Jordan Jeynes - Editor
Job title - Editor
Experience - 4+ years
“It’s extremely hard to explain how I make each narrative decision, but it just comes out in a flow state. Time passes way too quickly in this state. This stage is my favourite as it is the most pure and creative. ”
Describe your job role and the kinds of projects/clients you work with.
I am the Lead Editor of the post production department of a video agency that works with brands to create video content like socials, TVCs, corporates and everything else. Both the types of clients and the types of outputs can be extremely varied and I have adapted to be flexible in my approaches, and had to become a bit of a jack of all trades - I've had to develop a full array of post skills like colour grading, sound editing and animation as well. Besides editing, running a department involves managing the data and files for the entire production schedule, managing and working together with other editors to make sure we're doing the very best we can do.
I also get the occasional treat to work on some passion projects with wonderful artists and creatives, like music videos or instagram series!
What does an average day look like in your post production working world?
An average day is a fruit salad of a few different things, including meetings and emails, uploading and archiving things, then I get stuck into some editing. A director will brief me in on a project and tell me how the shoot went, and what the client expectations are. I will receive cards from the shoot and carefully ingest these onto a backup server and a working drive, and set up my project from a comprehensive template. Working on Premiere, I always start by making selects, and prepare these in chunks on the same timeline.
I like to separate the clips from the cards into two bins: interview/PTCs and Broll. Then, I bring all these clips onto a sequence.
Once I have the sequence of all the footage, I create and title a new sequence labelled as selects. I open the footage sequence and the selects sequence and lay one under the other in the premiere view. So, on the footage timeline I am usually watching at double speed, and when something piques my interest, I can easily click and drag the clip above into the selects sequence.
Then it may be overkill, but with our shoots there is usually so much footage to get through that I will make selects OF my selects, to only get the really good stuff. And then with this, I duplicate the new selects sequence and I begin to shift clips around and honestly I just vibe until I feel like the story is there. It's extremely hard to explain how I make each narrative decision, but it just comes out in a flow state. Time passes way too quickly in this state. This stage is my favourite as it is the most pure and creative, and the workflow after this largely involves working to incorporate feedback with clients and producers until the final product is reached.
What has been your career highlight?
While definitely not the biggest or fanciest edit I've done, working with an animal rescue service has been one of the highlights so far. When you are usually working for brands and corporations, it feels good getting to use this niche skill to help do some good as well.
How did your career in post production begin?
It sounds quite silly, but it was decided in a matter of minutes in my second year of uni. A teacher of one of the editing units asked me to stay back for a few minutes after class one day and they said I had a special innate eye and should consider pursuing it further, and joining the local editor's guild. And basically all of my career so far can be traced back to that moment, so I'm very grateful to that teacher. Other than that, I worked my way up the old fashioned way. I kept learning and developing, and freelanced with various local brands and companies until eventually I was offered a full time position at a great company where I continue to develop my skills.
Women in post you admire?
When I started working full time, I was introduced into an all-female post production department. Every high-ranked editor, post technician, lecturer, I'd met in my work by that point were all men. Meeting those women and seeing how respected they were and the great work they were doing was a pivotal moment for me. Representation is important for specifically this reason. It's getting easier to have these big dreams in male dominated industries, but all you ever hear is how painful and difficult it is (which of course it can be, and has been at times). But physically seeing these women out there kicking ass makes it seem real and makes it seem actually possible, and a bit less lonely. That feeling of "hey, that could be me someday" is so motivating.
What advice do you have for other women wanting to start a career in post?
I think every woman in this business is doing her absolute best, and I definitely don't have enough years on me to offer any solid advice. But if I could give myself advice back at the start of my career, it would be to be less agreeable. I opted for undervaluing my services and being the most agreeable person in any room. It's certainly one way to get your foot in the door, but it has formed habits that have been hard to shake as I try to progress my career and stick up for myself professionally. I think this is something a lot of women in all professional settings struggle with, as a defence against the extra scrutiny we often face in these arenas.