Hi all,
It was mentioned to me in the introductory thread that some members over here may be interested in my experience as a news editor. Feel free to delete or ignore if this is not helpful to anyone. :)
I've been editing altogether for about 10 years (still a baby I know, lol), but I started on FCP7, then did some time in Avid, got sent backwards to FCP6, and now I am editing mainly in Premiere/After Effects but I do dabble in Da Vinci as well.
I ended up editing news part-time after I got laid off from an in-house editing job in 2018. So I started at a volitile time and it's only gotten crazier since as you can imagine.
So in the interest of helping anyone fresh out of school or just interested in the field, here are some things I wish I was told to consider when I jumped into a mass market network edit bay.
Think about the direction you ultimately want your career to end up taking, you're not going to necessarily meet a ton of film people in news but obviously anything could happen. You will definitely meet a lot of freelancers though.
How interested are you in politics? Politics is probably 85% of what I cut, sometimes I get lucky and I'll get some movie trailer montages or puppies broll though (love these requests). In my view a job is a job, I don't think a workplace defines your political position or you as a person, but that said, depending upon where you work you may need to be okay with hearing information spins you dont necessarily agree with. That was one thing I needed to get used to.
Prior experience working with PA's and producers, and even on set, will come in handy especially in high pressure moments when your already tight deadlines are crunched down to minutes. Also think about practicing your edit speed, you can design your shortcuts for comfort, and think about what is the best way for you to work fast & effectively. What are you troubleshooting skins like? Obviously always ask questions, its better to ask than to make a mistake and explain why didn't ask, but also keep in mind you may not have time to ask for help. So know your softwares inside and out.
Finally, and this one is a bit dreary... you will see a lot of raw footage that you may wish you hadn't depending upon where you work, especially this past year (and week unfortunately). Think about if that is something you're okay with. It can be jarring and desensitizing for sure, especially if you didn't expect it going into the job.
Overall, I think even though some of the editing seems extremely simple, this job has made me a better editor. And once you prove yourself to producer you could start working on packages, show builds, and graphics. These are all skills you can use at other networks and on different types of programming too.
I'm not a newsman at heart but the opportunity appeared to me when I really needed it so I can 100% say I don't regret it making the choice. There is a lot more to consider of course as is the case with every facet of our industry but I hope this scratches the surface a bit.
Anyway, hopefully this was helpful to someone. I know there are ton of other editors in here with decades of experience on me, so I 100% understand I still have a lot to learn as well!
Sorry this was longer than I intended, haha
Best of luck and have a great rest of your week.
Ryan
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Thanks for your insight to the news world, @Ryan! I never worked in the industry, mostly come from Reality TV. Small productions.
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Hi Sam! Thats awesome! I PA'd on a few reality tv show sets when I started.
How do you like working in that area?
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It was a good learning experience for me. We were pretty small, so ended up doing a lot of everything. Really helped us learn all the aspects of the business for sure. But as a job? Not so much fun for me. I much rather prefer the narrative film world. And I got lucky enough to be in a spot that let's me explore that more.
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I prefer the narrative world as well. I kinda just fell into news. A lot of what I do on the side is music videos and documentary work. I do some screenwriting as well and I'm hoping to find some shorts that need an editor.
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Ryan Hanratty this is super-interesting, thank you for sharing such specific details!
I am extremely interested in all aspects of journalism, it's an essential thought process for screenwriters, as is editing!
I learned and enjoyed so much from the few short videos I've made over the years in iMovie using a structural approach to create the equivalent of a few student films, it helps me out a ton on the page in terms of sequencing, flow and pace, just visualizing the screenplay as a film in every aspect and without those skills I think I'd get bogged down a lot more.
I was Arts & Culture Editor for a startup web site magazine just for about six months back in 2015, and I feel the immersion of journalism and creative filmmaking is a wonderful arena in which to gain experience; I really enjoyed reading your post here and look forward to more!
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I know about that life. I prefer the narrative world but you learn so many different skills working on other projects so if you dont enjoy anything about a job at least you can appreciate the opportunity to grow.
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Daniel - thanks for reading, im glad you enjoyed it. Definitely agree, exploring different aspects of video in general will 100% widen your view of the whole field.
I have no regrets about doing news for that reason alone. In terms of writing, it has given me a lot of ideas for possible stories whether they shorts, episodes, or features.
Solange - yup! Besides money, thats my rationale entirely. :)
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Thanks for sharing Ryan Hanratty I can resonate with a lot of what you stated.
Hi Kevin, you also edit news or used to?