On Editing, Paradise and Presumption

"In an edit suite at the Northern Media School, Sheffield, there are two pieces of paper stuck on the wall. On one of them is written the phrase:

IF IN DOUBT, LEAVE IT OUT.

And on another:

IF YOU CAN’T WIN, LEAVE IT IN.

This is 1994, and I am studying film and video editing as part of my post-graduate course in Film and TV production. I had applied to direct, but all of the directing places were full, and although I had a lot of experience of working with actors, I didn’t have much filming experience, and so they offered me a place as an editor. I was a bit pissed off about their reasoning at the time, but retrospectively, I’m really pleased that I got to train as an editor."

I have a new article in the new edition of Contemporary Theatre Review. It is happily nestled in the backpages section alongside work by Hannah Silva and Maddy Costa (to name but two). And, it's free to download. You can read it here.

I was invited to reflect on the way Third Angel edit our work during the devising process, so I was making notes towards that idea during the making of The Paradise Project in November last year. I was also thinking about how one realisation can allow lots of pending decisions to fall into place, and so wanted to write about Presumption, too. And inevitably, when it comes to editing, I wanted to write about being taught film editing by Derek Ingliss at the Northern Media School.

Thanks to Carl Lavery and Caridad Svich for commissioning the piece.