0:00 – Introduction to Andrew
0:18 – The Workflow
4:49 – Andrew’s Journey
21:47 – Advice to People Starting
24:30 – Music Videos & Favourite Editing Jobs
27:45 – The Rise of Media Jobs & School Subject Choices
29:11 – Are Maths and English Useful for Creative Careers?
34:40 – Is University a Good Choice for Creatives? (and the Rise of Side Hustles)
41:38 – The Improvement of Software
45:48 – AI in Content Creation. Does It Pose a Threat?
52:15 – Outro

Introduction to Andrew

So today we’re joined by Andrew who is one of our school friends again hello he is a video editor mhm um freelance videoeditor he’s recently taken over the editing of this show as well as of last episode and he’s here today to talk tous about his journey into what he does now I think editing sort of halfway like

The Workflow

a halfway house it’s like it’s half technician it’s half you know you you half have to be a technician and I’m I’mnot the strongest at that that’s not what comes naturally to me and then it’s half coming up withan idea on your own or in tandem with someone else you need to be like I thinkthey say that editors make really good parents because they Norah nor Nora is adelight my child Norah is a delight Testament to that I didn’t just luck out um but they say that it’s goodyou’re good good listening and taking people what people are saying on taking their creative thing and not having tobe like no no I’ve got to just do my own thing or I’ve got to just collaborating yeah a bit of collaborating yeah I see Isee a lot of um things as half half art half science editing is one of themmusic production’s another one DJing is another one cooking is another one it’s like half of it is you have to be ableto do this technical stuff for it to to work and the other half is let your creativity sort of flow even somethinglike investing I think there’s an art and science to it you have all the technical stuff understanding thenumbers but then there’s a lot of quality stuff that you’ve got to think about you can be more skewing to one ormore skewing to the other so you can sort of be the sort of person who thinks in numbers exclusively and that I knowsome really good editors who think only in time code and only in you know I mean they’re freaks but but like but they butthey do think only in you know 24 frames or 25 frames how do I get you know andthey are just typing in time code typing in time code the whole time and then there’s some people like me who are abit more like puzzly shaped sort of people who go well let’s put it all in a big playmat and arrange the shapes youknow it genuinely is a bit of that it’s a bit of I get what you mean and and there are some people who sort of soundis more important from there’s some people who can’t start editing until the color right or until you know they haveto you might be a bit more in that camp I feel like you might be in the visual Camp probably a little bit you got theMatt mind as well you know I’m like 5050 John I think you’ve got the Matt mind I think you’re you’re all right for thatyeah I’ve done tests is literally 49 51% is it you’re a brexit’s[Laughter] worth yeah I think it might be yeah I mean Ilike throwing everything down and then creating a rough story line maybe I’ll get bored of doing that and jump intocolor they get bored of colors let’s do some sound work and then it’s just like okay let’s get all these little animation things done yeah and then soit’s like I get bored of a specific task if I’m doing it for too long so I might switch between but yeah I do layeverything out I think my my favorite thing is tolike Chop Chop veg first just do all like you know when you’re making like a stir fry yeah you’re making everythingand you sort of put everything into because I’m not a very organized person are you you both organized I’m I’morganized you you because you I’ve seen your bag it’s a my bag looks closer to John’s bag which I assume is anightmare we can we can link that video somewhere uh oh yeah I think I might SEI think that’s why it’s in my mind that’s why it’s in your mind it’ll be linked somewhere somewhere there Andrewput it there I do find that I need to like arrange things very carefully though for in order to be organized butthen it quickly turns into chaos it’s about how you put it back than how you put it in the first place I think Ithink it calms my mind the most if I feel like I can do better creative stuff if I’m calm and I’ve done all the chshopping I haven’t even done any of the creative stuff yet I’ve just got everything in the right place I’ve got all my little bits I I’ve already gotthe makings of it there and I in the same way with like a as it say find the corners of a jiga or something yeah orlike do the edges first get you know and R outline yeah and also like everything in a little pot like what’s it calledMison plas you heard of Mison plas it’s like everything in little bowls so that’s how chefs work they sort of likethrow everything in they’ve already done The Chopping everything’s there the coriander there you know the onions andjust ch it all in like a Subway yeah go into Subway it makes it so much easier when you’re not chopping whilesomething’s burning you’re sort of yeah it’s the that’s me basic fa it’s the fail to prepareprepare to fail thing yeah yeah I don’t think we’ve said it already

