Oh my goodness! (Ahhhhh!)
After being in the edit chair for 3 weeks (and dying to tell you all about it), everything has officially gone through, and I can now talk here about being an editor! (Eeee!)
I loooooove my job. I love it. I love it so much.
I do the headlines editing at the show, which means that I edit the clips that roll in. You see something about Hillary Clinton, or Fox News, or any of that jazz on our show? Most likely, I was the one who edited that!
And I love it. I love everything about my job.
It’s the perfect mix of everything.
It’s the perfect mix of using the technical side of my brain with the creative side. In the montages, I have to try to get the comic timing right. (Well, I have to get the timing right with everything – not just montages.)
Sometimes I have to cover a shot with a different shot to make things flow better. There are all these little creative decisions.
And then there are all these technical elements – making sure I give the control room the correct amount of padding on both sides of the SOTs (that’s what we call the rolls – standing for Sound On Tape). I need to put the ticker and date in the correct place and have things fade off with the correct amount of time.
So, creativity + technical business = A+.
It’s also the perfect mix of working alone and working together.
In the morning, I sit with the (ever-changing) script and edit the rolls until the afternoon comes and a producer comes in to work with me. Then we all watch rehearsal and see how things play. And then we work on re-write. (Then I do some other while the show is happening and after. (We’ll get there soon.)
So, I get my alone focused time in the morning. I get my hands-on together time in the afternoon. It’s lovely!
Also, I hate to admit in writing that it’s actually sort of nice to have a work life balance – because I do love to live my job. (And goodness, I have in many ways done that haha.) But now as an editor, it’s actually a fairly normal schedule. And there comes a point where work is definitely over because the show airs that night. I feel like I get to go in in the morning, give the show my full heart and attention, and then leave it behind – because it’s going on the air. It’s a fantastic feeling (and indeed a pretty fabulous work/life balance).
I also love how every day brings something a little different.
I’ve had a day where I had to build two rolls. And I day where I had to build 19 – including some with special effects. There’ve been days with no re-write changes, and days where we build montages from scratch during re-write. You’re never exactly sure what you’re gonna get, and I just adore it.
I looove my job. I have found my perfect niche here, and I just love it. (Have I mentioned that part yet?)
So happy for you that you made full editor! I recall how happy you were about being assistant editor, and this is the next step up! Go get ’em!
Thank you so much, Kevin! I am so ridiculously happy! 🙂