How Many Editing Reps Have You Done Today?

Person doing a push-up in a dimly lit room with editing screens in the background, symbolizing the discipline and repetition behind editing mastery.

There’s a dangerous myth floating around for years about our art form. It’s a myth that I encountered way back in the late ’90s when I was starting in the industry. And it went like this…

“How do I get really good at editing? (Young Paddy)

“You can’t teach it. Editing is instinctual, you’ve either got it or you haven’t.” (Old Editor)

I cannot tell you how many times I heard this phrase, or variations of it, and how frustrating it was for me. High end editing was described, and still is, as a kind of secret, black magic art form that only a few natural born geniuses touched by the editing gods have mastered.

Bullshit, I remember thinking back then and to be honest my opinion has not changed since.

There are many reasons that this mindset still exists today. The way the industry is structured, the way film schools teach and how training centres try to impart the theory of editing virtually guarantee no progress is made.

The fundamental engine, the fuel that guarantees mastering this beautiful art form isn’t difficult to figure out. But it’s not a sexy subject in the academic and teaching world because it’s so simple.

Here it is…

Continual and relentless repetition.

Daily Trips to the Editing Gym

If you want to master the art of visual storytelling on the timeline then you have to start thinking about editing like going down the gym. You’re building editing muscles every single day. You can’t expect to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger after a couple of gym visits.

It’s as simple as that.

We live in an age that tries to hack the millennia old systems of mastery. The internet is full of shortcuts, cheats, ten easy steps to whatever. The victories on this path are transitory and shallow. True mastery however comes from dedicating a major part of your daily consciousness to this art form and for a sustained period of time.

Every time you load a new sequence, assess a new shot, make a new cut — that’s a rep.

Every time you position a bit of B-roll to align perfectly with a line of dialogue. That's a rep.
Every time you nudge a reaction shot half a second later so that the emotional impact is more powerful…

We don’t talk about it like that in the industry, but we should. Because the craft of editing isn’t something you learn like software memorisation. It’s something you embody. Something that is mastered through huge repetition.

You don’t become an editor by reading editing books.

You don’t become an editor by watching YouTube breakdowns.

And you certainly don’t become an editor by adding the title “Editor” to your Instagram bio.

You become an editor by sitting your arse in the chair and doing the work day in day out.

You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Every single day. Just like going down the gym. Just like learning an instrument. Just like learning how to shoot. No one is going to do your press-ups for you. If you’re serious about teaching yourself the craft, this post breaks it down step by step.

My Reps Started on Big Brother

Around the millennium, I started cutting the new and emerging genre of reality TV — and I got the chance to work on one of the biggest global shows of the time. Big Brother, now, it wasn’t glamorous. There were no slow-motion beauty shots. No orchestrated music or big complex narratives.

Just raw human chaos and a never-ending supply of conflict.

Every two hours, there was a tape change. New footage coming in. New conversations, new glances, new arguments, new fragments of real life that needed to be shaped into an engaging narrative.

It was relentless. You had a few moments to strategise after the day producer came in and gave you a bunch of highlighted transcripts for potential stories.

You had to watch the raw footage feeds, sense the emotion, the potential start of the scene, the end and build it on the fly. Not in a few days. In a few hours.

It was total immersion.

Twelve hours a day.
Six days a week.
Three long months.

Hundreds of scenes. Thousands of decisions. Reps on reps on reps.

It was stressful, sleep-depriving and anxiety-inducing as they pushed you relentlessly to create.

And it was also amazing.

Because when you think about nothing else apart from editing - when you eat, sleep and dream editing for most of your day, your creative instincts get sharpened incredibly quickly.

Full creative immersion is the quickest way to turn yourself into a high-end editor.

How Much Mental Real Estate Does Editing Take Up?

Here’s a question no one asks:

What percentage of your mental real estate is occupied by editing?

Be honest. Is it 90%? 50%? 10%?

Because the truth is, if editing is just “one thing you do,” you’ll never get as good as you want to. Not truly. You might get competent. But mastery — the real thing — requires obsession. So consider this…

If you gave yourself just one year, and thought of nothing else, you’d transform beyond belief. You’d become fluent. You’d stop second-guessing every decision. You’d become instinctual.

But that requires focus. That requires eliminating distractions.

So if this is something you’d like… ask yourself:

What’s getting in the way?
How many hours do I spend scrolling, browsing, comparing, consuming — instead of creating?
How often do I open my editing software with the same energy as someone checking their email?

There’s no shame in admitting the truth. But there is a cost.

By the end of this year, you could have done hundreds of thousands of editing reps.

But only if you show up every day.

The Real Test Isn’t Creative. It’s Spiritual.

Here’s something they never tell you in film school.

The hardest part of editing is not creative. It’s spiritual.

It’s not “how do I build the perfect sequence?”
It’s “how long can I sit in this chair, feeling awful, and still keep going?”

That’s the real test.

How long can you feel:

Uncomfortable
Inadequate
Panicked about a deadline
Convinced you’re talentless

… and keep going anyway?

Because that’s often what separates editors who go far from the hobbyists. It’s not talent. It’s not taste. It’s tolerance.

With tolerance you can learn anything. Any cutting pattern, any cutting style any editing skill.

Can you sit with the blank timeline — heartbeat pounding, inner critic raging — and start practicing?

When I lecture at film schools and look out amongst the audience, I can usually tell who’ll make it in the industry within the first minute.

It’s not based on their reel.
It’s not based on their software skills.
It’s based on their relationship to discomfort, focus and distraction.

High-end editing is a slow and methodical art form. It requires enormous patience and a relentless passion for detail. Pushing yourself through all of your internal creative insecurities is one of the most necessary aspects of learning any art form.

There Are No Editing Prodigies

I’ve been lucky enough to work at a very high level in the industry with some truly talented editors, directors and producers. And through all of the thousands of hours in edit suites I can tell you this…

The truly talented men and women I’ve seen throughout my career weren’t magic, they weren’t natural prodigies, they were just… relentless. They had a drive inside them that couldn’t be turned off despite all the long hours and stress.