The editor worked closely with the director to film and edit a documentary. There was good communication between them as they both worked on filming, which helped ensure their visions for the narrative aligned. During editing, they realized their initial topic was uninteresting and changed the focus, which required rearranging some interviews. As an inexperienced editor, the editor learned editing tools through trial and error. Sound levels between interviews varied but were adjusted, and graphics from the director suited the narrative. They managed their time well, communicating when each would work and having a checklist of tasks.

1. Editors Journal
Alice Lupton
5AM Productions

2. Communication
• Working with Minoli, the director, was very
easy. As my role also included filming the shots
it meant that when it came to editing we both
knew what the narrative would be as we were
both there to film it. This meant there wasn’t any
miscommunication from shoot days to editing
days. We communicated frequently and once I
edited around 30 seconds I would show her to
get feedback and then amend any changes she
suggested.

3. Problems?
• When I first put together the basic narrative, we
realised that our initial idea of wanting to talk about
the misconception of autism was not really that
interesting as there was very little to say about it.
This meant that when we watched back the footage
we had to change the message we wanted to send to
autism and the education system. In terms of editing
it wasn’t that difficult as I just had to reposition
certain interviews so the narrative made better sense
of the new topic and told Minoli that reshoots of
cutaways were needed.

4. Transitions
• As I initially didn’t have much experience with
editing, this was the first major project that I did
edit on. This meant that I was unfamiliar with
where a lot of the tools were but once they were
pointed out to me, I used my initiative and trial
and error to figure out what looked best. In
terms of the transitions, a lot of jump cuts were
used as this is what is audiences expect to see in
documentaries, but I also used the ‘dissolve’
transitions on things like the lower thirds text
boxes and titles.

5. Sound Levels
• The initial sound levels we had were all different
from each other, especially in the interviews we
filmed. This was down to the areas we filmed in
and the position of the tie-clip mic. However,
these sound levels I found fairly easy to
manipulate as all I had to do on some interviews
in Final Cut Pro was double up the sound to
make it louder, and when it came to the
voiceover we pre-recorded, I lowered it
significantly.

6. Need more shots?
• We filmed a total of 6 interviews but decided we
only needed to feature 5 different interviewees in the
final production. This meant we knew we didn’t
need any more interviews as we only had 5 minutes
to cover and too many interviews and introducing
too many different people in this short space of time
would have been overwhelming.
• However, when it came to cutaways, I noticed that
the ones we filmed at the beginning had no
relevance to our topic so these had to be re-filmed
on a number of occasions, otherwise the narrative
would have been totally lost.

7. Graphics
• Minoli was in charge of the custom graphics, such as the
section that talks about how 1 in 100 people have autism,
as she said she had made gifs a lot in her spare time and
she knew that graphics weren’t too different from these,
so was confident in how to make them. The graphics she
produced suited the narrative and it meant all I had to
do was time it with the voiceover by speeding it up.
• On the other hand, I was in charge of the graphics for the
titles and lower thirds text boxes that introduce our
interviewees. Once I had found suitable ones from Final
Cut Pro itself, it was easy to copy them and edit them to
fit each interviewee in terms of changing their name and
job title.

8. Time management
• I feel like I had good time management as Minoli and I
would communicate when each of us would be on our
main Mac computer where we were editing so that either
I could sort out the narrative and basic graphics or so she
could edit the sound and custom graphics.
• We would work on editing through lessons, lunch times
and even after school a couple of times a week, having a
mental checklist of what had to be completed each week.
For example, after the first week we wanted the basic
narrative down, the next, the voiceover, then the
graphics and cutaways, and then we sorted out the sound
and edited the final graphics until everything ran
smoothly.