Andrew’s Journey

or not but Andrew does the video editing and he’s doing the editing for this so what took you down this thisroute um I email genuinely I was sort of Millingaround as a runner so Runner is like the lowest point below the table somewhere is therunner who has to get everything and do everything and onet yeah onset or even in the office just sort of like feringdrives around and also doing a little bit more creative work and being paid minimum wage obviously you know lovelyit’s a lovely lovely life uh you know I feel sorry you know feel sorry for any runners it’s toughum and I was Milling around that for quite a long time because I like the people who I work with and then I got anemail from another company so I was working at RSA and I got an email from is reallyyScott Associates um which I know I’m just saying it yeah but it’s it’s a verygood uh learning you know like a good training sort of area because it got youreally used to doing things the correct way because they’re so rigid and old school and you know you have to do things this way you have to organizeeverything this way and I don’t have that naturally um so I did that quiet storm who are a lovely company but likea bit more organized chaos you know bit more that sort of stuff but you get to see the whole process you don’t feellike you’re so removed from everything I I got an email from Dave who’s a lovely guy who’s the head editor there and Istill work with him now and he just said would you like to be an editor you know he said do do you know all theseprograms and I said yeah yeah sure sure say yes and figure out lateryeah I did a I did an editing course the weekend before Oh W so were you not editing before that not really I I I hadedited at University I did like a film degree and I sort of I I dabbled and I’d done a short filmI sort of edited a bit on that in Final Cut seven back when that was the thing I liked it but I didn’t I it wasn’t likeit didn’t appeal to every part of my sensibility I thought I might write more I thought like oh I like writing you knowand then I I let it go for quite a while and I did know Final Cut 7 which isclose enough to Premier if you change the shortcuts it’s all about just like changing the keyboard shortcuts to makeit seem like the other one and then you can learn pretty much any of the you know nonl editing bits of software andthen I I sort of learned that the weekend before cuz I was like I need to know that I can’t just look at a few YouTube videos I don’t know about youbut I can’t just I can’t just watch some YouTube videos and just teach myself and then feel fine with it I need a teacherto say this is the right way to do it and then I can watch YouTube videos off the back of that and learn how to do hedoes everything that way you watch YouTube videos he just yeah watches them yeah actually what’s the word forthat there’s a word for just like selftaught or is it auto dict yeah Autodict yeah I would I I mean I would start by opening the software or whatever it is I’m trying to learn trying to do it Imean there’ll be like a whole barrier before that to like actually have theself-confidence to try it but you have to fail at that get overwhelmed then goand look up something and that will bring you to another level and then you think oh actually I want to do this Iwant this text to be behind this person how do I do that okay this is how you mask this is how you take out the greenscreen yeah just whenever I feel like I need it in like of Vlogs and stuff most of what I’ve learned editing wise hasbeen from our from our Vlogs yeah CU I never done it before because they they’re quite complicated yeah they takea very long time but I had I kind of knew how the wholetimeline thing worked because I’d been producing music mhm so like I knew okay I knew how to key frame like I knew howto automate from and you have to use a compressor all that sort of stuff fromCU a lot of it carries across yeah yeah the the logic pro plugins are in Final Cut yeah they’re exactly the same yeahso the only bit I didn’t know is the visual bit the Transitions and whatever else but then I’m I’m on YouTube all thetime I watch it more than anything else so I would see okay that that person’s done this transition how do I do thatyeah you you already know the visual language don’t you yeah and you’re sort of basing it off of that I do get whatyou’re saying though because I like to learn with a structure in place like sobut I think I don’t know I just take to that quite well so you learn that and then that and then that and then thatand then I understand how it fits together so more like a course and alsoyou can bounce questions off of somebody who knows exactly because then you canask all those questions that you’d be asking to YouTube and I feel like I’d get I feel like I then get what theperson would say to do or they say do it the quickest way hopefully hopefully the teacher teaching you the quickest way to do something way well they’ll teach youthe way that they feel is more comfortable for them won’t always work for you no that’s true I think to reacha level of Mastery you do need someone who’s above you to actually show showyou how to do it like like as in a few steps ahead of you though not not like amaster teaching a novice cuz too far it’s like um well I don’t unless they’ve got the communication skills and theability to drop down andum down those teachers are like it’s like um was it ARthey we teach like some kid who might be extremely extremely good at maths and then I always kind of think they needsomeone who can offer enrichment so they’re they’re so strong at mass thennot really getting what they need in a school scenario or something like that but they need someone who’s a bit of anexpert to actually push them forward help them yeah help help them find waysto like push their Mass forward um it’s the same with where it’s like Sala I’mdoing it at the moment but I feel like just attending classes and stuff like that I’m still probably making a fewmistakes as I’m going MH and I need someone just to just point point out those little flaws in my dancing thatkind of thing yeah and I think you don’t also want to like bed in mistakes the worst thing yousee some in editing and probably in you almost certainly in daning as well whereyou you see someone who’s bedded in a mistake so far in that’s like that’s the way they do it and they and they knowand a teacher can look at them and go oo that’s really stiff and that you’re always going to be stiff because you’realways trying to compensate or something I don’t know why I’m sort of vaguely shimming in my CH you know maybeyou feel like doing some salsa maybe I do John maybe I do you’re actually a really good dancer uh I mean I rememberI’ve been just how long are we into this and we’ve been waiting forsomeone well we’re here now you want to just show everybody yeah no I’ll just knock all the knock all the cameras overup there the table and just start there something that you share with MattWalsh uh yes oh he was a professional John’s found a man with beard with abeard and glasses who looks like me whenever someone says there’s a man who looks like you it’s always oh he’s gotbearded glasses and brown hair but he also was a professional dancer I was heyeah before he went into hosting a showyeah what were the other options or were there any other options uh when you were deciding cuz you started as a runner youwent into editing I could have drifted for a while I could I could have drifted for along time being a Drifter I suppose if I’d found myself writing that wouldn’thave been a big surprise I did a little bit of um what’s it calledlike treatments and I also found myself doing a bit of script reading and stufflike that which is you know development is what it’s called yeah development um and I had some friends who moved into that with when you’re a runner there’syou’re essentially there’s like a plethora of options you could be you’re you’re in a production company which ispretty tram lines to being a a production manager than a producer you know then an exective producer whateverand that’s very much you’re going to be producing stuff and all of the runners diddifferent had different things some