Three Reasons To Hire a Story Consultant

This is part 2 of my column for my San Francisco Film Society column “The Edit Room” about hiring a story consultant.  A post on Doculink entitled “Story Consultants Gone Wild” points to the growing popularity of using a “story editor” (that’s proper term in the narrative world) for structural advice.  This trend has grown in tandem with the large number of filmmakers who are now editing their film themselves. While the practice of editing one’s own documentary is still frowned upon among seasoned pros, the reality of funding cuts and the large influx of people using affordable digital cameras have spawned a new, do-it-yourself generation of “one-man band” documentary filmmakers.  While many of these filmmakers are intelligent and experienced, the majority can benefit enormously from the expertise of a story editor.

Of course, if you can afford an editor to cut your entire project, this is preferable.  And if you are already working with an editor, hiring a story editor to augment your existing collaboration is a great idea.  While some editors may fear being replaced by a story editor, this is rarely the case, unless the editor isn’t up to snuff to begin with.  Even then, many editors moonlight as consultants, but they rarely want or have the time to usurp the editing role on a documentary project for which they are consulting.  If your editor’s ego is threatened, reassure them, and hopefully they will be confident enough in their skills to welcome the perspective of an outside consultant.

You may be wondering why you need a story editor at all if you have a professional editor?  There are three reasons.  First, your editor will eventually lose perspective too, just as the director, or anyone who works with the material long enough, will.  You’ll need a fresh eye, someone who can view the material anew, just as your viewers will see it.  The second reason to hire a story editor is to help mediate the often volatile and creatively chaotic director/editor relationship.  A story editor/consultant provides a valuable third opinion, and he or she can marry the best of two conflicting structural approaches–or provide a third approach that works even better.  Finally, a story editor specializes at seeing the big picture and can quickly hone in on structural issues that may blind an editor who has been busy cutting scenes at a micro-editing level.

Both editors and directors can benefit from my own story consulting lore in “Editing the Character-Driven Documentary.” This 6-part e-course is based on the popular weekend seminar that I teach at the San Francisco Film Society.  This seminar gets rave reviews, including this comment from Paige Bierma, a student at last week’s class:  “This class was invaluable for bringing into crystal-clear focus how one brings a 3-act structure to a documentary film.  Karen is inspiring and the documentary clips she screens are extremely useful…It exceeded my expectations.”

Check out this 6-part e-course and learn my own story consulting secrets at https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.