Assistant Editor

What they do

Builds the project before the first dailies land: partitions and bins for project, media, sound effects and music, a naming convention, colour coding, frame rate and timecode settings, and a viewing LUT so nobody judges performance on a flat log image. Each day they ingest rushes, sync sound to picture by timecode, and hand-sync the takes where a box was mis-jammed or the slate is the only reference. They check camera and sound reports against what actually arrived and chase the missing card. They group multicam, load the lined script and continuity notes, build scene bins, and prepare select reels the way their editor likes them. They cut temp visual effects: a boom removal, a phone screen comp, a split. Then turnovers, which are the technical heart of the job. Visual effects plates get pulled with handles, correct naming and a documented colour space; sound gets an AAF or OMF with the track layout they asked for; the grade gets an XML or EDL plus a reference movie with burn-in; the composer gets a cue list; and every time the cut moves after lock, a change list goes out. Cuts are distributed to named recipients with watermarks. Storage, backups and the archive are theirs, as is knowing where every frame is.

What they decide

The calls that belong to this role and no other.

• Project structure: bins, partitions, naming conventions, colour coding and settings
• How sync is achieved and how it is verified on every roll
• What each turnover contains: handles, format, colour space, track layout and reel structure
• Whether a technical fault in the rushes is escalated now or logged for later
• Day-to-day media policy: what stays online, what is archived to LTO, what gets deleted

Principles of the craft

• Sync is a claim until it is checked: timecode is a promise, not proof. Verify a slate clap somewhere in every roll, because drift and mis-jammed boxes are found by looking rather than by trusting the metadata.
• Name it for the person three months downstream: your file and bin names will be read by a colorist, a dialogue editor and an archivist, none of whom can ask what you meant. Boring conventions beat clever ones.
• A turnover is a contract: every downstream department has a spec covering handles, colour space, sample rate, track layout and reel structure. A turnover that satisfies your project but not their spec is a rejected turnover and a lost day.
• The editor's attention is the scarce resource: your job is to remove decisions from their day rather than add updates to it. Solve first, report briefly, and never make them manage your problem during a note session.
• Keep the history, not just the current version: cuts change after lock. Dated project backups, locked exports and accurate change lists are what make the twelfth revision a morning's work instead of an archaeology project.

Common mistakes

• Trusting timecode and shipping a scene one frame out of sync
• Cutting without a viewing LUT, so performance and pace are judged on a washed-out log image
• Turning over visual effects plates with no handles or in an undocumented colour space, then paying for the re-pull
• Reorganising bins into a system only the assistant understands
• Working around a missing take silently instead of flagging it while a pickup is still possible
• The competent assistant's mistake: doing the technical work impeccably while never watching the cut, so they can build a turnover but cannot yet make an editorial argument, which is what actually earns the promotion

How to learn it

Exercises and routes in, not a reading list.

• Shoot ten takes with a separate audio recorder and no timecode, then sync all ten by slate and time yourself. Now do it again with timecode, deliberately mis-jamming one box, and see how fast you find it.
• Build a project from scratch with bins, naming and a viewing LUT, hand it to someone else, and ask them to find take 4 of scene 12B without asking you a question.
• Export the same one-minute sequence as an AAF with audio handles, as an EDL and as an XML. Import each into a different application and list exactly what did not survive the trip.
• Pull three visual effects shots with handles at both ends, correct naming, a documented colour space and a reference movie with burn-in. Send it to someone who has never seen the cut and see whether they can line it up unaided.
• Recut a locked sequence, generate a change list, then apply that change list by hand to a second copy. This is what happens on every real show after lock.