hollywood is more productive than 4 years of study.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Castor Troy » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:44 pm

McDirty wrote:
Bauzi wrote:Surprise! It suggests that you should never work for free for a legitimate business.


:lol: Because they have money for sure, that's why. Thanks for the chart Bauzi. I gotta kick out of it. :up:
Castor Troy wrote:People will do anything to live the dream....

In between editing gigs from 2009-2010, I tried to do the "work as a PA (production assistant) for free and have the director and producers yell at you as you deliver their bagels and coffee" route. But the doorway to get into that is so tiny, it's like having real people trying to actually fit inside a mouse hole. :x


Wow! I bet you learned a lot from the experience though. I heard that 1 week of PA work in Hollywood is more productive than 4 years of study.


Back when I was a kid, my friend's brother worked as a PA on Power Rangers and said it was a difficult, but awesome experience. He was paid peanuts, but at least he can say he worked on Power Rangers. :shock:

I also applied to be an extra in several indie films just to get the experience of being on a set and even went to Hollywood several times for headshots, but never got called back. :cry:

But screw all that, I'm making my own film in hopefully 2 years or less. :up:
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Magnus » Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:51 pm

Got my first paying video gig. Making a PV as well as a Music video for an underground Metalcore-band here in Sweden, Still Echo.
These 2 projects are in the planning stage - scripts, locations and props is being worked on.

"Forever, Though Never" by Still Echo - Music Video Production.
First video shooting will be taking place in around the end of Mars and beginning of April, shooting for the first video will be scheduled on weekends taking up to around 3 weekends in total
(8 hours a day, so approximately 47 hours). The editing stage of the first production is still unclear, but the hunch is telling me that it might take quiet a while,
due to some of the technical work involved with the script and storyboard.
Link to song of the project.

"Choices" by Still Echo - Promotion Video Production.
The second production, which will be the Promotion Video (PV), will be shot under the duration of ~2 weekends (each day 6-7 hour, approximately 24-28 hours total).
The editing of this project will be slightly quicker, due to the reason of being a classic styled PV with mostly shots of the actual band (No interpretation of side-story footage).
Link to song of the project.

To check out all of their music, their EP which is up for free live streaming, click here.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby animAe » Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:57 pm

Omg, thank you, so much for this. You seriously just saved my ass from making the biggest mistake of my life!

I'm a senior in High School who has been applying to colleges like mad and I was having a hard time figuring out what I REALLY wanted to do as a career. I've been putting Nursing as a major and film editing/studies as a minor and I always thought "Well, if I follow my passion, i'll manage to work things out." After reading this, I realized how stupid I was! Well, I wasn't completely going to sell my soul to big video corporations without giving some thought; I visited a few film colleges/institutions and asked them questions about their experiences. Of course, all I got was bias fluff from them trying to convince me to attend.

Then I started thinking of what I would look like as a professional editor, I would be dead. I already killed my eyesight from editing long hours giving me glasses, I would probably get migranes everyday from deadline stress and spending days cutting clips, and desperately looking online for editing gigs. >_<

Thanks again Castor Troy! :D I now realize that my interests of editing should STAY as a hobby.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Castor Troy » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:00 pm

animAevids wrote:Omg, thank you, so much for this. You seriously just saved my ass from making the biggest mistake of my life!

I'm a senior in High School who has been applying to colleges like mad and I was having a hard time figuring out what I REALLY wanted to do as a career. I've been putting Nursing as a major and film editing/studies as a minor and I always thought "Well, if I follow my passion, i'll manage to work things out." After reading this, I realized how stupid I was! Well, I wasn't completely going to sell my soul to big video corporations without giving some thought; I visited a few film colleges/institutions and asked them questions about their experiences. Of course, all I got was bias fluff from them trying to convince me to attend.

Then I started thinking of what I would look like as a professional editor, I would be dead. I already killed my eyesight from editing long hours giving me glasses, I would probably get migranes everyday from deadline stress and spending days cutting clips, and desperately looking online for editing gigs. >_<

Thanks again Castor Troy! :D I now realize that my interests of editing should STAY as a hobby.


I'm glad to be of service. :)

If you still want to pursue some form of professional editing, become a director instead and edit your own stuff. You can even do it on the side and make it your full time career if you can monetize on it. That's my plan. :up:
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby BadgerKing » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:56 pm

Very nice thread - excellent info. Eventually I hope to learn Avid. Having seen Premiere Pro CS5 in action, though, it's pretty incredible what it can do. The demo I saw of it had the Adobe employee editing in full HD on the fly (pretty much all Red 4k footage that I can recall) with no lagging. From what I hear, that's a big reason why Apple and Adobe had their little 'quarrel' - when they saw what Adobe did to step up their editing game to counter Final Cut.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby OtakuGray » Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:05 pm

The people in the industry can change the industry. If you wanna be an editor, then go for it and don't worry about shit like this. Thats my personal opinion, whether its good or not doesn't matter to me. Still, good information to know if you are looking to be an editor, but i would rather experience it for myself before making a decision.
godix wrote:Like this one amv. It was all like woosh, zoom with effects. And I was all like whoa awesome. Then that guitar thingies popped up and went dun dun DUN dun then those box thingies went zooming by and twirling around and shit. Oh god, then the hexagons popped up and I was like 'I just got a stiffie'. Then there was the circle with those thingies going around and I blew my load.


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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Kaream » Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:28 am

Charlie Sheen :D
Only man who could make thousands of dollars off of tweets.
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Castor Troy » Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:37 am

Kaream wrote:Charlie Sheen :D
Only man who could make thousands of dollars off of tweets.


Become a professional editor and you can edit Charlie Sheen footage!

Granted his productions aren't canceled. |:>
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Pie Row Maniac » Sun May 08, 2011 1:36 am

Castor Troy wrote:
Kaream wrote:Charlie Sheen :D
Only man who could make thousands of dollars off of tweets.


Become a professional editor and you can edit Charlie Sheen footage!

Granted his productions aren't canceled. |:>

Charlie Sheen's footage doesn't need editing. It comes out a winner when he stops recording. :nose:

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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Sephiroth » Tue May 17, 2011 9:12 am

I doubt it if Castors icons to be believed Godix is flipping him off from whatever afterlife he's in.
This has no relevence to the discussion above it
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby Kalean » Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:21 am

A good read as expected, Castor. Many of our crushed hopes and dreams find their voice in your post ;P
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Re: So you want to be a "Professional Editor"? Read this fir

Postby LuluandAuron » Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:23 am

I always seem to find your posts when I come back to editing work LOL

Wedding videos do pay fairly well. So if you are eclectic in musical taste and enjoy culture, wedding video editing might be an avenue of pursuit. In addition, if you want to hone you iron editing skills, you do get the opportunity (depending on the videographers vision of the "day"), get to edit quite a few amv style montages.

knowing people is key
I've had two freelance contracts in the past. The first was about 10 weddings, and the second was 22. My first boss passed me off to the second videographer, and assured him, I could edit in Avid "no problem" (I'd never opened avid in my life)

Which brings me to the next point...you need exellent problem solving skills.
I was a little taken a back, and all I could think of was a post made by Troy... that editing in avid, was like editing with rocks. So I thought, okay...good place to start.

My new boss had much more confidence then I did in my skills. I had 5 days to learn the program, so I did. I equate it more to editing with oven mitts though. But after you get on to it, it's pretty decent.

Looking to kick it with FCP in the near future :wink:
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