like props some like costumes some like you know script writing someone wanted toget behind the camera and it I never knew what I wanted to do so I didn’tI don’t think there was another option editing appealed to me as soon as it was given to me but it wasn’t something thatI like searched out and and the other things I don’t think I I think the only thing I I’d have been terrible behind acamera really I think I I know I think you’d be quite good uh I don’t like thepressure of it I don’t like the I like the fact that when I’m editing somethingeverything’s there you’ve already filmed it all I I don’t have to you everything’s here I just work with what’s been given to me and if it’s notquite right I can try and make it right and that’s like a puzzle but if I don’t hitrecord or like if anything you’re thinking about whether I hit record Ihope um but the the that sort of thingthat pressure I never wanted I never I never want I hated the immediate I hated being on set CU I hated the immediacy ofsets yeah if you make a mistake it’s it trickles down for the rest of the thing MH yeah so it’s kind of like a try tryseveral different things and see what sticks cuz there’s two different routes right there there’s the route of I always wanted to become awhatever doctor lawyer whatever I need to do this exam this exam this University blah blah blah your path ispretty much laid out before you whereas well on the other side the creative side of it you have severaldifferent options you might not know exactly what you want to do I never knew what I wanted to do no I ended up here because it’s what stuck yeah I I thinkthere’s a lot of that there’s a lot of it will be the thing that just sort of clicks with you and it might click for awhile and then move away I’ve got a friend who’s moved into editing now she’s pretty much same ages me she gotinto it about a year or no two years ago two three years ago she was working in development before she she was very goodat it you know she was working for Idis elas company she was doing you know good stuff and she’s now dropped down to youknow being a more Junior editor but I think she likes it more it fits her brain more and I think you’ve got to befree enough or like have the uh ability just to drop it because you can get tramlines you can just get like oh I’m GNA be this I’m always going to be an editor I might always be an editor I might getto a certain ceiling or like a point and then realize I don’t like I don’t like doingit anymore I don’t like you know that’s very possible yeah you got to be open to that otherwise you could just be like 50just like okay have you thought about writing alongside yeah and I think I will Ithink I will I think I might I might try and write something but whether it be any good is a wholeanother thing well first one probably won’t be but it’s just part of almost certainly not yeah it’s just how it isisn’t it yeah you look back at our first videos they were pretty bad but that’s how you learn that’s yeah you learn a DeLong yeah all right if someone wanted to hire an editor if you’re on the other side ofit like hiring someone like yourself what would whatum what would you what would you ask what like say if you had threequestions uh I think I would ask firstly I’d ask forreferences as opposed to what people do in the industry is like they ask for it’s portfolio based portfolio basedit’s either a show real or it’s just anything you’ve done so like the complete film so like say it’s an advertit’s an advert or a music video or like portfolio sort of stuff or it’s a show real which is just all the nice shotsall cut together show real I think is almost completely useless because it can show someone that you can edit a showreal and that’s it and that you’ve worked on a high grade of stuff that’s about it but you don’t really get sense of what the editor like yeah um and thenportfolio it shows that you’ve made nice things that are coherent but that might not that might have been despite yourather than because of you you know you might have been an absolute nightmare to work with a reference is something thatit’s like a director has said this person is easy to work with they are friendly they react quickly like theythey don’t you know they’re not stubborn and don’t block things so it is a bit ofthat it’s a bit of like a asking for resumés would really help or no not rumsreferences asking for people for references more useful than a resume yeah more useful than a resume yeah umsecondly I don’t know I think not being too I think it’s more what theyshouldn’t ask what they do ask in my industry is someone who has fashion experience or someone who has andthey’re sort of not accepting that it might be a skill that is applicable across you know regardless of previousrelevant experience an editor is an editor I think broadly if someone’s worked yeah if someone’s workedexclusively on music videos they can still cut fashion film it’s that sort of thing there are different types ofediting so like yeah there’s like retention editing or like music video we’ve got loads of different Transitionsand shots or whatever else or you have stuff like this where it’s just talking heads and you just cut between themcasually so there are different types of editors but the skill set required isthe same for all of them I would say that if you’re a chef who can cook to a high standard you can flip a burger youknow all like you know what I mean it’s chefs keeps coming up but like I think it’s sort of it’s a good analogyit’s relevant and I’m going to push it to the very end we keep bringing a b of food I’mhungry uh but I yeah I I think that that is true that then they sort of they thenreduce the pool of people that they get in so they go oh I only want fashion editors well what if all those fashioneditors are busy and You’ what you get someone with less experience but it’s relevant they’ve cut one fashion filmand that’s better than someone who’s had 10 years of experience cutting adverts that might have a bit of crossover I youknow it’s that sort of thing where they limit themselves because they go we need to tick this box otherwise our projectwon’t look the way it always looks most editors can watch something and then ape that yeah the way you’re talking aboutlearning from YouTube yeah yeah that’s it I think it’s different it’s coming from a different person’s skill set sothey might be more on the other side of their their brain compared to what whatuh you would be doing as an editor so they might be thinking okay they need to be this this this and this whereasyou’re like you know you can work with whatever because it’s you know how to doit and you can offer up right whatever you can also offer up different portfolios that have you know vastlydifferent content I could show them podcast stuff corporate stuff stuff that’s more like ABC cam as you’resaying I can offer up stuff that are music videos quick cutting or like TikTok I can do got some Tik Tok stuff have you Iknow I know your hatred for vertical video yeah I’m very aware me tooabsolutely it’s a Scourge and and they try and sort of fit the worst thing is they shoot you know 16 by9 can we do a916 yeah but yeah crop him look awful if you haven’t shot 4K then it could look really bad well if you have them shot 4Kit wouldn’t well but people still do you’d be surprised painful painful stuff really II find shooting in portrait disgusting yeah but it’s just the way that we hold our devices that’s just I prefer SquareI don’t I don’t mind square square is fine cuz it’s more like old Academy ratio which is like 4X five three forthree sorry yeah I quite like squares I’ve done loads of squares yeah it’s myfavorite sh actually triang isn’t it yeah I’m arumus what about what about circles infinite triangles everything’s made out of triangles I feel like circle’s quitegreedy isn’t it want to be Eternal the all the triangle is actuallyactually the the circle that split down circle’s the thing that starts Hill yeahthat’s true again I think I think circle’s arrogant we can all agree that triangleslike down to earth yeah yeah it’s building blocks everything there you go all J werenwrong were they definitely if you had like a young person going into your industry or

