The Film Editing Room Handbook: How to Tame the Chaos of the Editing Room, Fourth Edition

2. Your Home—the Editing Room

The first time I entered a feature film cutting room, I was looking for work. I had heard of a film called The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (the original version of the film—you do the math) that needed an apprentice film editor. I reviewed the few film books I could find, trying to gather enough information so I wouldn’t seem like a complete dunce when I went for my interview. I took only two steps into the cutting room before realizing just how useless all of my reading preparation had been. Several walls of the room were stacked, ceiling to floor, with hundreds of white boxes, each labeled with one of three or four colors of tape. A series of editing tables were stacked with equipment and supplies that none ...