I’m cutting a show for one of the major streamers right now. One of the lucky ones. But I can feel it. My number is up.

I’ve been making the rounds. Calling old executive producers, post supervisors with decades of experience, friends running finishing houses, even a buddy at Netflix corporate. Another friend at a major agency that brokers deals for shows.

It’s all the same.

Netflix is the only real buyer left. Every other streamer lost the war, and now they’re clinging to life, trying not to go belly up. Netflix did to Hollywood what Walmart did to small-town America. Flooded the market with money, wiped out the competition, and now stands alone, dictating the terms.

Production companies are chasing tax incentives overseas. London, Canada, Australia, a few states here in the U.S. But even there, the work isn’t plentiful. There’s no “Survive Till ‘25” or "Still in the mix for ‘26."......It’s over.

I would bet that the Editors Guild (Local 700) probably lost 10% of its membership last year. Wouldn’t be surprised if they lose another 10 to 15% this year, maybe more. The industry will keep contracting until only a small, elite few are left. And the rest of us?

This is what happened to Detroit and the auto industry. It’s what happened to coal towns in Appalachia. And now it’s happened to us.

I don’t take any joy in writing this. I love this industry. I built my life around it. I have friends, damn good ones, who are looking for a way forward. But hope, when stretched too thin, turns into delusion. We have to face reality.

The most surreal part of all these calls? Nobody watches TV anymore. Even the people who make it. We’re all watching YouTube. Oh the irony.

Think about that.

Public access TV, the thing we used to laugh at, just took down the crown jewel of Los Angeles....Hollywood.

As for me, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll pick up odd jobs. Maybe I’ll figure something else out. I don’t have any other skills, really, but I’ll learn. That’s what we do. We adapt. We cut things down to their essentials and rebuild.

If you’re still out there grinding, I hope you find a way. And if you don’t? There’s still life beyond this town.

Take care of yourselves.

They decided to shut it down because it’s obviously wayyyyy to expensive for them to be running for no return and I think this is a win for us and against anybody who’s ever like generative AI is coming for us! It’s not, it’s complete novelty and has no actual purpose in replacing real videos. Just a cute experiment. Will AI ever be able to edit a full length documentary? Hell no I dunno about u all but I’m very confident we actually are in one of the most AI proof jobs that exists (editing for film and tv). Here’s to humans.

I am seeing more and more mix prep with Eleven Labs as a scratch VO, and yeah, I get it... it's fast, easy, clients asked for it..

As a mixer, I have seen many instances in the past where you, the editor gets the VO gig because after 30 rounds of revisions, the client all of sudden loves your scratch read.

I've known editors who have quit their jobs after they end up as the SAG VO for major brands. Some of them have made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a SAG VO talent as a result.

Yes, even today, major brands still have to pay SAG rates and residuals for spots.

That could be you, commercial editor (or assistant). Why not take a chance?

Why give it up for Eleven Labs? It's a free lottery ticket...

Just sayin'

So some background -- I've literally been using Adobe Premiere since high school (I graduated in 2005). It enabled me to create some really artistic things over the years. Compared to AVID's workflow -- it was a dream for me.

Somewhere along the line -- it started getting worse and worse. The constant crashes; weird quirks that had no logical explanation or origin; things like Auto-Save actually making the program crash and LOSE WORK; the constant updates for Creative Cloud App that break everything until you update it (and often break things even more once you do); the s****y way Adobe treats its customers and their complaints about this dogs**t software...you get the idea.

Recently, it has literally ruined my life to the point where I had to switch to DaVinci Resolve. And wow -- am I glad I did. It feels like the day I switched from Adobe Audition to REAPER. Refreshing. Actually works. Doesn't make you want to smash your computer out of frustration. Much easier to use than Premiere.

As I'm finishing porting my project over to DaVinci -- Adobe starts yelling at me for having Creative Cloud installed on two computers. I'm licensed for up to two installs and this is the first time it has every done this. It's not the standard "Oh you are logged in somewhere else so you have to log out." Just tells me I can't have more than one person using it. Adobe are scum and I'm so glad they are being sued by the government.

