We hire editors off the work, not the résumé

We do not read CVs very carefully. Not out of principle — they just do not predict much. Knowing that someone spent two years at an agency tells you where they sat. It tells you nothing about what they notice.

So the way in is to cut something.

What the trial is

Everyone gets the same material: one shoot day at a local business, roughly forty minutes of clips and a handful of stills. You make one vertical cut of about thirty seconds, captioned, with music of your choosing. You pick the angle. We deliberately do not give a brief.

That last part is the whole test. A brief measures whether you can follow instructions, which almost everyone can. No brief measures what you reach for when nobody has told you what the story is — and that is the thing we cannot teach.

What we actually look at

In rough order:

• Where you cut. Whether the edit has a rhythm or just changes shot when the clip runs out.
• What you left out. Restraint reads louder than technique. Most trial cuts are too full.
• The captions. Whether they sound like a person or like an auto-transcription that got tidied up.
• The first second. Whether you understood that it is the only one you are guaranteed.

Things we do not care about: transitions, effects packs, whether the grade is fashionable, and whether the music is licensed for commercial use — it is a trial, not a delivery.

What happens after you send it

We watch every submission properly, and we reply either way. A no is still a reply, and where we can we will tell you what we saw. If it lands, we book a call and get you on a real shoot's edit.

Two things worth saying plainly. The footage stays ours and should not go on your reel — it is a working client's business, not a portfolio piece. Your cut stays yours, and we will not post it anywhere.

If that sounds fair, the footage and the form are on the trial edit page. It should take under three hours. If it is taking longer than that, send what you have — we would rather see instinct than polish.