Every Frame Counts
An Assistant Editor’s Reference Book
Cover Design by FILMOGRAPH
In The Media
📆
Setting Up The Show
Everything you need to know to get up and running for the first day on the job—from setting up the printer to setting up the Nexis.
🧑💻
Media Composer and FileMaker
A deep technical dive into the tools assistants use in the context of a cutting room.
🎬
Dailies Workflow
Soup to nuts coverage of the dailies process in excruciating detail, including a nifty downloadable checklist! You’ll love it.
🔊
Audio
ADR, full 5.1 workflow tips, how to address complex music sync notes, and an overview of the mix stage.
👾
VFX
Tips for creating temp VFX and managing the workload of a VFX editor. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about FileMaker.
🎨
Digital Intermediate
What to expect when you’re expecting to spend time in the DI. Color pipelines, Titles, Review sessions… you name it.
🍿
Screenings
How to prepare for screenings—internal, external, and preview screenings.
📦
Turnovers
Let’s make sure our naming conventions are consistent and our encoding is efficient.
✂️
Best Practices
What do we do when the editor is, well, editing? Manage versions, communicate using markers, make sure the project is backed up… and more!
Frequently Asked Questions
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Great question. I wrote what I wish I had when I was starting out: nuanced advice and insight into the mind of a 1st Assistant Editor. Many resources are scattered among blogs or interviews, in various books written by editors (not assistants), and the vast majority of lessons can only be learned in-person. I wrote this in the same way I speak when people shadow me on the job, so it’s as close as you can get to the real deal. It’s comprehensive, holistic, approachable, modern, and perhaps at times a bit funny. Oh! It’s also cross-referenced to high heaven, so you can navigate it real real quick and get the info you need exactly when you need it.
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Mostly on the job, working in cutting rooms run by some of the smartest and most talented individuals anyone could ask for. I read excellent books like Avid Agility, Avid Uncut, Make the Cut, and frankly the Media Composer manual (and forums). I researched technologies I didn’t understand, took a ton of notes, and did a lot of listening.
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Relax, it’s 300 pages. No, but this evolved from detailed notes I took while working in the industry, so it organically came together over time. I would categorize my notes and bookmark them for my own reference, adding to them with each job I worked on. I’d revise sections as I noticed patterns and commonalities. When the idea of “publishing my notes“ came up, I then had to spend a lot of time making sure my tenses were consistent and my commas were placed correctly (shout out to my copy editor, Bigboy).
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Yeah, of course! Even if the specifics are a bit advanced, it’s good to have them in your periphery. Total immersion is the name of the game. Knowing how the pros work (omg I’m a pro?) can inform the questions you ask in class and help better prepare you for the job you’re most likely to be hired into after graduation.
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No the book does not. The FileMaker database I reference throughout the book has never been sold or available for sale. Every Frame Counts does have a chapter about how you can create your own database though, and maybe you’ll choose something other than FileMaker! Check out Master the Workflow and Doom Solutions for purchasable FileMaker-related things.
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It’s around 50 bucks! I think it goes on sale sometimes. But 🤫🤫🤫 all of the screenshots and PDFs are “support files” which are available in full color and for free to anyone, even if you choose to not buy the book. Here’s a taste.
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Click the cover above to go to Routledge’s website, take a trip to Barnes & Noble’s website (this is considered a textbook so it’s not physically in stock at most stores), try Bookshop.org if you want to support local book stores… and I’m pretty sure it’s available on some big website that begins with an “A”.
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Despite being (in part) a technical book, many of the underlying methodologies and approaches should outlast the shifting technological landscape. That being said, if there’s an opportunity to explore a second edition then there’s certainly a roadmap. Part of that roadmap includes more screenshots and illustrations, additional chapters, and a torch-passing to another assistant. This is a book written by an assistant for other assistants—and I intend to always keep it that way.
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The very first batch of printed copies had an issue with some of the cross-reference pages. This has been rectified, but you’ll know if your copy has been affected if on pg. xiii ”Taylor and Francis” is mis-spelled as “France”, plural. Click here to download a PDF of the inaccuracies for you to annotate your copy with. eBook owners can “check for updates” to refresh their digital copies.