I wanted to give a deeper dive into how I think as an editor.

Not just what I do in the timeline, but why I do it. What’s happening in my head while I’m editing. While I’m sitting in the timeline — or the foxhole, as I like to call it.

There are plenty of tutorials out there. Plenty of places to learn how to use Premiere, Resolve, or Final Cut. They all basically do the same thing. Some tools are better than others depending on the ecosystem you’re in, sure — but that’s not what this is about.

This is about editing psychology.

Because editing, to me, isn’t about cuts.
It’s about emotional continuity.

Emotional Continuity Comes First

A lot of people learn editing as a visual or technical exercise first: where to cut, how to cut, what transition to use.

But that’s backwards.

The visual choices come second. The emotion comes first. Every cut exists to support how the audience feels as the story unfolds. If the emotion isn’t right, the cut doesn’t matter.

This idea is foundational in editing theory. Walter Murch argues that emotion is the primary criterion of a good cut, outweighing continuity, eye-trace, and spatial logic when those elements conflict (Murch, 2001). Editing, in this sense, is not a mechanical task — it’s a perceptual and emotional one.

As an editor — whether you’re a filmmaker, videographer, or producing content to be disseminated across different platforms — your real job is maintaining, manipulating, and curating how the audience feels throughout the experience.

Continuity is emotional before it’s visual.

Most cuts don’t exist to show something new. They exist because the feeling has shifted.

Cutting Where Attention Shifts

A lot of my thinking is rooted in a handful of books that shaped how I came up learning this craft: In the Blink of an Eye, Save the Cat, Rebel Without a Crew, and The DV Rebel’s Guide.

That era mattered to me. That’s when editing stopped being about buttons and timelines and started being about intention.

One concept that stuck hard is blinking.

Cuts happen when the audience blinks.
Cuts happen when a character blinks.

Blinking is a physiological signal that a thought has completed and attention is ready to move on (Murch, 2001). When I’m editing interviews, I’m listening to cadence. I’m watching faces. When someone blinks, it usually means they’ve finished a thought internally — even if the sentence keeps going.

Sometimes I catch myself blinking while I’m editing. That’s usually my cue.

It’s not something I calculate.
It’s something you feel.

That lines up with how human attention actually works. Attention doesn’t flow continuously — it operates in perceptual pulses, segmenting experience into moments as thoughts resolve and new stimuli take over (Posner, 2012).

Invisible Edits and Rhythm Over Speed

Good edits feel invisible.

You don’t notice them happening. You’re not distracted by the cut, the transition, or the technique. You’re locked into the story. When the edit disappears and the narrative stays front and center, you know it’s working.

I think in terms of rhythm instead of speed.

Every video is different. Every goal is different. Every narrative demands a different cadence. Social media loves to argue that everything has to be fast — new thing every three seconds, constant stimulation.

But fast doesn’t mean engaging.

Rhythm controls energy. Holding a shot builds tension. Cutting releases it. Space allows emotion to land. When everything is overcut or jammed full of effects, the feeling gets flattened.

Research backs this up. Excessive cutting increases cognitive load, which makes it harder for viewers to emotionally process what they’re seeing (Smith, 2013).

Overcutting kills feeling.
Kills emotion.

You see this happening more and more — even with AI. Overkill. Too much stimulus. Human emotion gets drowned instead of amplified.

Pacing Is Musical

Pacing is musical.
Pacing is musical.
Pacing is....
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cal.

I’m a musician by nature, so a lot of my edits start with music — or at least with rhythm. Dialogue has rhythm too: syllables, cadence, frequency. Editing is about reinforcing those rhythms visually.

Silence matters.
Space matters.

Just like in music, silence gives moments weight. Without space, you wouldn’t know where a verse ends or a chorus begins. You wouldn’t know when something starts or finishes emotionally.

Editing works the same way.

Structure, Story, and Juxtaposition

Story structure plays a role here too. Blake Snyder emphasizes that audience engagement is driven by emotional beats — not plot mechanics — and that those beats need space to land (Save the Cat; Snyder, 2005).

One of the defining characteristics of my taste as an editor is juxtaposition.

Contrast creates meaning. That idea goes all the way back to montage theory, where meaning emerges through the collision of images rather than the images themselves (Eisenstein, 1949). But juxtaposition isn’t about being clever or loud.

It has to serve the story.

If everyone is shooting clean 4K color, I’m not delivering VHS black-and-white just to be different. There needs to be purpose. Maybe we’re blending historical footage with present-day interviews. Maybe the contrast reveals something emotionally.

You have to understand the rules before you break them.

Guiding Attention, Not Showing Off

At the end of the day, I’m guiding attention.

I’m not trying to show off. This isn’t the place to test a five-second tutorial you half-understand just because it looked cool online. That’s not editing — that’s noise.

Filmmaker-driven workflows reinforce this idea. Both Robert Rodriguez and Stu Maschwitz emphasize clarity, momentum, and intention over flashy execution, especially when resources are limited (Rodriguez, 1995; Maschwitz, 2006).

The audience should never feel the editor.

When all the gears are working, the skill disappears. You don’t even notice the edit happened because you’re so locked into the story.

That’s the jackpot.

Editing isn’t about cuts.
It’s about feeling.

Everything else exists to support that.