What's a standby editor?
The channel decides, after seeing the first three rough cuts, somewhere around week 8, that they want to change the series direction...
Arghhh...Panic stations!
All the edit teams workloads have just been doubled!
Does this sound familiar?
You’ve set up a production and the shooting goes smoothly.
Your edit teams are booked and ready to go.
Editor 1 starts, later Editor 2 starts and later still, editor 3 completes
the edit team.
Everything's going to plan when, suddenly…
An editor is taken sick, an edit falls behind schedule, the channel decides they want to go in a new direction, It could be anything...
Whatever happens, you have to cope with it.
So, what do you do? Put the edit team under pressure to 'just deal with it'?
Book another editor? For how long, a few days, a few weeks?
It took ages to find the team you have, and they have to be available immediately! If you do find one, you have to get them up to speed, quickly.
Quick! book someone...
Or the worst case scenario happens...
They come in, the producer briefs them, they find all the sequences, they find all the clips, they find all the bins…
Well that takes time so you can wave goodbye to their first day…
and when they do finally get up to speed and start being productive,
your original editor’s back from sick leave…
What now???
It's a good plan...but what's it going to cost?
You've budgeted for one editor per show, for 6 weeks.
A fourth, standby editor, will cost the production 5% per show.
If booked for the last 8 weeks of the edit schedule, when it's likely to be at it's busiest, that’s less than the cost of 3 weeks of an editors wages.
Put another way, spread across a 6 part series, that's less than half a weeks editors bill.
Is it not worth that for peace of mind?
I think most Producers an Production Manager’s would say ’yes’.
Well luckily, this is not your first rodeo, so you have secured the services of a seasoned editor as emergency cover at a fraction of the cost.
but you don't panic, because you had the foresight
to think of this before the edit began...
Feed me 1.5 days work a week and you've recouped the cost.
3 edits suites, 6 shows…12 days over 8 weeks…that is easily filled.
6 sets of snap-ins will easily account for 8 days
Just relieving one or more of the edits of Snaps-Ins, title seq, Instagram lifts, TikTok, Facebook and other social media lifts, international lifts and don’t forget the WOO’s.
And that's before you factor in the exec who wants a a selection of clips compiling for MIPCOM, DocFest, International sales team...
If you’re not convinced, look at it this way...
You have a seasoned editor on standby, for the last 8 weeks
Who knows the production because he's he's been onboard since the production began
Who knows the material and is up to date with the cuts
Who knows how they've been received by the channel
Who's across all the channel's notes.
They know the series, because you kept a standby editor in the loop.
The standby editor knows that the production had an interviewee drop out because you kept them in the loop.
You found a good replacement but they're not going to interviewed until that shows been in post for at least a week.
But it's ok because the standby editor you've got as backup has been kept them in the loop.
If it’s just taking the strain off of a team under pressure it could be;
It all eats up precious time from the edit schedule.
Food for thought...got any questions...drop me a line...
Edit notes on a show or a part.
Doing a sync assembly for a show that’s falling behind.
Painting B Roll on a part to help out.
Eye matching archive that's just arrived.
Swapping music cues the channel aren’t fond of...
(that’s a real time suck)