Editing Scorecard
Editing is a powerful craft that takes time and practice to perfect. The key to all editing is distill someone’s content down into as short a piece of content as possible.
Great interviewers will spend thirty minutes with an expert or politician then edit their comments down into a twenty or thirty second sound bite that captures the spirit and essence of what they said during their thirty minute interview.
Your job as an editor is to cut out anything that does not support the comment. Be ruthless. Chop out waffle, tangential comments and irrelevancies.
When you cut, remember to both watch the audio waveform on the screen and listen to it. The final arbiter of your edit is your ears. Listen to how the edit sounds and be sure it is natural and the phrases make sense.
Here are things to look out for.
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- Content
- Is there any part of the interview that if taken out, will not change the overall message? = 5
- Is there any waffle or irrelevant commentary that you don’t need? = 5
- Could the interview be shorter without taking away the core message? =5
- Phrasing
- Do the edits sound like edits? = 5
- Does the whole piece sound natural? = 5
Score your presenter for each of these aspects of his/her delivery. If they are average, give them 3. If they’re poor, give them 1. If they’re excellent, give them 5. Add them up and give your presenter a total score out of 50.
If you give your presenter a score below 3, explain why and what you think s/he needs to do to improve.
Score your presenter for each of these aspects of his/her delivery. If they are average, give them 3. If they’re poor, give them 1. If they’re excellent, give them 5. Add them up and give your presenter a total score out of 50.
If you give your presenter a score below 3, explain why and what you think s/he needs to do to improve.