Cut through the pain, and your film gains

Video is unfortunately a poor disseminator of information. It’s effective; it engages the mind visually and aurally in a way unmatched by other media. Try to cram in too much details, however, and  it won’t be long before you find your audience glazed like a box of donuts.

You have to make choices, and decide what to leave in and what to take out of the final cut.
 You need to know your subject matter and your material thoroughly. You need to keep on message and dispassionate in your editing.

Often you’ll find the scenes you love most to be the ones most irrelevant to your story.
When that happens, you have to put aside any emotional attachment to the specific material and cut it out.

Detachment to something you worked so hard on doesn’t come easily, that goes without saying. Suffering through the early starts, the hours standing by under the blazing sun, the late nights and temperamental talents; you grow to love even the blandest of projects.

Ruthlessness in editing does not come easy. The ability to be objective towards your own work is a skill and needs to be trained.

To do that, you must first acknowledge that you may be biased towards your own footage. Get another pair of eyes to a look at it to gain perspective. There should be harsh comments, it's not empty praises we're after. Be open about them but don’t put your entire trust in them either.

The idea is not for you to ape the opinions of others, but to be able to be objectively critical of your work, and improving it.

You’ll find the more you do this, the more clear-headed you’ll be, and you’ll find your projects better for it!