The Wright Stuff

New Zealand born film editor Justine Wright discusses her successful partnership with Scottish director Kevin Macdonald, how digital may not always be best and why every actor needs a good editor.

When film editor Justine Wright arrived in England from her native New Zealand, she pulled pints in a pub before being hired as a receptionist for a commercials editing company. Six years later she cut her first commercial, and a chance meeting with director Kevin Macdonald resulted in the Oscar winning documentary One Day in September (1999). To date, their partnership has produced real-life drama Touching The Void (2003) and feature films The Last King of Scotland (2006) and State of Play (2009), and she has also worked on a variety of other shorts and features. When movieScope meets with Wright, she is in the middle of cutting Macdonald’s latest film, Roman drama The Eagle of the Ninth.

• How did you become interested in editing?
Whilst I was in New Zealand I saw the Errol Morris documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988). That just blew me away. I realised editing was at the heart of documentaries. With that film there is lots of repetition and no narration, it is purely dramatic. That story is definitely told through the editing.

• How did you make it your career?
When I came to London I worked as a receptionist at commercials editing house The Film Editors. Pamela Power, Ridley Scott’s commercials editor, set it up one floor above Ridley Scott Associates. [But] I couldn’t afford to work there, so I quit! About three months later I went back [but] they said, ‘You blew it. You had your one chance.’ I didn’t give up. I phoned them every day. Finally they relented and I started as a receptionist then I became a runner. A year and a half later I became a second assistant then a first assistant. I was lucky to be [Power’s] edit assistant and learn good practice from her; doing things properly and slightly anally! I don’t necessarily think that people should go to film school. If you do an apprenticeship you learn the craft. What is important is being an individual and having your own voice.

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This article continues in movieScope Magazine, Issue 16 (March/ April 2010)