“As an editor today, I look for assistants who are interested in the overall process of film editing while being technically savvy and organized. One of the most important things in the editing process is to stay organized. Otherwise it will be quite difficult to find the right material to tell the story in the best possible way.

I ask my assistants to create a bin for each scene, and to build sequences inside that bin that contain all rushes. That bin is always in Frame Mode with a frame that is representative for each shot. For complicated dialogue scenes, I ask them to build a sequence for each line of dialogue, using all takes, so I can easily bring up all versions of that specific line. With complicated action scenes, where a lot of material has been shot, they will create sequences with all kinds of reaction shots, so that I can find them at any point during the edit.”

Valerio explains how the process of cutting films has changed a lot over the last decades. “When cutting on celluloid, the assistant editors would often witness the creative process, and learn about editing and storytelling. Nowadays it’s more an individual process or a double act between the director and editor. A simple command like Match Frame inside Avid has replaced the brilliant work that assistants used to do: looking for shots and using their own sensibility to help and contribute to the narrative of the film. On the other hand, technology has helped speed up cutting and re-cutting a film, though I must admit, I’m not really sure that has improved the craft of film editing.”