Advice to People Starting

looking to go into industry we’ve got obviously a lot of like people who like 16 17 18 yeah um obviously they’relooking for what their future career might be or maybe they’re not and they might not have considered it at all whatif you had to like give them some advice what would you what would you say if they were kind ofinterested um I would say I’d say be clear about what if youif you are the sort of person who knows that you want to be an editor and that you want to do that for the rest of yourlife and that’s your passion on the first not the first day but like a couple of weeks into working as a runnerbecause that’s what you’ll be doing you maybe in a post house or whatever be very clear about where you want to bewith someone who is a nice person someone who’s a supportiveperson because if you’re not clear about it no one will no one will no one will ask you they won’t know that you want todo that they won’t know that you want to be an editor they might be like oh I don’t know what they want might want towork in production or might want to work in you know something else and if you’re clear about what you want to do youyou’ll go further quicker because people will try and fast rate you people people don’t want to block you in most of thetime the good ones don’t so would you say people skills are more like one of the most important things being able totalk to people being able to get along with people knowing you know yeah I think if you’re likable and enough andand you’re not difficult cuz those things spread around yeah obviously you don’t want to be a dmat you don’t wantto be like aable to everything you you don’t want to be a yes person who disappoints butyou want to be yeah approachable and you want to be a sort of smiley friendly face when someone comes over and sayscan you do this you don’t want to be the person who goes no I’m going to go back to my cross wordyou’ve got to be the sort of person who and I think open I’m probably open to learning a lot of different differentthings because there’s so many skills involved and open to asking questions and and like acknowledging you don’tknow everything pretending that you know something and then desperately trying to Scrabble it together cons sometimes look really bad like saying you can edit andthen run to do a course but I could by the end of the weekend I’m joing that’strue you did it so it’s either AR arrogance or confidence orBrilliance yeah well it’s just like you have the confidence to know that you are capable of learning that yeah back backto the growth mindset thing we were talking about never done it at all before I think it would have been lessyeah but had some yeah what’s your favorite type of thing

Music Videos & Favourite Editing Jobs

to Ed I know I know that you’ve done a lot of the harryboads they they’re on Rails a bit like they’re very easy because theyve gotsuch a established structure they’ve been doing them for about 10 years years so they were there before I startedediting so yeah so I and I’ve done about seven or eight of them so I know exactlywhat the rhythms of that are I know what the process is so that is incredibly easy one maybe not all the time the mostsatisfying I think one that’s uh I’ve always like music videos but we aregoing done music videos done five or six why have I not seen these they’re on my website um okay I’ll have a look we’vewe’ve linked it below as well it music videos the money has just dropped outout yeah well I mean I’m in I’m almost in the wrong generation for being into music videos because 10 years 15 yearsearlier MTV and VHS and all that yeah I mean we were in a boom like a musicvideo might have the same budget as an advert or you know yeah some of the most expensive music videos of all time weremade in the late 90s early THS and after you know2010 nope yeah they sort of an afterthought now yeah it’s once umFacebook and Netflix became more of a thing yeah people started to get rid of their cable yeah and then I mean that’swhere they were before now they’re just on they’re either in fact they’re mostly on YouTube yeah and obviously Tik Tok orwhatever else but and you’ve actually got a weird thing where M the music videos being created at the moment aregreat like I think they’re better than the ones that were being made for big budgets like people are being very inventive with the lack of money but itstill is pretty it’s usually got to be like a oneman band or something it’s got to be like a it has it’s got to besomeone who knows after effect and can make something cool for almost nothing work ridiculous hours to get it done Iguess that’s the other thing because the the the software and Hardware is actually trickle down to Everyday Peopleyeah so you could just have a phone which is which has diluted stuff I think I I think there’s been an element which is great and handing power to people butalso it’s but because there much more yeah that’s probably why you need to have people that are able to do theseimpressive things to stand out from yeah the white noise that’s you know and people want to emulate a style that’snot very good A lot of the time because they see YouTube editing that sometimes be quite cuty and quite weird and offputting to me yeah and then they wanteveryone wants to Le videos to look that that way and you get professional editors doing things that are bad thingsthat are you know are not filmic or not flowing or not in I don’t like I don’tlike it like I don’t like the quick cutaways and things like that picture in picture suddenly freezing everythinggoing like black and white like a maybe a little meme popping up yeah I don’tlike I don’t like it hor stuff I don’t like it but it’s like you have to sort of I cater to your audience yeah I meani’ I’ve cut things that I’ve thought oh this is I would I don’t like this but it’s what the client

