Film editor
and creative producer.
Emotion matters more than a beautiful shot.
If a cut changes nothing in what the viewer feels, it has no place in the edit.
Every cut should move the story forward.
The viewer either learns something new or wants to know more. Everything else can go.
A good edit has a pulse of its own.
I look for it in the scene and shape every cut so that separate shots become one movement.
I track where the viewer’s eye is at the moment of the cut and pick up the next shot at the same point.
The eye never has to hunt for what matters.
I keep eyelines and movement consistent from shot to shot. Whoever was looking left keeps looking left — and the cut doesn’t break the scene.
05DirectionI keep the geography of the scene intact: the viewer always knows where the characters are in relation to each other.
They never have to work out the space instead of following the story.
Whether I’m editing a reel, a YouTube video, a series or a commercial, every cut is tested against these six questions. Walter Murch set them out in
In the Blink of an Eye, and I’ve made them my working tool.
“Editing is one of my favourite crafts. But I also love building stories from the other side —
when there’s no footage yet, only an idea. That’s where creative producing begins.I come up with the concept, find the right form for it, put the team together
and see the project through to the finished result. Sometimes I take such projects on
end to end — YouTube channels, shows, web series and other formats that grab me.”
First and foremost, I’m a storyteller. Whatever role I’m in — director, screenwriter, editor or creative producer — my job is the same: to tell a story that makes the viewer feel something.
Anyone who’s been in film long enough knows:A film is born three times: when it’s written, when it’s shot and when it’s edited.
Often attributed to Robert Bresson
The third film is my favourite.
And it’s probably no accident that this is where it all began for me. In New York I stumbled onto a student film project, and one of my very first hands-on moments in filmmaking was the edit. I volunteered to cut the footage — simply because I wanted to try. And it turned out I was good at it.
Then came the New York Film Academy, directing, screenwriting, producing and projects of my own. But editing has remained a special stage of filmmaking for me.
At this point it no longer matters how everything was planned or what it was supposed to be. What you have is the footage — puzzle pieces from which the story has to be put together anew. You find its rhythm and its emotion, cut what isn’t needed and keep only what makes the viewer feel.
Good editing goes unnoticed.
The viewer simply lives inside the story.
My main tool: from the rough cut to the final edit.
Titles, lyric videos and animated graphics inside the piece.
Thumbnails, covers and graphics for videos.
Generating and refining images, video and sound.