Script Work

Having spent many years in the creatively intense world of Film Editing, I’ve found myself working more and more on films at the script stage. My early chats with Producers and Directors became full-on consultations. I’ve been Script Editor on a few projects, coaching and guiding Screenwriters, who maybe haven’t been in the trenches of an edit, towards a script that will function as effectively on the screen as on the page.

Then I starting getting commissions to write, I got repped by Independent Talent. My first feature Brighton Storeys is now complete, and is on its way to distribution. Having seen short films, theatre, and audio dramas that I’ve written find their way to audiences, it’s all quite the thrill, I have to say.

This is now my focus full-time.

Film Editing

It’s difficult talking about editing. In the cutting room there’s lots of discussion of shape (we need to flesh it out, cut it back, bulk it up) of impact (moments need to strike hard, hit home, land softly) and other strange things.

That’s because editing isn't something you can point to and look at, the way you can with photography; nor is it something you can go over on the page, the way you can with words and with music. It's a strangely slippery subject, and I was fascinated from my first encounter with it.

I’ve cut nine features and goodness knows how many shorts, and every time I get a thrill as I get my hands dirty with the building blocks of storytelling. Is this moment better if we see his reaction before or after? How does losing her opening line alter our expectations of her in this scene? How does tweaking scene 3 affect our understanding of scene 19? Are we truthfully delivering to the audience the genre that we’ve promised them? If you can’t answer those questions, and solve these problems, you’re not really editing. Screenwriters and Film Editors are cousins, and the blood that binds us is that both have the story, vulnerable, in our hands. I love it.

I'm based in London, and work wherever the good projects are. My email is david @davidwigram.co.uk