Art of the Cut

Chapter 5Storytelling

To call the editor a “storyteller” is cliché and blatantly obvious at an elemental level—at least to fellow editors.

But many outside the profession fail to grasp how thoroughly affected the story is by the editor. Even if an editor follows the script to the letter, they are telling the story through their perspective choices, the moments that receive special emphasis, the choice of performance, the choice of music and sound, the way the story is paced. Virtually everything that the editor does should enhance and progress the story. And the script in many cases is only a general blueprint for what the director and editor end up doing with the story and the structure of the story. These changes have an even more profound ...