6 credited editors on The Greatest Showman?

[Marcus Friedlander]

Hey everyone,

I just got done seeing The Greatest Showman and in the main end credits section, the movie listed 6 different film editors, broken up into two separate title cards, with three names on each card.

Does anyone know the story behind this? We've all seen this type of crediting with screenwriters, but I can't think of anytime I've seen that with editors.

Thanks!

 

[Marc Wielage]

Generally, when you see an "additional editing" credit, it means the main editors either got fired or they had to move on to other projects because this one went way overschedule. I agree that six on-screen editors is unusual. On the other hand, I seem to recall on the recent Star Wars film, they had six or seven Avid bays set up simultaneously to look at different cuts, different sequences, new VFX coming in, and so on. But technically, there was only one credited editor on the film, at least as a "film editor" (standard union credit).

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Generally, when you see an "additional editing" credit, it means the main editors either got fired or they had to move on to other projects because this one went way overschedule. I agree that six on-screen editors is unusual. On the other hand, I seem to recall on the recent Star Wars film, they had six or seven Avid bays set up simultaneously to look at different cuts, different sequences, new VFX coming in, and so on. But technically, there was only one credited editor on the film, at least as a "film editor" (standard union credit).

Hey Marc,

Thanks for the input.

I've definitely heard of the above scenarios you described, but what caught my attention on this one was the fact that all 6 editors were in the main title card section of the end credits, and it seemed like they were all equally credited. (Except for the fact that half of them were on one title card and half of them were on the next title card.)

As in, there were no "additional editing" credits. They were all listed as "film editors". And in the main end credit section to boot. It was like maybe the 7th and 8th title card after the last frame of the movie?

And if you go to the IMDb page, all 6 editors are in the main "editor" credit category, and not in the "editorial department" category.

Which definitely leads me to believe something funky was going on. Would love to get to the bottom of this lol.

 

[Chris McKechnie]

I loved everything about this movie! Highly recommend it!

 

[Sabovic Adis]

A "roll" edit maybe?

 

[Craig Parkes]

Given the film is a musical would it make sense for the editorial team to potentially break up the set piece songs and hand them to different editors, and the main story/'book'/narrative section to be edited by a different editor/editors?

Also don't know much about the films production or financing, was it a co pro? Sometimes co productions will have this sort of delineation for financing and practical reasons (different parts of the edit happening in different countries)

I think the thing to think about is, more and more with technology, on or near set editing, and the ability for review of multiple editors work to happen collaboratively - why not have a team in editorial get shared credit if the project fits.

Now maybe thats not what happened here, and there is some comi-tragic tale of editor after editor leaving the project, or the truth is something in between. Whatever the reality is will be interesting as it pertains to this project, but I'd like to think the idea of 6 editors simply collaborating on a project like this isn't actually super surprising - especially if it was decided as the best way to meet a delivery deadline.

 

[Matt W.]

From what I understand certain filmmakers prefer to have multiple editors to either conceptually improvise and prototype certain scenes and concepts (Terrence Malick) or work on scenes with distinct tones (Michael Bay). I think sometimes someone will be fired and yet you have two editors with full credits. Not sure what the case was here.