The Invisibles, or No Job Is Worth Having Your Earlobe Fondled By Skip Gates

I'm an assistant editor by trade, which makes me something between a janitor and nanny. I clean up the mess editors make, generally keep the equipment functioning, while doing the grunt work of data management and information tracking. At the same time I do a lot of the actual organizational thinking for handling the media elements, advise editors how to use the tools, and most often perform a post-production supervisory role where I'm doing the strategic planning for getting the show to online with the correct elements in the correct formats.

I mean, read that list again. I'm basically a producer, with the only material difference being that I'm not given a budget or any input into the creative process.

It drives me nuts.

I work on a lot of low budget broadcast documentaries, which by and large have longer production cycles from the bulk of the broadcast television you see. Some of the Food Network shows, for example, are turning out half hour shows in a matter of days, whereas the show I'm working on now has a ten week post production cycle for an hour long PBS show. So it could be worse for me, certainly. I get to choose, to a limited extent, the shows I work on, so while I'm not getting paid what I deserve, I at least get to be involved in some worthwhile or prestigious shows with some talented people.

But it's still a dead-end job.

It's possible I lack perspective, but there doesn't appear to be any opportunity for advancement when you make yourself indispensable as a support system. I don't get to learn anything about the craft of editing (which is basically storytelling through artful omission). I'm most often hired by people who are underfunded and uninformed about the post-production process, and my job is to prevent them from totally shooting themselves in the foot while rushing to get the show finished. (Lack of planning is a big handicap in post-production, surprise surprise). Not only don't I get to participate in the creative process, however, but by being branded 'assistant' I'm totally denied the credit due for getting some of these shows finished at all.

Humbug.

Believe me, I'm not about to get into some Chuck Palahniuk rant about how the downtrodden should rise up blah blah blah. But after engaging the business at this level for this long it becomes apparent that the system is unsustainable. There's no degree of 'apprenticeship' for assistants like there has been for generations of filmmakers before - I don't even get to interact with the editors most of the time. So where are the next generation of editors going to come from? Options for aspiring editors are few and far between. Assistant editing work just gets you more assistant work. Directors often cut their own movies, inspired by the likes of the Coen Bros and Soderberg. And other working editors are scrambling to get paid just like I am, so why would they help me get my first job when they have a mortgage and kids to feed? Is it alarmist to say editing is becoming a dying art? Um.. Probably, but I'm taking a pretty short-termist, myopic view here.

If producers could buy a version of Final Cut Pro that did the editing for them automatically (control/apple/Edit), we'd all be out of a job.

As another editor pointed out to me, if I really want to start editing professionally I need to get a job on one of those Food Network or Home Gardening shows, working for peanuts with no time to finesse the edits or grasp the 'story' (if you really want to call it that). Not sure if I want to commit those terms, frankly. For me, the most practical advice I've been given since moving to NYC was when Paola Gutierrez-Ortiz pointed out that I should stick to working on shows that I believe in. I've amended that to also include working with people I enjoy and respect, and so far that's worked out okay.

Apart from that glass ceiling.

So I'm developing my own material. Finally. The only way for people take take me seriously is for me to start taking myself seriously. I'm working on a collaborative project that is going to pull myself and a few other of my fellow 'invisibles' into the foreground. If only for a few moments. There's too much talent around to go unnoticed and unrealized. At least that's how I feel about it.

More as it happens.