What Does the Editor Provide to the rest of the team?

If they’re shooting film, provide dailies specs for the lab to process the film to video. Dailies specs are guidelines that are given to a film lab technician so that he or she can prepare your film and transfer it to videotape in a way that fits your editing workflow. Spec sheets are also useful for video shoots, either on tape or tapeless. Here is a copy of dailies specs that I have used over the years, though every editor or facility may have variations. You should build a sheet of your own specs based on some of the finer points you can glean from other people’s specs and your own needs and experiences.

You should provide contact information for you and your assistant, if any, or anyone else under your supervision. This should include cellphone, email, AIM or iChat, or anyone else that matters to your operation. It is not wise to give out home phone numbers unless you are OK with being hounded by people while you are eating dinner at 1:00 a.m.

You should provide the producer an email that summarizes the editorial-relevant procedures outlined in the pre-production meeting. Nothing covers your ass better than good communication, no matter how redundant it may seem. It should include a summary of the specs for graphics and sound mix prep, rough cut screening, mastering format, and things like that the client has OK’d doing final color correction on FCP in-house and so forth. If you don’t do this, then you have no recourse other than your word against your client’s that you agreed to do things a certain way. This could end up costing you money or time or both. You want your clients to spend as much money on you as possible and be happy with what they’ve gotten for it, so if they look at your summary of pre-production and decide they want to “upgrade,” this can also serve to your benefit.

You should describe how you want the production team to document the shooting process in the script or shooting notes. You won’t always get script notes that indicate favorite takes, but if someone is going to do it, tell them how you want it. Ask to have the script notes sent to you along with the tapes, not after. You will need the notes for digitizing and organizing selects.