Finely Sliced: Elevating The Edit with Sally Cooper
Sally Cooper, a versatile and accomplished editor, originally hails from the picturesque town of Plön in northern Germany, surrounded by beautiful lakes, forests, and rivers. Her journey into the world of editing began at the Hamburg office of Das Werk, where she swiftly ascended to the role of junior editor, showcasing her innate talent and dedication to her craft. Born to a German mother and British father, Sally seamlessly adapted to the bustling editing scene in London, marking the beginning of a remarkable career.
In 2012, Sally found her professional home at Cut+Run, and her rise through the ranks culminated in promotion to the role of editor in 2014. Since then, Sally has flourished and solidified her reputation as a top-tier editor, leaving an indelible mark on the industry. She has worked on high-profile commercials and music videos for renowned clients such as Nissan, Nivea, Issey Miyaki, Valentino, Samsung, and Bet365.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Sally is a connoisseur of the culinary arts, showcasing her skills as an avid baker. Her annual tradition of crafting elaborate gingerbread houses has become a celebrated event, with her last creation weighing an impressive 8kg! The construction is then ceremoniously smashed with a hammer, bringing joy and camaraderie, if not a little danger, to colleagues and clients alike.
Sally's impact extends beyond her editing suite, generously sharing her expertise with the next generation of editors. Her journey is marked by the invaluable lessons learned from mentors, notably the late Piers Douglas (Cut+Run), whose influence on her ability to navigate complex creative situations is fondly remembered.
Now residing in Germany near Hamburg, Sally continues to make her mark in the world of editing. Her passion, talent, and dedication position her as a leading force in the industry. On a personal note, Sally enjoys her walks in the countryside with her two beautiful dogs.
LBB> The first cut is the deepest how do you like to start an editing project?
Sally> It depends entirely on the project, but the biggest part of the job is to look through all footage thoroughly, select and organise it so you easily find what you need to elevate the edit. I'm quite meticulous in that respect. I often start editing bits together as I go along, so I can easily revisit ideas later.
I then like to construct the main frame of the piece first (outlining voiceover, music, the rough structure of the piece) making sure it works as a whole before diving into trying things out and playing with the footage, SFX and music. But I might start at the end or in the middle or at the beginning, whatever calls out to me.
LBB> Non-editors often think of editing just in technical terms but it’s integral to the emotion and mood of a film. How did you develop that side of your craft?
Sally> One of the editors I have worked with in the past gave me the advice to always ask myself what an edit should make me feel - excitement, fear, joy, anger, calmness?
Understanding what you want your viewer to be feel while watching your edit, makes a huge difference on how you approach things.
I also watch all my edits without sound several times to judge how good the visual edit really is, and I close my eyes to judge my music edits and SFX work.
LBB> How important is an understanding of story and the mechanics of story?
Sally> VERY! If you don't understand the storyline, you cannot coherently build it for an audience to follow. But I find you can learn and educate yourself about almost anything in order to edit a job well.
And often enough you develop a further and deeper understanding of a project while working on it: You also get to know your talents/protagonists while selecting... you notice their body language before and after a take, and you instinctively know what they are comfortable with and what part of themselves they'd like to share with the audience or which performances they are proud of.
At the end of a project, you end up with a vast behind the scenes knowledge of the piece you have just edited. Knowledge your audience will obviously never have because you and the director decided to leave out the bits of info that didn't seem necessary to share.
Through my work I’ve learnt a great deal on topics I never thought I'd be knowledgeable about including sharks, velodromes, hockey, betting, hair, elephants, hippos, rugby, handball with many more to come. I even learnt to read Cyrillic so I could edit a Bulgarian commercial.
LBB> Rhythm and a sense of musicality seem to be intrinsic to good editing – how do you think about the rhythm side of editing, how do you feel out the beats of a scene or a spot? And do you like to cut to music?
Sally> Rhythm in general is super important - in comedy a joke is just not funny without the right timing, in a drama you cannot feel the sadness, despair or happiness without keeping to a fitting pace, and a horror movie without the right rhythm of an edit is just not that frightening either...
And I do like cutting to or with music if it fits the story and the purpose of the project. Sometimes I cut a scene to music (maybe a fast paced to something that would be usually slow) and see how it feels when you take the music off afterwards or replace with SFX or original sound where the beats previously were. Trying things out with sound design is just as important as the visual edit on some projects and can really boost the edit.
LBB> Tell us about a recent editing project that involved some interesting creative challenges.
Sally> I recently edited the new Schwarzkopf campaign for 2024. It was a massive shoot, spanning over a month with me in attendance on set in Barcelona and afterwards remote editing for two months.
The director Vicky Lawton covered seven talents and nine scripts in two languages. Quite a task on its own - but the biggest challenge was creating a brand film, featuring all seven talents. The cut is very involved with unusual transitions and visually very artistic.
Vicky and I worked tirelessly through the nights revisiting around 32 hours of footage over an over to make it a truly unique and epic piece with really intricate cuts. We played with the footage so much, throwing ideas around (of which some things really didn't look good, and others worked out exceptionally well) until we ended up with the film as it stands. It's a piece I am tremendously proud of.
LBB> How important is your relationship with the director and how do you approach difficult conversations when there is a creative difference of opinion?
