Video editing

What this is

This is coordination, and it is worth being blunt about that before anything else. I do not edit video. I write the brief, choose the editor from a handful I have worked with for years, agree their fee, set the deadline, check every cut against the script and the brief, send it back with specific notes when it misses, chase the revisions, and pay them. You deal with one person and receive one invoice.

It is not a production company and it is not a post house with staff. It is also not me learning an editing suite on your budget, which is the failure mode when a writer says yes to everything. What I am good at is knowing what the cut should be, which is a writing problem, and then making sure it arrives on time from somebody whose actual trade it is.

In the wider version of this arrangement, across writers, designers, photographers and translators, it is called contractor coordination. This page is that same job narrowed to one specialist and one kind of file.

When you need it

You have footage, or you are about to have footage, and nobody in the building can cut it. The common case is a shoot that produced three hours for four finished pieces: a two-minute company video for the home page, two shorter explainers, and a set of clips. Each of those needs a different cut of the same material, and each needs somebody to say when it is right.

The other common case is an editor you already like who never gets a usable brief. Work comes back wrong, gets bounced twice, and the relationship curdles. That is almost always a briefing problem rather than an editing one, and briefing is the part I do.

You do not need this if the job is one long recording chopped into social clips, which is a narrower and cheaper piece of work sold as short-form cuts. And if you already have an editor and a producer who brief them properly, you do not need me in the middle. Say so and I will write the script and stop there.

What goes in it

• The brief. Written before anyone opens the footage: what the piece is for, who watches it, the run time, the structure beat by beat, what must appear, what must not, the aspect ratios needed and the delivery formats.
• The editor. Chosen for the kind of piece it is, because the person who cuts a warm founder interview is not always the person who cuts a technical product sequence. You get a name, a rate and a reason before anything is booked.
• The review. I watch each cut against the brief and the script before you see it, with timecoded notes. You look at it once it is close, not while it is still obviously wrong.
• The revisions. A fixed number of rounds, agreed in the quote, chased so they happen inside the week rather than whenever the editor next has a gap.
• The paperwork. The editor invoices me. You get one invoice, itemised, at the fee you approved in advance. Nothing is spent that you have not agreed to in writing.

What you get

The finished videos. In the formats and aspect ratios the brief named, in a folder you own, with the project files kept so a re-cut in a year does not start from nothing.

The brief itself. Filed with the work, so the next piece of the same kind can be briefed the same way whether or not I am involved.

The editor's details. Name, rate and contact. They are your contact afterwards, not a secret I keep to protect the arrangement.

One itemised invoice. My coordination fee stated separately from the editor's fee, which is passed through at the rate you approved with nothing added to it.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Halifax marine services company films for two days at its yard: the owner talking, a hull repair in progress, and three customers interviewed on the dock. It has about four hours of footage and a website with no video on it at all.

The brief specifies four pieces: a ninety-second company film for the home page, two ninety-second pieces on the services it most wants to sell, and six short vertical clips for social. One editor cuts all four over three weeks. The first cut of the company film arrives with the owner's best answer buried at ninety seconds, so it comes back with four timecoded notes and returns fixed. The company manager watches two versions of each piece, approves them, and gets one invoice showing my fee and the editor's fee on separate lines. The company now knows what its own video costs and who cut it.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What footage exists, what the finished pieces are for, and when they are needed. No charge.
2. The brief and the quote. The brief written first, then a fixed coordination fee and an estimated editor fee, both in writing before anyone is booked.
3. The editor. One recommendation with a rate and a reason, for you to approve. Within a week.
4. The footage. You hand over the files, the script if there is one, logos, type and any music you have the rights to use.
5. The cuts. A first cut typically ten to fifteen working days after the footage arrives for a set of two or three pieces, reviewed by me, then by you, then revised.
6. Delivery. Finished files, project files, the brief and one invoice, in a folder you own.

What it costs

Quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, with my coordination fee stated separately from the editor's fee so you can see exactly what each part costs. The coordination fee depends on how many finished pieces there are, how many versions each needs and how long the project runs. Editor fees are passed through at the approved rate with no mark-up. The pricing page explains the four ways of working, and both figures are fixed in writing before anything starts.

What happens next

A finished cut is not a finished job. It usually wants the speech burned in, which is captions, and the text in the frame that a silent viewer reads, which is on-screen text and lower thirds. The same footage will normally yield a highlight reel for the top of a page or the start of a pitch. And if the recording contained more than the video uses, repurposing turns it into an article, posts and a newsletter section. This piece of work is complete on its own, though, and nothing further is assumed.