ON ASSEMBLY
— entry 011 / winter 2026
The first assembly is never the movie. It’s the x-ray of
the movie. You hold it up to the light and see which
bones are load-bearing and which ones are just decorative.
Most first-time directors want to protect the decorative
bones — usually because they’re the ones that were
hardest to shoot. Part of the job is convincing them,
gently, that a film can lose a great scene and be better
for it, and that the scene isn’t lost, it’s on a drive,
it can go in the DVD extras, it can haunt the next film.
ON SILENCE
— entry 010 / autumn 2025
Audiences will forgive almost any amount of silence if
the frame is composed and the subject is present. They
will not forgive a second of silence that feels like a
mistake. The difference is intention, and intention is
almost entirely a matter of what comes immediately
before and immediately after. A held shot between two
confident cuts reads as held. A held shot between two
hesitant cuts reads as an editor who fell asleep.
ON SHOWING A ROUGH CUT
— entry 009 / autumn 2025
Four people in the room, maximum. No phones. No notes
during. Thirty minutes of quiet after, with tea, and
then — only then — the conversation. If you show a
rough cut to twelve people and ask them to discuss it
immediately, you will receive twelve different films
as feedback, none of which are the one you’re making.
I keep a stack of blank cards by the couch and ask
viewers to write one sentence before they speak. The
sentence is almost always more useful than the
conversation.
ON THE WEEK BEFORE LOCK
— entry 008 / summer 2025
Sleep the week before lock. I mean this seriously.
Every editor I respect has a story about the decision
they made at three in the morning on the last night and
had to undo six months later. The last week is when you
need to be most awake, and most editors are least awake.
Plan for this. Schedule screenings in the morning.
Refuse meetings after four. Light the stove early.
ON WHAT THE FILM WANTS
— entry 007 / summer 2025
There’s a moment, usually somewhere in the middle of
the fine cut, when the film stops being the director’s
idea of the film and starts being the film itself.
After that moment, the job changes. You’re no longer
serving a plan. You’re serving the thing in front of
you, which has its own wants, and which will tell you
them clearly if you stop arguing with it. I’ve learned
to recognize this moment by a specific feeling: a kind
of relief that has nothing to do with progress.
ON THE RADIO CUT
— entry 006 / spring 2025
Make the radio cut first. Assemble the audio spine of
the film with no picture. If it doesn’t work as radio,
it won’t work as film. I know this is now nearly
received wisdom, but it’s received wisdom because
it’s true. The radio cut also catches the thing that
transcripts don’t: breath. Whether a subject is
finished thinking. Whether the silence between two
sentences belongs to the first or the second. Picture
can paper over those distinctions; audio can’t.
ON TAKING THE WRONG NOTE
— entry 005 / spring 2025
A note from a director is never literally a note. It’s
a signal that something in the region of the note is
bothering them. Sometimes the fix is exactly what they
asked for; more often the fix is three scenes earlier,
or on the opposite side of a reel break. Listen past the
note. Ask: what made you want to write that. The answer
is usually the real edit.
ON THE BARN IN WINTER
— entry 004 / winter 2025
Not really about editing. The barn heats slowly. In
February I light the stove at six and the room is
working temperature by nine. In between, I sit in the
kitchen with the laptop and watch dailies on headphones.
It’s the best editing I do all year. I think the cold
keeps me honest about what’s essential. Or I think the
laptop’s small screen does. I can’t quite tell which.