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More and more editors are working from home, but is this a good thing for the Editor, the Producer, the Director or the film? Freelance Editor and ProductionBase member, Guy Ducker, takes a look.<\/strong><\/p>\n As I write, I\u2019ve just had my first day\u2019s work outside my flat in about four months (thank you to the good people of I-Motus). It\u2019s not that I\u2019ve been idle during these months: I\u2019ve just had an unusually long run of jobs where I\u2019ve been cutting from home on my trusty iMac. I\u2019d joined the ranks of the stay-at-home editors (emendator domesticus)<\/em>. This phenomenon is comparatively recent. It\u2019s been theoretically possible for some time: we\u2019ve been able to run Final Cut Pro from a consumer Mac for many years and Avid Media Composer (my preferred weapon) released an affordable \u2018software only\u2019 version in 2006. But what has made the real difference is the sudden dominance over the last two or three years of cameras that record straight to hard drive. No longer do editors need hefty tape decks and expensive interfaces to get the pictures in and out of their editing machines. If you have a system set up at home, you hardly need to lift yourself from your chair. The material comes to you on a drive, and the finished cut can be returned on the same drive or via an FTP site. If you like, you can even avoid meeting the producer and director \u2013 uploading cuts direct to Vimeo or similar sites, so they can watch them without leaving their homes. Filmmakers might never need to leave the house again.<\/p>\n But is this a good thing?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It depends who you are. Different factors apply for the editor and for the director or producer. As I\u2019ve been on both sides of this situation \u2014 working from home as an editor and having editors work for me from home- I\u2019ll approach each role separately.<\/p>\n The Editor<\/strong> I am also master of my own time. This has always been truer for editors than for the on-set crew, but never more so than now. If I\u2019m getting too close to the material I can go for a walk to clear my head. As long as I get the day\u2019s rushes cut, or keep to whatever schedule has been agreed, I can work the hours that suit me. If I want to burn the midnight oil I can do so without fear of missing the last train home.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not all rosy. While working from home the lack of a journey in to work means that I get less exercise and have less exposure to sunlight. Then again, you shouldn\u2019t be working as an editor if you want to get a tan. I have missed the sense of community you can get when working in cutting rooms like Goldcrest or De Lane Lea. The kitchens of such facilities houses are great places to make friends, find work, and catch up on industry gossip. You might even see Ken Loach wandering down the corridor (very polite fella \u2013 even holds doors open for you). You feel a part of things.<\/p>\n There are practical disadvantages to working from home too. Hired kit comes with technical support, so if the machine goes mental you can just pick up the phone, then put on the kettle and wait for the cavalry to arrive. If your own kit breaks down, the producer will be looking at you to get it fixed. Of course you can pay for a support contract for your kit at home, but those don\u2019t come cheap. It helps if you\u2019re reasonably tech savvy in the first place, so that you can fix minor problems without having to make a potentially expensive phone call.<\/p>\n There is a bit of trap in equipment ownership into which many camera people and sound recordists have already fallen. An affordable piece of professional kit comes onto the market; you think you can cash in by buying one and renting it to the production. This works well for a short time. However, once most of your competitors have had the same idea, the tables turn and kit ownership turns from a bonus into an expectation. Before long, producers stop paying extra money for kit hire. Kit-owning crew are back to square one, except now they have to maintain and upgrade their kit out of their own pockets, rather than having it hired for them. It\u2019s not that anyone is being deliberately exploitative; it\u2019s just an unfortunate inevitability of free-market economics.<\/p>\n The Producer and Director<\/strong> The other big benefit is that you get more work out of your editor. Studies* have shown that people who work from home tend to work longer hours from those working in offices. I\u2019ve certainly found this to be true of myself as an editor. The fact that I\u2019ve been trusted to work my own hours makes me feel obliged not to abuse that trust.<\/p>\n The disadvantages are few. The director has to do the commute that the editor has been spared. It\u2019s also possible that your stay-at-home editor might not have a strangely coiffured runner named Bradley to bring you an expertly frothed cappuccino; and is less likely to have a large leather couch on which to drink it. But if, as a director, you can face this level of hardship, and the possibility of seeing your editor\u2019s washing hanging up, the rest is plain sailing.<\/p>\n From the producer\u2019s perspective, playouts can be an issue. Unless your stay-at-home editor has shelled out for the interface to connect their kit up to a professional standard deck, you\u2019ll have to pay independently to make a tape for a screening, and be prepared for that process to be a bit fiddly. There are ways around this, but outputting material is the one thing that software-only systems never do as fast or as conveniently as a fully professional rig.<\/p>\n But is this way of working good for the film itself? Does it improve the editing process? Increasing broadband speeds herald the possibility of delivering rushes through the net: working from home will inevitably become more common, so the question is an important one. The answer depends on how much you let it affect the way the team works together.<\/p>\n While I\u2019ve had many visits from my directors over the last few months, I\u2019ve also found myself putting up many more sequences online than is usually the case. While this can make approval and decision-making quicker and more convenient, it doesn\u2019t necessarily make it better.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no real substitute for sitting down in a room with a director, watching a cut through with them, so you can see where they laugh, where they lose attention, and discuss thereafter what you\u2019ve just seen. You might even try out a few ideas there and then: will they work, or are they a blind alley? The very fact of spending time chatting with your creative collaborators not only makes the experience more enjoyable, it allows you better to anticipate their tastes. While you can bat emails back and forth, it\u2019s much more likely that you\u2019ll come up with an idea that neither of you would have come up with on your own if you\u2019re actually sitting in a room together. These moments of shared genius are what makes the editing process strong; they give a film vitality and make it more than the sum of its parts. Sacrifice them at your peril.<\/p>\n * How do I know which studies? Just \u2018studies\u2019, okay!<\/em><\/p>\n Guy Ducker is a freelance Editor, and ProductionBase member.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More and more editors are working from home, but is this a good thing for the Editor, the Producer, the Director or the film? Freelance Editor and ProductionBase member, Guy Ducker, takes a look. 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\nThe advantages for the editor are obvious. When working from home, my commute takes about 15 seconds, allowing for congestion on the stairs. I don\u2019t have to factor in transport costs. Nor do I have to pay over the odds for a Soho sandwich. The coffee \u2013 oil of the cutting room \u2013 always comes when I want, and is of the prescribed strength. My kit is set up exactly how I like it; I don\u2019t have to worry that another editor has come in and changed my settings, and I know any quirks the machine might have.<\/p>\n
\nAs you will have gathered from the last paragraph, the domestic editor\u2019s financial loss is the producer\u2019s gain: editing becomes cheaper. Even if you are doing the decent thing and paying the editors for their kit, you\u2019re still getting a better rate from them than you would from a facilities house, or even for hiring kit and putting it in the spare room of your office. The editor doesn\u2019t have to pay business rates or employ hip receptionists to sit behind curvy brushed-steel desks. All the money you do pay for editing goes to the editor, which is no bad thing. True, the editor is less likely to be working somewhere that\u2019s as central or convenient as you might like, but if you want to save money you might be prepared to go to see them in their deceptively spacious out-of-town cellar.<\/p>\nThe Lot of the Stay-at-Home Editor<\/a><\/blockquote>