The Rise of Media Jobs & School Subject Choices

wants oh you went to you went to Brighton right yes yeah and you you didspecifically film wasn’t it or I did I film Theory film Theory whichuh not that useful doesn’t make you’re that employable I’ll level with you but it’s what you were interested in yeah noI loved it I absolutely loved it uh so I I don’t regret doing it and I don’tregret not I I I suppose doing a more practical course would have set me up a little a little bitbetter but yeah there’s probably like lot really good film editing courses andI think that from what I’ve what I understand there’s quite a few people doing doing stuff in college that likeFilm Production stuff in college where they actually do a lot of like these days it’s a lot more set up there’s alot more media like people studying media nowadays yeah a lot more we didn’teven have it as an option at our school I don’t think no we did not it’s not academic enough which I think is justsuch a yeah I I really didn’t like that we didn’t have we didn’t have graphic design we didn’t have um business youcould have done economics though which is just a more more I would havepreferred to do a business course I would never done a business course but we didn’t have that at school no theyjust all it’s not Latin yeah that’s not that’s another another good thing to go

Are Maths and English Useful for Creative Careers?

on to what what’s your opinion on how useful um like the stemsubjects how what like because obviously you’re good at like writing Englishwhatever else like how how much of that carries through into the the creative umjourney I think if you’ve got a baseline if you’ve got a baseline which I think maybe a maybe gcsc will get you up towhere you roughly need to be you know you just need to be as a a communicator writtenCommunicator you need to be at a certain level otherwise you seem less qualifiedmaybe than you are even though that might not be true if you have really poor grammar or if you’re you know if you’re a bit all over the place in anemail it can come AC across really badly obviously I think maths is obviously important I would be better at my job ifI was really good at maths I was going to say cuz when I’ve been editing there is there’s maths involved in that I Imean the great thing is you’ve got a calculator on your phone so you can do a lot of the you can do a lot of the mathsthere and you can also ignore the Maths for a little bit and just be a be more more shapes sort of editor more sort oflike then I guess you need to know what to type into the calculator as well yeah if you have to divide the number of frames by the number of whatever youknow what just eyeball it just guess I know what what’s where’s some instanceswhere it would have been useful to know a bit more MTH I’m interested I don’t I obviously don’t do this uh when you’redealing with sound mixing and sound to frame rate you know the frequency the Mmarrying that with you know that would be really useful it’s in troubleshooting as much as anything so if you if you cantroubleshooting that thing and fudge it and you can modify footage you can modify sound so that it adapt a certainuh speed so they can be lined up most of the time today’s editing software it’spretty automatic you can syn it you know if someone’s done their job correctly in the sound recording Department it shouldbe a breeze uh when putting all together but if something goes wrong the maths isimportant then and the maths of how it lines up and why something’s drifting why something is at the wrong frame ratefor the sound you know that can be that can be a bit of it I’ve that before yeahseveral times I didn’t know how to fix it I didn’t I didn’t know that’s what the problem was obviously I didn’t I’ve never I mean I I I just go forward wherethere’s like a gap in the talking or whatever and then realign and I just do several realignments yeah it’s happenedin previous early podcast that of edited it’s a problem it can happen yeah I wasconfused by that I was like why is it why is it drifting yeah yeah so it’s a frame rate issue it’s frame rate versusuh speed of speed speed speed of sound yeah is that time yeah yeah time so soyou you’ll see you’ll see and you can conform them and but you know obviously that can pitch that up or down dependingon whether you’re you know so the first time I found it was when working with us footage because that’s 23 that’s2997 near enough 30 um and UK is 25 andthe conversion to that meant that us stuff sounded likethis so so you know you have fix that and you’ve got to or you’ve got to get someone who knows how to fix that andit’s often about being able to verbalize that’s where the stem stuff comes back you’ve got to be able to verbalize thatto somebody you can’t just be internally knowing what that is you need to be able to exter externalize that I actuallythink like English is the most important thing but to know because becauseobviously communicating obviously a basic Mass very important but but English actually continuing to improveyour communication it’s very important yeah I mean the reason I ask is I’ve spoken to students here who have um whosaid oh you know they’ve been in a math class on Eng English class or whatever they’re like they’ve made like a oneoffcomment of like oh I’m not going to need this I’m going to be going into like advertising or I’m going to be going into into media whatever I was like orlike there’s a girl at Lon that was going to go into like fashion orwhatever fashion cooking kindsshe was like you know I’m I’ve read it a few times I’m not going to need this like I don’t need this level of Maths for whatever and I’m like you do realizethat when you’re editing a video or when you’re trying to get ratios of of likeaddress to work or whatever else you need to know how to do maps yeah like you you’ll be really surprised how howyeah like applicable it is applicable it is to to everything job it’s like if Iread like cover letters and TVs if I see like a certain number of mistakes in init I’m not going to no I’m I’m not going to bring that person in especially for that isn’t itespecially for something like Jor in but I think it would apply across the boardyeah because you’re like you didn’t take time to check the sort of Basics and itshows a lack of care a little bit as well because I mean most of these programs have little right squigglylines that tell you that you’ve made a mistake you know often um so it does show a little lack of care as well andlack of thoroughness that’s troubling yeah and that’s prettyimportant being an editor you know being sloppy it shows eventually it come up yeah you know it’ll trickle downsomewhere if you were like so advising someone who’s say leaving to go to