Sally> It's super important and collaborating with a director you admire and love working with can be one of the biggest joys of being an editor. When you have someone you click with, who lets you thrive, when you can bounce ideas around and take in each other's vibes and energy.
Obviously not every idea you bring to the table will be good, not every idea they will come up with will be amazing either. And you can voice that, but the important thing is to keep an open mind, and to just try these ideas on a timeline and then decide together what you think of it.
I have had moments where I thought something wouldn't work, but to my surprise it did and would end up in the finished edit.
LBB> What’s harder to cut around – too much material or not enough?
Sally> Both have their disadvantages. But in general, I find it harder to cut with too much material as it requires a lot more time to go through and organise. Time you mostly do not have, and then you have to rush through things and end up not being able to do your best work. And a lot of material doesn't always mean the quality is better either, you'd be surprised...
On the other hand: too little material often means you cannot cut around mistakes as easily or shorten the script, also if you constantly have to repeat angles it's just not that interesting visually, so it can be more difficult to make the edit exciting.
LBB> Which commercial projects are you proudest of and why?
Sally> Huawei ‘Shark Dancer’ and the brand film for Schwarzkopf ‘For Every You’.
‘Shark Dancer’ has the most amazing story of this impressive diver Cristina Zenato, who lives in the Bahamas and dives with sharks every day. She can essentially put these rather large and dangerous animals into a meditative state through her touch. The footage was amazing, especially the underwater footage. It was absolutely mesmerising to select and very exciting to edit.
Again, it was a very tight turnaround, so working through the nights with Director Juriaan Booij before we delivered this truly stunning film.
With ‘For Every You’, it was incredible to be on set throughout the shoot in Barcelona and I felt really inspired by director Vicky Lawton´s creativity. Her trust and our collaborative effort really brought out the best in me.
The brand film we actually edited at my house in Hamburg which was super-nice. So many days, nights, sweat and tears had gone into this film and into the entire campaign. The sense of achievement I felt once we were ready to present this film was really something. And I felt truly elated once the film was graded and the sound design finished. Super proud moment in my life.
LBB> There are so many different platforms for film content now, and even in advertising something can last anything from a few seconds to a couple of hours. As an editor, are you seeing a change in the kind of projects you’re getting from brands and agencies?
Sally> The projects tend to be shown on a lot more platforms than in the past, so I tend to get more requests for extra edits with different aspect ratios to cater for the social media platforms. The edits also seem to be a lot pacier than in the past.
LBB> Who are your editing heroes and why? What films or spots epitomise good editing for you?
Sally> I do not really have editing heroes as such though I am grateful to my mentors I met throughout the years. They have taught me invaluable insights on how to edit well, and I'm proud to say some of these individuals I now work alongside at Square Peg.
Generally, I find that good editing really just means you don`t get distracted by the edit to feel/see/follow what you need to feel/see/follow. Good editing enhances, great editing elevates.
One example of great editing is the movie Whiplash (Tom Cross), I thought the Academy Award for that one was so very well deserved!
LBB> How does editing in the commercial world differ from the film world and TV world?
Sally> When I was an assistant, I worked across many different aspects of film editing: commercials, documentaries, feature film, tv drama, game shows... I enjoyed being part of each project as I learned shed loads.
I have enjoyed certain jobs more than others, but I do have the utmost respect for documentary editors. They usually have absolute tons of footage of which a lot is unusable but will have to be sifted through thoroughly for the nuggets of gold... plus their subject matter is real, sometimes hard to stomach. I remember (and this is almost 20 years ago!) I assisted on a TV doc series called 'Doctors at War', and after some of my shifts I went home in tears because of what I saw on the screen. It was so heartbreaking.
Feature films and TV dramas also take a lot of dedication to one project over a lengthy period of time, and a lot of organising (I assisted on a few back in the day), but I know it must be very rewarding as an editor. I have not yet had the pleasure to edit a feature film or tv drama but would certainly embrace the challenge if the opportunity arises in the future.
However, I also REALLY love commercial and short form editing for the variety of projects you get to edit, and the diversity in people you meet in a short space of time, one week you'll be editing a fashion commercial and the next you'll find yourself editing a mini doc about Hippos in Africa. Your clients are also such different individuals, and the conversations are never the same!
LBB> Have you noticed any trends or changes in commercial editing over recent years?
Sally> I think the new generation of editors it is expected to have a wider skillset. So, whereas you used to do 'just' an offline edit, you’re now expected to grade, sound mix and do title animations and finish in high res.
The new generation create little films every day for their social media platforms, so it's not niche anymore to be an editor/film maker. People basically do this on a daily basis and integrate it into their daily routine - they don't just grow up with it, they essentially live it. My worry is that the craft of editing is slowly getting lost like that, as people are more like a "Jack of all Trades", concentrating on all aspects, and as a result less and less time is spent on crafting the actual edit. And editing isn't the only craft this applies to.
One trend for a long time was to recreate the social media vibe in commercial editing, at least as part of the commercial. And now with the availability of AI across all aspects of content making I certainly feel that the social media/AI vibe is drowning out a lot of creativity by saturating all platforms with more of the same. I certainly hope there will be room in future for more creativity and originality again, keeping content interesting and the art of film making alive.
