transcript From Interview With Liana Del Guidice

What attracted you to editing?

From the age of about 11 onwards I used to visit what was then ATV Studios ( now the BBC Elstree studios) during the summer holidays. My step-father was a Film Librarian and his room was near the corridor of cutting rooms, so he would ask the editors who were a pretty friendly bunch, to let me sit with them and watch. Those cutting-rooms were never dull, I could touch the film, hang it in trim bins, wind it onto spools, lace up the Steenbeck and play the film backwards if I wanted. What a great way to earn a living, I thought. There was something magical about holding moving pictures in your hands.

What was the career path that you took?

I was convinced that I wanted to become an Editor and so I found a degree course that seemed to be practical: ‘Film Theatre and Television Studies’ at Winchester College. The course was a new one and dreadful. I stopped going to the Theatre part of the course fairly early on, after being asked to mime wading through baked beans. I didn’t think it would ever be a useful skill to have, and to this day I have never needed it. The Film part of the course consisted of watching films, and the Television part made use of the small TV studio where students took it in turn to act, direct, shoot, edit, etc. The editing equipment was awful but at least those of us who were interested could use the available kit and spend our time in the TV studio rather than attend the Theatre lessons.
At the end of my first year, I decided that there was little point continuing the course. I was itching to get out there and actually work in a cutting-room, so I wrote hundreds of letters and knocked on various doors until I found a Freelance Editor who was prepared to take me on as an assistant editor. ‘Can you sync and number rushes?’ he asked ‘Of course’ I lied in reply. I had seen the process of synching the rushes at ATV so was fairly confident that I would be able to do it. On my first day in the job I confessed that I had never done it before but was a quick learner. The editor agreed to try me out for a week, but told me that if I couldn’t get up to speed I’d be out. Thankfully, I managed to bodge my way through and by being thrown in at the deep end I quickly realised that I was learning much more than I would ever have learned had I continued the degree course. After a few months I got a job at Thames Television as an Assistant Editor which was a great training ground. I had the opportunity to assist on a variety of programmes: documentaries, dramas, news etc and because I was still only 19 when I joined, by the time I was 25 I applied for the post of Editor and got the job! In the next few years I was able to learn linear ‘tape to tape’ editing and non-linear systems before being made redundant when Thames lost their franchise. It was the perfect way to be thrown into the freelance market.

What is the best and worst thing about your job?

Being freelance is for me one of the best things about the job. No job is the same, you are constantly meeting and working with different people and you never stop learning. You are either challenged by directors who have very clear visual ideas or you struggle to tell the story with mediocre rushes that require a lot of imagination and push your skills to the limit.
It is also very satisfying to start each project from scratch and see it through to the bitter end.

I consider myself lucky because I thoroughly enjoy my job and therefore can hardly find any downsides to it. However, it is true that your days are often spent in solitary confinement. If you are unable to spend hours alone in a small room then this is not the job for you. The rest of the crew is a huge group of people all working together like a traveling circus troupe and the editor is far from the madding crowd.
You can also end up working long hours as the schedules seem to be getting shorter and often all you can do is try keep up with the work load and meet the deadlines.


How has the industry changed since you've been around?

The industry has certainly changed for anyone beginning their career. Editors are often expected to work without assistants on TV jobs and when we do work with Assistant Editors we are often so busy that we can not spend the time to show them the tricks of the trade or to allow them to edit. Therefore it can take longer to get your first break as an Editor.
Technology is ever-changing and you have to keep up with the latest equipment. Over the years I’ve gone from editing on film with a ‘Steenbeck’, to linear video decks and then changing again to non-linear systems and their constantly updated software. But one thing never changes: your skill and your craft is what ultimately matters the most.


Tips on editing?

This is the hardest question. I don’t think editing can be learned. You can learn how to use the equipment, but after that it’s down to your own instinct. There is no right and wrong way to edit. Give the same scene to ten different editors and we would all cut it differently. A lot of the so-called rules of film grammar have disappeared ( i.e. ‘crossing the line’ thanks to shows like ‘24’).
I started out editing Documentaries and I think this has really helped my understanding and interpreting of Drama scripts. When you edit a documentary, you are shaping the story from scratch and often being forced to make the best out of footage that is badly shot or unclear story wise, especially in the more observational documentaries where there isn’t a very defined path to follow. The skills learned by cutting documentaries are very valuable: I think they certainly made me quicker and more accurate when I started to edit Dramas, where the script already dictated the story and the mood.
The way you use the shots will determine whether you are creating the necessary tension within a scene or even diluting it into comedy. As an example, I edited Doctor Who immediately after finishing working on a comedy series. One particular dramatic and tense chase scene was described as being ‘cut for comedy’, when it was viewed by the writer and executive producer.

Is editing a predominantly male field? How have you experienced this?

Editing is not gender specific. Traditionally it was a female role, editors were often the wives or girlfriends of directors and it was considered a female skill; women were supposed to have a better grasp of film rhythm and the telling of human stories and had the patience to organise the rushes and look through hours and hours of footage. But then linear editing arrived on the scene bringing with it a need to understand a more technical way of editing and so it has become a more male dominated role.