Is University a Good Choice for Creatives? (and the Rise of Side Hustles)

university or something like that would you actually would you recommend suppose they were going down into your careerpath would you recommend going to University would you say give it a skip do something else honestly social I meanit’s different now because we had a different uh amount that we had to pay you know AC crude debt we were on thelast one of the last years I had the 3,000 is now 9 point something yeah my sister was one of the first years tohave the nine um and it makes the decision different I mean it’s kind oftheoretical debt some of it but you know it is also real is there yeahum for the social aspect yeah for for that bit I think the people that I knewwho didn’t go and are in my industry they went up quite quickly but they they started out yeah of course and but theythey regret some bits of it I’ve heard them speak of that I don’t you know Idon’t have that sort of and I the camaraderie and learning something together you know being able to justmess around because there’s no there’s not much room for messing around when you’re working because people need tohit deadlines people need to deliver something it’s not like oh have a play it’s like the cost of failure is lesswhen you’re younger and and when you’re in that sort of student phase you’reallow you’re allowed to make more mistakes and that’s actually very good yeah it’s it’s quite restrictive to go Imean I think a lot of young people now seemingly focuson getting somewhere they need to get somewhere and they need to be driven or otherwise they what they’re flounderingor something or otherwise they’re not they need to have a side hustle they need to you know they they really do they speak in these terms it’s almostbit shocking cuz we were more concerned and it’s not good we were more concerned in just drinking and chilling out andnot you know not doing that which is it’s not not not necessarily A Better Way but the social side of things andbeing allowed to make mistakes and being allowed to work on something that actually might not have yeah I’ve I’ve noticed that I’ve noticed that a lotwith like say 15 16 year olds are so I mean they’re a bit crazy too butthey they they also impress me a lot like with their level of focus on oflaser focus on you know I need this uh say work experience I need this job Ineed this I was like when that used to be a thing like a long time ago and weIt’s s of coming back around to that so we would like the leisurely lot that were like yeah I was never likethat like I said I just did did whatever and then whatever felt around wherever I enjoyed and wherever stuck is what Iwent off and and did that’s quite a privileged position as well is it it’s that sort of thing where you’re likewell the reason I could do that is cuz I felt like there wasn’t too much risk to it whereas now they might feel there’s alot of risk to it there’s a lot of risk to noodling around at University CU that’s you know 27 Grand in yeah and youknow if they do a master is more you know yeah I’m not doing the maths on that I know the maths but you do I meaneven if you’re like that comes back to what we were saying before even if you are running your own business you need to know about all that sort of stuff cuzthat interests compounds and like you need to know how all that works yeah mhm y yeah yeah I agree with you about thewhole university thing I would double think it nowadays yeah um knowing what I know now but it’s still a nice threeyears isn’t it yeah I mean I wouldn’t I wouldn’t change my experience becausepurely for the social side of things CU I know people that didn’t go some peoplethat didn’t go off to University or they did do University but didn’t move out I think it takes them a lot longer to growup yeah and is like the the sort of the whole end you know means to an end sortof thing well you know okay you’ve got there quicker but have you enjoyed doing that like has that been an enjoyableexperience to get there when it doesn’t really matter if you get there at 24 or 27 it’s probably you know if you’refactoring that threeyear delay doesn’t doesn’t matter that much you know we’re doing a lot of things later anyway we’renot getting married at 21 we not the 70s we’re not you know we’re in London youknow you things are delayed things can be delayed yeah especially especially for aman so you know you can sort of I I think you’ve got to have the freedom tohave three years that aren’t as important or aren’t crucial to your development that won’t resonate for therest of your career University won’t it’ll be forgotten about it’s like a line on your CV isn’t it yeah that’s allit is makes me think though that like it needs well I don’t know it wouldbe good if if it were if it were sort of free at the point of delivery I thinkit’s like um it’s one of those things where if you spend a lot of money so like so it and then it won’tlabor people with so much debt and then although it label the country with a lotof debt but I don’t think it’s fair when someone’s 18 to like saddle them with 27no no and they don’t know that age either all free money that’s that’s the biggest problem with it I think yeahthey don’t I feel like it’s partly a little just little trick to keep you in keep you in debt and it’s not even 27kit’s interest oh it’s more than that a good it’s a good 30 to 40 yeah by the time you leave and it favors someone whohas say Rich parents or you know familiar wealth because they can draw on that and pay it off and they don’t paythat interest you know and it really doesn’t favor those who are because a lot of people are not going to beearning they’re going not going to be earning enough to be paying off above that interest you know a lot of people are going to be earning below that and Ithink it’s a bit about opening your eyes to that yeah being aware of it I wasn’t aware of it no we didn’t need to be Imean nine nine grand is not not insurmountable debt it’s not nine no h it’s per termisn’t it how’s it per term I thought no no no like um like like when we wentwhen we went yeah when we went it was it was like I don’t know was it like 4K orbut it would have been also accommodation so it’s like yeah my my mymy my debt is more than it ended being but but like just purely for the University education it was probablyaround it was like been 3 something for that and then another 3.3 formaintenance loan yes so it’s like not nine it’s more like 18 19 yeah and nowthey’ve got like nine for the degree but then they’ve also they they have accommodation to pay for so it’s like bythe end of it yeah and accommodation has gone off in yeah it’s about 40 by the time they leave yeah I remember goingfor like the cheapest accommodation I was like of course it’s pretty heavy stuff thoughyeah I’ve got like two technical questions I suppose um what is

