Real-Life Decision Making
While they are technically under the creative control of directors, film editors have a huge impact on the final product -- the movie. What they cut, how they cut it and the techniques they use to make cuts seamless all have an impact on how a movie will be viewed by audiences.
You are a film editor hired for a major movie. You are in the final stages of editing the film. In fact, you are on an incredibly tight deadline. The studio wants it in theaters in time for the busy Christmas season, so your normal editing schedule has been condensed from three weeks to one.
That means rushing and making plenty of decisions on the fly. After a particularly long night, you head home for a little sleep. The next morning, after a cup of coffee and a review of yesterday's work, you start editing again.
You are cutting and splicing together two scenes. The director wants there to be no gap in the film -- he wants a jump cut from one scene to the next.
However, as you try to make the cut, you notice that there is a flaw in the master copy of the film right at the end of the first scene. If you make the jump cut, audiences will see the glitch in the film as a blob of yellow running across the screen.
You know you can't move ahead until you solve this problem. You also know it's hours before the director will be available to answer your questions.
What do you do?