Justine Robilliard - Editor
Job title - Editor
Experience - 20+ years
“I live by a certain mantra, that is “PREPARATION+OPPORTUNITY = LUCK”, The better prepared you are, the better quality opportunity will come your way.”
Describe your job role and the kinds of projects/clients you work with.
My job is TV news video editor. I work for the national broadcaster here in Durban South Africa, I work freelance for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC. I have only 1 client, the SABC, it is my sole source of income, and I have been freelancing on and off for 26 years now.
My work is short tv news inserts, of less than 120 seconds, 2 minutes, I work mostly in English and isiZulu, I work on a 2006 mac pro running Mac OS X Lion and Final Cut Pro 7. It works, not hard to learn, but has a few minor bugs that can catch the inexperienced.
What does an average day look like in your post production working world?
An average day is a whatsapp message, "can you come in??" I live only 4km from the studio, so it takes about 10 minutes to drive down, once in the office, I get an update on the diary, who is editing, then I go to the edit suite..
I use my own mouse and headphones, and check that all the projects are loaded, and filed correctly, if there is archive searching to be done, I do this first as any searching slows down the mac to a crawl.. It is a 32bit operating system, and 32bit only allows for 2GB of RAM to be used for each task, even though we have 32GB of RAM, this is not always available due to the limits of the OS to 2GB...
What I normally do is record the voice over using quicktime, then save this as a .mov file, I then use StreamClip to convert the file to AIFF, for some strange reason, .mov requires rendering within FCP7, so it is more efficient to convert to AIFF, then import this into FCP7... Archive clips are copied from the source to the project folder and imported, we still use P2 cards and SD cards and Log+Transfer into FCP7.
Editing is done by 1st-laying the voice over on audio 1, then interviews on video 1:audio 2, repeat until the end.. I then go back and add B-roll on video 1: audio 2 in the gaps between voice over, and pan the sound on track 2 to 1 or far right, the voice is -1 or far left..
What has been your career highlight?
My career highlight?? I guess it has to be being the only TV news video editor on duty during July 2021 when the province here was under siege, what we call the "July Riots" when there was mass looting, folks died, malls set on fire, factories destroyed...
It is hard to pin down one career highlight, I guess being the senior crew member in the studio, having to make calls about things that happened, about being the only person responsible, having to find solutions to a technical issue, and I am just a school leaver with no technical background, it is hard to say, I would say every shift has been a highlight, or maybe it was finding a huge story about car hijackers, during an election in 2009.
Personal highlight, was my trip to the USA, to Vermont, in which I was involved in politics, in the formation of a union for HomeCarers, AFSCME, here is video of me marching in Montpelier Vermont. AFSCME 2013 MARCH At 0:09 seconds into the video, I am the lady on the screen left holding the banner, with the white house symbol pointing to me...Again at 0:37. me taking a large box of ballots...
I have had a lot of fun in what I do, have done, and fingers crossed hope to do...
For me going forward, my one dream, is to edit on a plane, a train, a boat, all three, to start and finish an edit on a plane, a train and a boat, to finish my career as a travelling editor, I have no idea how to do this as I am quite autistic, and really don't do well with crowds or people, hence the career with tv news video and studio, in which in the studio, I work alone, at the audio desk, and have contact with folks via the comns station..I don't do well with crowds.
I am sure that out there, there is someone that needs a brilliant flawed video editor, that sends me raw files and I return brilliant editing, I have not won awards as most of the time it is self nomination and that is just wrong, if you like my work, then nominate me, fine, yay, but I cannot nominate myself, that feels so wrong..
How did your career in post production begin?
How did my career start, actually a bit by accident, I have always since childhood been a theatre bunny, loved acting, and then in primary school become interested in audio and lighting..Then one day I saw what has become the moment of my life, there was a tv show broadcast here called E.N.G, about a tv company in Canada, and they showed the various crew, cameras, directors, on air talent, journalists, and then the TV NEWS VIDEO EDITOR.. A female tv news video editor...
Of all the positions, she had the best job, and one line from the show stuck with me" "I have the power to make or break your career with 1 edit..." Holy fatstick Batman. This hit home, then I went to high school, and kind of forgot about this, not 100%, you see I am trans, and she being female stuck with me, I worked hard in the live theatre we would do once a year, for a week once a year, called Supper Theatre, 5 shows over 5 nights, I hated school, and working in the theatre was for me life, it was my heartsong...
Once I reached grade 12 I had to make a decision, about something to study, so I enrolled in a local course for lighting and sound design, and it was here in my 2nd year editing sound effects for live theatre that the passion for editing awoke, and sometimes just "luck" happens, the national broadcaster had a small live show in the evenings called KZN-2-Nite, run by students mostly, and there was a vacancy for someone with an audio background, and I went down and applied, and was accepted..
As a result of being at the broadcaster, I started playing around with editing, and soon got the confidence, and this is key.. CONFIDENCE IS 100% the key to success..And after a period of internship, I was offered a tv news video editing contract...
I worked weekends, holidays, and as a relief video editor when required, sometimes more stories and not enough editors, that sort of thing, this was from 1998 to 2009...
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your career.
I guess this came about in 1995 when I was editing sound effects for a live theatre production, as I was a student back then and thinking this is fun, this was before the introduction of non linear video editing, we had a very expensive for the time pc that could do audio track editing, I thought this is so much fun, I want more of this, and the college I was studying at, offered a Diploma in Video Technology, I re-enrolled from year 1 and started the course, it was in my 2nd year of this diploma that I got involved in live broadcasting at the SABC, South African Broadcasting Corporation, and that is how my broadcasting career started...And remains...
Women in post you admire?
To be honest, I don't know of many women in broadcasting, not in outside broadcasting, and not in tv news video editing, granted I have not been exposed to much beyond this field, I did try for years and years to get into the BBC, but I think my lack of a degree or diploma or the lack of a showreel prevented this.
What advice do you have for other women wanting to start a career in post?
What advice I have? That is simple, I live by a certain mantra, that is "PREPARATION+OPPORTUNITY = LUCK", The better prepared you are, the better quality opportunity will come your way.In other words, the more you do now, the better, when I started in the 1990's there was only 1 type of editing, tape, it was either VHS to VHS, or Betacam SP to Betacam SP, the same principles applied...
Now in 2022, we have pc and phone apps that are free or very inexpensive, and you don't need a ton of money to edit, to film any more, a phone is just perfect, so start filming and editing, practice, practice, practice, shoot and edit, read wikipedia, read forums, learn and understand and become involved in forums, watch old youtube video.. I learn new techniques weekly as at some point, I have to do something I have not done before, or not for a long time, and it is true, "use it or lose it".