A good edit is mostly a good process. These are the six stages every project goes through, whether it is a 30-second reel or a 30-minute documentary.

1. Brief

Before touching the footage I want to know who the video is for, where it will be posted and what it should make people do. Two or three reference videos are worth more than a page of adjectives.

2. Organise

I back up the footage, then ingest, label and sync it. Multicam angles get lined up, audio is matched to picture and the best takes go into a selects bin. This hour of housekeeping saves days later.

3. Rough cut

The rough cut is about story, not polish: structure, pacing and the moments that carry the message. Feedback at this stage is cheap, so this is the time to move whole sections around.

4. Fine cut

Once the structure is agreed, I tighten every cut, add B-roll, titles and motion graphics, and work through notes until the picture is locked.

5. Colour and sound

With picture locked, I correct and grade the colour, then clean up, mix and layer the audio. This is the stage that makes a video feel finished rather than just edited.

6. Deliver

Finally, exports for every place the video will live, with the right aspect ratios, captions and thumbnails.

The order matters. Grading a scene that later gets cut, or mixing audio before the timing is final, is wasted work. Each stage rests on the one before it.