The Diary of an Editor
I have notes.
Rough first sketches of ideas, the occasional film, and the tools I'm testing. Some of these turn into videos.
Start here
It Was Never to get an Audience
Half the kids in the country want to be a YouTuber. I was one too, before the job had a name. So I went back to find out why.
A small part of a very big ocean
The Blue Planet III trailer launched today. Six episodes, 25 years after the original. I was brought in to help on the last two, and they're the ones I'd watch first.
The Screen Changed. The Story Didn't.
The BBC is closing channels and resting shows that shaped a generation of TV makers. I'm one of them. So what do you keep when the system that trained you starts to shrink?
You can learn Avid for free now?
Avid First, the free Media Composer, has been around for years. Until now, it wasn't one you could learn the job on. I spent an evening testing the new version to find out what's changed.
Six conversations in four weeks
The people who make television know things you can't find in a manual. I gave myself a month to ask them. Here's what it took, and where it's taking me.
Do I still have to watch everything?
A new app called Cutdown sorts your rushes into selects before you open your edit. No AI, nothing uploaded, and the free version does the whole job. I ran nearly 12 hours of my own footage through it to see what it gets right, and what it can't.
The room I keep building
Every maker has a reason they only half understand. I found mine by writing down how I built two websites. It goes back to a dark room in 1998, and a question I didn't ask on Jura.
I bought Resolve from the wrong shop
Same name, same icon, same software on the screen. But the DaVinci Resolve Studio you buy on the Mac App Store isn't quite the one Blackmagic sells. Here's what I found out the hard way.
It started on a beach on Jura
Some ideas arrive at a desk. This one arrived on a Hebridean beach, with a camera in my hand and a clear diary. Here's what it turned into, and where it goes next.
Backrooms - It got me thinking!
A cinema in 2026, a camcorder in Miami in 1990, and a film that never once explains itself.
It Was Never to get an Audience
Half the kids in the country want to be a YouTuber. I was one too, before the job had a name. So I went back to find out why.
How I started
A wise boss, a producer's hunch, and a two-minute film about ducks. How I started editing in 1998.
That camcorder was the size of a horse.
For twenty-eight years I fought the gap between what I could imagine and what the machine would allow. Last week it wasn't there.
Videos live on YouTube.