Film editing is one of the most creative aspects of film making, and also one of the most demanding. The process of cutting film is painstaking and largely unheralded. Editors famously work long hours alone in a dark room, sometimes working magic on less than perfect footage, only to see the glory and high pay go to the director. After all, depending on the style of the film in question, good editing should often be invisible. If the editor has done his/her job well, one shouldn't notice it. So why become an editor? Any editor will tell you that they do what they do for the pure love of putting a film together. I once watched an editor work on a rather slow and sentimental scene, and by deleting whole segments of it, stealing a few lines from another scene, and changing the order of events, he transformed it into a scene with dramatic pacing and tension. It truly seemed like magic. There is a saying that a film's final rewrite is in the editing room. Editors create the story out of raw footage, piecing each scene together in the way that best moves the narrative and holds the tension of the entire film. An editor does everything from picking takes and temp music to masking mistakes in continuity and lack of film coverage to re-envisioning entire scenes. An editor can spend hours finding a way to compensate for a missing shot, for example. Once the editor has a first cut of the entire film, the director comes in and the two collaborate on a final cut, a process which can take months. Therefore, an editor's job is both solitary and collaborative, and a good relationship with the director is essential. This is why directors so often stick with one editor for their entire careers.
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