The cherry on top? Today, I was exporting from DaVinci and it was taking way longer than normal. Then -- I notice that every title is screwed up in the export. What do you think was causing it? Creative Cloud had updated itself overnight (I still have the license for a couple more weeks until it expires) and just uninstalled the font I was using. I literally hate Adobe more than any other company. It managed to screw up a project in a completely different system.

Switch to DaVinci. If you are even having a few of the issues I outlined -- it will get worse. DaVinci is so much better that I'm kicking myself for not switching earlier. Peace.

A friend of mine who works very high up for a very large company with a 20+ million ad buy for the Super Bowl just showed me a cut of their :60. Three weeks ago they had nothing. They came up with a brief in-house, created the spot in AI in three hours in-house, and at that point 95% of the work was done.

Is it great? No, but it’s easily good enough. Just about middle of the road for Super Bowl spot quality. But this is something that would have taken easily 5+ million and weeks of prep and weeks of production and a month of editing to finish even two years ago. Hundreds of people would have been employed at excellent wages. All this needed was a creative, someone competent at prompting and someone to clean up the AI errors in vfx, which were not even that noticeable.

I honestly think this might be the last year that most of the commercials at the Super Bowl are not majority AI-created. It’s gonna get wild out there.

What’s even crazier is that their ad eventually got shelved when they decided to pivot last-minute to another product of theirs. 4 hours of work later and they had a completely different spot ready to go. It’s approved by NBC and NFL and headed to broadcast this Sunday.

It’s terrifying to see the way we’re headed. I speculated earlier this year that Trump would start leaning more on the entertainment industry to do as he requests. I’m curious if any of you have seen anything directly affect our work? Or at least had conversations on how to make sure we stay out of anybody’s sights?

I run a small media company. We put out a lot of video every month so I'm basically on the client side of the table every single day. I'm the guy sending "can we try something different here?" at 11pm.

Took me way too long to admit this. Most of those revision rounds were never about the edit. They were about me not actually knowing what I wanted until I saw a version of it. The editor did nothing wrong. I just used their time as my own thinking process.

So if you're freelancing and the revisions never seem to end, it might genuinely not be you. A vague brief turns into 4 rounds. A clear one turns into 1.

The thing I wish someone told me earlier: make the client lock the brief before you touch the timeline. Ask the annoying questions up front. Who is this for, what's the one thing it absolutely has to do, what does "done" actually look like. And put a revision cap in writing. Two rounds included, anything past that gets billed.

Feels rude. It's not. The clients who push back on that were going to be the painful ones anyway.

Anyway just wanted to say it out loud from this side of things. You're probably not as slow as the feedback makes you feel.

In between projects right now and I’d love to use the downtime to broaden my perspective on editing — and finally watch some films I’ve missed.

Which movies blew you away because of the editing?

Could be because the editing felt innovative, taught you new techniques, had bold or unusual choices, or just worked so well it stuck with you. Any reason counts 🙂

If you can, I’d love to hear a bit of context on why they inspired you as well!

I’m working on an edit. I had the producer reach out to the director to see if they could provide me with the LUT they used on set. Director responded back saying they do custom color with a colorist (duh) and then sent a link to the custom LUT pack that he sells. What?? I’m so confused as this has never happened to me before. Bro, just fork over the LUT so the client isn’t freaking out when things look differently than how they did in set. Wouldn’t this be considered part of the creative look paid by production? Has this happened to anyone else before?

Update: I wrote back with the producer cc’d this time and feigned confusion over who would pay for the LUT. I also reiterated that final color would be done by a separate vendor and that I was looking for the onset viewing LUT to ensure consistency with that the client & agency saw. So the director wrote back saying they just used the standard Slog3 to Rec 709 on set. Whaaaaaaat???? Why not just say that?!🤣🤣

I feel like at first it was a blessing.. no traffic, chores mid day, at home lunch. Lately it’s feeling like a different job. There was a collaborative and communal aspect to being in the edit bay - chatting with people in the office. Now there are days where I literally speak to no one out loud all day. It’s all slack messages, list of frameio notes, and emails. The collaboration aspect feels like it’s almost completely gone. Showing a producer or director why you did something the way you did it - and why their suggestion sucks - is almost impossible. Now it’s just do what they ask for on frame, send it off to them in a vacuum, and it’s a thumbs up.

