Behind the scenes: Editing a documentary in 3 weeks

How we turned 40 hours of footage into a 25-minute documentary on deadline—without burning out the team or the story.

We started with a paper edit: transcripts and selects in a doc, then a rough structure before opening the timeline. That saved days. One editor owned the cut; we had a second for colour and sound so the main edit could keep moving.

We locked picture in two weeks and used the third for grade, mix, and titles. Client feedback came in two rounds max so we didn’t spiral in revisions. The key was a clear story spine from the start and the discipline to kill our darlings.