“Documentary editor as writer” is a concept that has long been taking shape in my own mind, and it’s a maxim I’ve come to embrace more and more. Recently, groups like The Alliance of Documentary Editors have been championing the idea, stating “The Documentary Editor is also a writer” in their ADE Guide for Documentary Edit Schedules, which seeks to clarify more than just schedules, but also the multifaceted labor involved in the mysterious editing process.
It’s tempting to visualize the writing contribution of a documentary editor as swapping a couple of scenes on the storyboard or editing down the words of an interview – acts that are done frequently and contribute vitally to the final piece. (And of course there’s always the literal writing of narration and text slates for films that employ those devices.) But the true scope of documentary writing goes much deeper than all of that, and it can be difficult to articulate the nuances of it.
This Indiewire article about the editing process of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed provides an excellent example of how foundational the writing work done in the editing process is and how it reverberates through every fiber of the film, informing all the editing to come and often forging the very form and themes of the film.