The Improvement of Software

editing what is um uh how is like inyou’ve been using software for for a while how has it improved over time likethat from what you you can see sort of um I think software software is likeyeah the software that you use is it’s harder to tell it’s like you know a afrog in water and the temperature’s raised and you don’t realize it’s really hot you know it’s a bit like that because software because it’s getting uhCreative Cloud gets and Adobe stuff gets updated every three months and usuallythe first three months that it’s updated it’s a disaster because they it’s all in be bug fix bug fixing a lot of that sortof nonsense um and they do it so often that you don’t really feel it you feel it incrementallychanging and it’s only if I looked back at a 20 when you look back now if you if you took your phone and went to lookback at a iOS from 10 years ago you like this is this is what we used yeah this is you know it’s like seeing yeah iOS isfrom back then in forance you see them now you’re like gross it’s intrinsically linked to Hardware as well remember yeahlike if the hard the hardware is not as fast as it was now it can only be as good as the hardware allows it to beback then and what I was about to say about Hardware because the hardware is where you that’s the bit where you cuz you get I’ve just got a new laptop but Imean even when I got my old laptop there was a jump then and it’s because you’re just jumping you’re doing it all at onceyou’re like oh I’ve got more RAM and I’ve got more you know my CPU or whatever it all of that is more tangibleto you because you’re like oh suddenly my speeds of rendering are down by half and suddenly what would have taken halfan hour and also like transfer rates you know we day we we spoke about this the other day it’s you know a the strongestcable that I which was like a FireWire 800 when I started um I never hadfirewire yeah rubbish but you know it was it was better than USB 2 or whateverand it would get you know it it would take like to copy across a load of rushes it will take like a half a day ora day depending on how big and now that is 3 minutes yeah you know like 10minutes if it’s massive 20 minutes like you are you’re surprised when it takes longer than that I remember having torender out edit before a meeting it’s a 30 second editthat took 4 minutes used to take four minutes that was a software and a hardware thing yeah um and you’d alsothen have to put it on a little stick and that would take two minutes because it’s USB 2 and all of the likeeverything just builds up builds up builds up and that process now is immediate almoston the render and you send it via you know via the strong Wi-Fi and you knowit’s that is like a minute now rather than being 20 25 minutes you can do things like just before a meeting startsyou can make changes to an edit and just boom boom and everything’s out you know it’s impressive in that sense I thinkthat’s both a software and a hardware thing it would be interesting to like get like a really old computer andoh we’ve got yours I mean and we can put like a really old old vers yeah and thensee how long it takes to do something face it would be disgusting it would make you feel I can’t live my life likethat I can’t I just need I need something I need to be fast even even with one of the fastest computers thatis out at the moment my brain’s quicker than that like I’m thinking like three steps ahead of what it’s doing and I have to wait and having it hold me upwhen doing an edit even with the new computers is still it still get some nI’ve tried playing the Game Boy Color recently just like to see and I couldn’t do it like I which which pixels Marioyeah I I was like what horrible I mean it’s it’s retro it’s nice but it’s alsolike but when it came out you’re like this is revolutionary yeah the little printer it had the printer printer thecamera the camera I never had it but I used something school had it I think yeah yeah yeah Iremember and I know I’ve got like a a final question but uh do you think that AI poses a

AI in Content Creation. Does It Pose a Threat?