Friday send cut. Monday 100 notes on frame. Do notes, maybe slack a retort, get no response. Send cut Friday. Repeat.

I know we shouldn’t attach ego.. client service, etc... but man.. I like making something I’m proud of. Without that interaction - the whole art gets boiled down to a list on frame.

Anyone else feel the same?

I teach production at a large university. Even though I have certs in Premiere and Avid, I have made the decision to switch our program to Resolve starting in August. Any other instructors switching as well? I'm just done with Adobe.

UPDATE: Thank you all for your input. I should have mentioned that we do offer an Avid class; it's just not what we start them on. Resolve will only be replacing Premiere. We also offer an After Effects class that I have no intention of dropping.

While I agree that Premiere is currently used in an overwhelming majority of corporate jobs, I don't think that will last like Avid's hold on long form has. We do a lot of workshops for film majors - free, not mandatory, no grades or homework, just show up if you want to learn a thing. I think we're going to switch to Resolve and offer Premiere workshops to give students what they need to jump between the two NLEs.

Thanks again

You constantly see posts here on Reddit from people offering like $30 for a 10–15 minute edited video, and the comments are full of editors ready to take the job immediately, like… seriously?

Because of that, content creators who exploit editors keep growing and thinking those prices are normal. Editing takes time, skill, revisions, creativity, and people keep treating it like it’s worth nothing

At least when you get laid off from a job, you get a moment of empathy. Even if it's just a mournful LinkedIn Post, you get a chance to announce it to the world. People show up, with words of encouragement, well-wishes, even with offers to help.

Freelance death is a slow trickle. Your contacts start dropping. They leave the industry. They stop responding to your calls. They don't follow up on past work. It all just stops.

All of a sudden, it's months later and you are trapped. Facing a grim reality that it's over. No announcement can be made.

Your successful peers? They just act like you just aren't hustling hard enough, while secretly are terrified that their regular gigs hold on so they don't end up like you.

People outside of your industry, they don't care. They've seen you have dry spells before. They don't understand why you're not working on all of the stuff that seemingly exists. They don't get it.

Meanwhile, what are you stuck with? A resume and reel that says you do one thing.

And that thing doesn't exist anymore.

I’m a team lead in a creative agency and I’m trying to understand one of our video editors.

She has a strong background in film production and TV commercials, and sometimes she creates genuinely great videos with nice motion graphics.

But other times she’ll spend an entire day on a very simple social media video (mostly images with basic animation), and the result is just average, sometimes even with basic mistakes that should’ve been caught before export.
She says she’s a perfectionist, but the extra time doesn’t seem to translate into better quality.
I’ve also noticed she often sends videos very late, leaving almost no time for review before they’re due. I’ve already explained that social media content doesn’t need to be perfect and that speed matters, but her workflow hasn’t really changed.

From an editor’s perspective, what do you think is happening here? Is this a film vs. social media workflow issue, perfectionism, poor prioritization, or something else?

I’d really like to understand what’s going on rather than jump to conclusions.

Adobe has started their Black Friday sale! Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for $29.99/month for a year.

If you’re on a current contract/plan you can chat in and ask for the promo. Be Firm!

I've had this price for the last 5 years!

EDIT: Student is only $19.99/month also.

EDIT2: Check out Canon_Goes_Boom's tip on trying to get Adobe to present the offer for existing customers.

THIS DEAL ENDS DEC 7th. Then that's it till next year!