great front to videographers in editors so existential question I suppose yeahto really stress me out right at the end um I mean I was just thinking when when you were saying about um I P the samething when I was saying you know when you were saying my my brain that this is going to be a computer talking in 10 years going this he’s humans we just wegot to get rid of it thinking too slowly uh it’ll be a couple of you know cyborgsor uh I think if they can edit for me fine uh no I don’t have a job um keepyou around for a bit yeah until the new version comes out I think AI is incredible fordoing doing menial tasks very quickly that used to take ages you know subbing for Now is really good and we’re talkingabout text-based editing which you know you can get ums and S out it’s still makes loads of mistakes it’s still butit will you know by its very definitional it will learn it will it will keep getting better and it will eventually surpass but then I think thebiggest thing was the Gap the biggest thing is the gap between what a producer knows or like what someone in a companyknows and what the editor knows because if the gap’s big enough it doesn’t matter that much for now because a lotof what you’re doing with AI really quickly they’re assuming you’re manually doing and then as soon as they figure that out then it crunches all the timesdown of how long you get given to do stuff because they assume AI is always going to just like you know somefunction is just going to do it quickly and people didn’t know about the subbing thing for ages sub subtitles reallyquick now takes two minutes used to take about a day so because you you know ifit was a 15-minute video you’re going you’re almost tying typing in used to be a and you’re shifting it around and itAl also quite buggy on premere it was also quite like it sometimes it would just do weird things and now it’s justlike it’s you just see a bar move across and then it just types them up and then all you do is just read it through readit through and format to make it look nice and that that take two you know that’s like you can highlight it all at once so yeah yeah still find it makesmistakes with um oh yeah difficult words or like company names company names people’s names and even even accents aswell because a lot of it based on the American accent so when you say specific words in an English accent doesn’talways get it right and this this is very much like this is classic sort ofit not being very clever we were doing kids from Glasgow for our new Harbo advert worst useless like it was it waslike I I almost bunch of question marks the only thing it had done was time out the sentences but they were absolutegobble that were just you know all over the place just just nonsense cuz it couldn’t understand it you know it wasn’t hadn’t been trained and you knowthere’ll be a there’ll be an accent bias there’ll be a racial bias there’ll be all these biases built into these thingsand they’ll be useless at certain things and they if you’ve got a CEO talking in a very clipped manner reading off anauto que sure but when It’s Tricky is when humans are so useful then so it’snot it’s not a threat yet but it will be I mean I’d be silly to not say that it’sgoing to be a threat it’s it’s I’m going to lose my job at some point yeah hopefully I built up enough Capitalbefore then you know that’s the dream isn’t it but like we said in the um AI podcast it’s thecreativity yeah that as well yeah but I I don’t think that will be a barrier one day Idon’t it would be a replication of creativity not genuine creativity yeah but then it will still serve the samepurpose that’s the I mean you got uncanny it be it’d be similar to uncanny valley thing and and also people makingmistakes and that becoming suddenly an interesting way of doing something you lose that you homogenize it becomes youknow pasteurized milk doesn’t it’s not like it becomes like oh a standard block of cheddar cheese rather than all theselovely things which are made from mold you know all these lovely blue cheeses you know it’s that sort of thing the way I can the way I can uh chefsagain what what are we having for please get me some food why why reminds me ofis like again music production so if you were to type in a load of high hats forexample they all come out at the same level yeah the same velocity yeah andthe same pitch mhm there are actual plugins that you can Chuck onto that to humanize it to like cuz if you’replaying the drums you’re not going to hit every single one at exactly the same time right so there’s plugins that likeshift the high hats on some of them slightly offbeat slightly different velocities to make it feelmore human so it feels a bit like that the same with AI text so you can throw it into something to humanize it butit’s like yeah I I that’s what I mean that that actually just shows that youcan yeah yeah yeah like eventually you’ll be unrecognizable between the twolike a human and a yeah like yeah it’s going to distort reality for sure as well I think I think I think even nowlike I see things and I’m I don’t know whether it’s yeah like watching like a Jo Roganclip like you can see they’ve been like deep fakes and whatever else like I thought that was real yeah you need andlike I’m I’m good at picking up on these things and I thought that was real yeah yeah it’s already getting to that pointonce it’s got that um handle of hands and eyes yeah I think those are the twothings that tracking with with it with quick movements and things like that because that’s that’s quite hard but having said that if you want to writesomething and then make it you’ll be able to just write in characters andthen then AI will be able to create those characters they already exist by the way yeah it’s it when I saw the wasit the Google advert was all like oh you can adapt your photos and you know all of that and the magic AR themagic I didn’t go oh great I went I don’t know well here it is beginning of the end okay here we are you knowthere’s the whole question of like is this now a photo or is it not a photo anymore yeah there’s a whole likephilosophical debate about that and there’s the if as soon as you can repli replicate reality convincingly it becomesincreasingly more likely that we’re in a simulation you know that is that that becomes that’s like the Tipping Point isn’t it where you well as soon as youcan recreate it then okay well we can no we’re all all within asimulation already yeah there a big part of me that actually believes that right

Outro

what a lovely note to end in um thank you for taking time out of your busy new parent freelance editing life I’m going to have to edit the bags out from under my eyes um yeah no I appreciate you coming down so after all that talk about food all the analogies we’ve been using about cheese and starters and stuff we’re going to go get some food for this guy delicious yep thank you for watching if you’re watching us on YouTube don’t forget to like And subscribe if you’re on Apple give us a follow Spotify give us a follow and a review and we will see you next month the education Lounge[Music] podcast