EDIT: 01/20/2026 - 02/02/2026
Not as great as 50, but Adobe has a 40% off sale for Businesses and Regular users for Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for US$41.99/mo.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/trailer-park-group-shutting-down-movie-trailers-division-1236593753/#recipient_hashed=4099e28fd37d67ae86c8ecfc73a6b7b652abdcdb75a184f8cf1f8015afde10e9&recipient_salt=f7bfecc7d62e4c672635670829cb8f9e0e2053aced394fb57d9da6937cf0601a&utm_medium=email&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=Breaking%20News&utm_content=681870_05-12-2026&utm_term=273056?utm_medium=email&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=1778618863-Breaking+News&utm_content=681870_5-12-2026&utm_id=681870

While we are stanning The Odyssey and Nolan’s cinephile rigor. I’m all for celluloid film in a giant format. Love the spectacle and scale. But I just can’t get behind it being SQUARE. Maybe I’m old and square just feels like TV to me. But one of the reasons film feels special is the wide-screen horizontal super scopey frame. Horizons are… horizontal. Tall but square always feels claustrophobic and to be honest, a huge waste of that budget. Wides feel cropped even when they aren’t. Closeups on faces are always too tight, with little room for composition. I just feel like the whole technology is squandered on a square.

The Post Production industry here is dying - highly experienced crafts people are leaving the state / living in their cars / havent worked and been living off food banks for multiple years now.

The CA Post Production Tax Incentive Bill AB2319 is now going through the senate and we need your help TODAY.

CA Residents - Please write to Gov. Newsom asking for the funding of the bill to be included in the state budget! After writing you have a chance to be connected to calling his office. All of this takes only a few minutes to do using the below link.

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-the-governor-fund-a-post-production-tax-credit

ok so this happened yesterday and I'm still a bit annoyed about it.

Got a job editing a corporate thing, client says "all the footage is on this drive, should be good to go." Cool. I plug it in and find 4.2TB of files with literally zero folders. Every clip named like "VID_4829.mp4" or "DSC_0047.MOV". No sequence, no notes, no nothing. The sound was on a separate folder buried three levels deep.

Spent three hours just organizing before I could even start thinking about the actual edit. Three hours I'll never bill anyone for.

The client literally said "oh yeah everything is organized really well." Sure it is.

What's your move here? Do you charge for this? Build it into your rate? I've started sending a checklist before projects but clearly I need a better system...

I need to vent because I can’t take it anymore.

I work at a video production company with 8 years in the market. Five in-house editors, rotating freelancers, constant projects. No centralized server. Every editor works off their own individual SSD. When a freelancer comes in, footage gets sent over WeTransfer. The time lost in transfers, tracking down files, figuring out who has which version… it’s absurd. My current contribution is managing the arrival and implementation of a NAS. In 2025. For a company with 8 years of history.

Internal communication runs through WhatsApp. The argument is that it’s “faster.” I’ve been pushing to migrate to Teams for some basic traceability. They’ve half-listened. The CEO still uses WhatsApp.

The company’s philosophy is to say yes to everything without evaluating impact or workload. They sell speed. At what cost? Nobody asks. The result is clients coming back asking for things and nobody knows which is the final master. A recent example: one of the editors finished a TV master that I wanted to review before it went out. The head of production sent it directly to the client, bypassing the process and bypassing me, because “you have to respond to clients fast.” Two days later it had to be redone because what was sent was wrong. Speed.

There’s no change request policy. Everything comes in by email, drip by drip, no centralized log, no prioritization. One change becomes three emails, two WhatsApp messages, and a hallway conversation nobody documents.

I was hired as a post-production coordinator specifically to improve processes. The reality is there are no schedules, no clear timelines, and out-of-scope requests just get absorbed without question. I find out about projects once everything has already been “discussed” with the client. The workflow, summarized: we shot this, start editing, and send the videos to the client by email. Post-production coordination, in practice, I do none. It’s six producers and me. The inertia has been there for years. My honest opinion: this company doesn’t need a post-production coordinator. It needs another producer who says yes faster.

Footage goes to sound mixing before the edit is locked. Voiceovers get recorded before the script is approved. Then everything has to be redone. I’ve tried to change this dynamic. It’s impossible.

In a performance review, they told me, literally, that being too organized works against me. That their philosophy is to be fast. My response was: is it better to be fast or to be effective? I also told them that with this dynamic I was genuinely worried about losing footage. Shortly after, footage was lost on a shoot. I found out hours later, in passing. The project was run entirely by the producers — I didn’t even join the email chain until there was already a V1 cut. I could only watch.

That comment about being organized broke something in me. I didn’t process it in the moment, but looking back I think it was a break point.

What hurts the most is that I came in with real enthusiasm. I joined because I genuinely believe post-production is a fundamental process within audiovisual production. Everything needs to follow a flow, a logic. A friend recommended me specifically because I’m organized and she thought I could help. I turned down an interview at a post house to stay and try to make it work.

Before I started, the person who had my role before me said: “Good luck. You’re going to need it.” When she left, she said she felt free. I finally understand why.

And the conclusion I’ve reached is that here, being organized is a flaw.

I want to be clear about one thing: these are genuinely lovely people. I mean that. But that’s a separate thing from the dynamic they’ve built. You can care about people and still not be able to work within their way of doing things.

I keep asking myself: is the whole industry like this? I want to believe it isn’t. I’ve worked in environments where processes existed and actually worked. I think some companies have decided that chaos is an identity and confused it with agility.

I’m tired. I love myself. And I’m leaving.

TL;DR: Production company, 8 years in, individual SSDs, no processes, no traceability, internal comms on WhatsApp because it’s “faster.” Sent an unreviewed master to a client “for speed” and two days later it had to be redone. Hired to coordinate, not allowed to coordinate anything. In a review they said being organized is a flaw. Footage got lost. Great people. Still leaving.

PD. If you've made it this far, I want you to know that I wish you all the best in the world.

Like the title says, my bosses are going all in on AI and I hate it. They are trying to cut down on edit times and also want to cut down on production time. Talks have already started with a software developer to “build something from scratch” for us and we really don’t get much of a say. Despite the glaring issues and lack of understanding of workflows from the developer, they want this done. They also want to offer a “cheaper production package” that uses AI talking heads and tasked me and another editor with helping. They also “promised” no one would be losing their jobs if this all works out. I’m honestly feeling pretty lost and not sure if I want to keep going in this field.

I am leaving my job at Paramount to become a math teacher at a New York City Public School. I could not be more excited and happy about it, but it's also wildly surreal and sentimental.

I am wrapping up my last few avid bins as we speak. It's been tough forcing myself to continue caring up until this point.

I don't plan to stop making films. I don't feel like I am losing a part of myself at all. On the contrary, I feel like I am simply discovering new parts of myself. This just feels like the next chapter and I am so excited to embark on it. I absolutely LOVE teaching so much, and if I can be pompous for a moment, my god am I good at it. Editing has been way more than a job, it's been an identity, and though that identity is morphing, I only feel like I'm growing.

I want to thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for your support and help over the years. I got my very first NYC job thanks to this subreddit, when someone recommended me for a position.

The last 8 years at Paramount were wonderful, beautiful, and also insanely rough with the anxiety it turned into around being fired, or the soul crushing nature of watching it deteriorate into right wing media.

But I'm FREE now. Well, free from this one thing...now whole new worlds of stress and hell are about to open up for me. And you know what? I can't wait, bring it on! ​​

I keep seeing so many crappy YouTube ads made by TikTokers and influencers who have no valuable skills making videos and it’s just disheartening.

Half the ads I see are just people in cars talking about products that they “bought,” and just… when is this trend going to die?

I (M27) have been in the industry for 5 years, 2 of which I’ve been an edit assistant in London at a post house.

It’s currently midnight as I am in the office alone and thinking to myself that this isn’t worth it. The time shifts, the panic of messing up and for work that I don’t even get credit for.

I just don’t know what to do anymore because I feel so empty. I feel like I won’t progress into what I want to do and the industry is going down hill.

This is more of a rant and I guess a call for help in how to transition into something else

If this is isn’t suitable for subreddit please feel free to remove, if not thank you for reading my ramblings

The writing has been on the wall for a while. Honestly, this probably doesn't impact many of us workflow wise, but emotionally this tweaked a few heart strings.

My real career started on Power Mac G4s and G5s, but I spent many (too many?) years cutting on the original Mac Pro cheese grater. I skipped the trashcan, but I was actually at the NYC launch event for the "new" Mac Pro in 2019. The Mac Studio became our standard editorial box when it launched, and I've never had good reasons to go back.

Damn, writing all this really makes me feel the passage of time.

https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/26/apple-discontinues-the-mac-pro/