It’s a seemingly intractable problem in Australia’s screen industry. There are experienced, talented editors ready and willing to cut their first TV show, but until they earn their first broadcast credit the door to working on a scripted drama or comedy, or factual series, stays firmly closed. Meanwhile, there’s a chronic shortage of TV editors available to streamers and Australian networks.
This was the maddening situation editor Danielle Boesenberg faced, until in 2020, a producer gave her the opportunity to cut her first episode of TV while shadowing an established editor.
Three years on, she has a string of television credits, including smash hit comedy Colin from Accounts, which has earned rave reviews from the likes of British actor David Tennant, and numbers The Crown’s Imelda Staunton among its fanbase.
Now the president of the Australian Screen Editors (ASE) guild and in demand as a top comedy and drama editor, Boesenberg decided something had to be done about the barriers to entry into television for editors.
The question she is most often asked as the ASE president is, “How do I break into TV?”.
“The truth is at the moment it’s almost impossible,” she says.
That’s why, supported by funding from Screen Australia, she has designed First Cut – a new training pathway intended to break the impasse.
The program, to be launched next Monday, will offer four paid mentorships. Two in scripted comedy or drama, and two in factual / documentary, with support from some of Australia’s best production companies: including CJZ, Easy Tiger, Fremantle, Jungle and Northern Pictures.
Boesenberg says it’s a program that will work. Because it worked for her.
Ten years after she had graduated from the leading film school AFTRS, she had cut almost 40 short films, with many screening in top tier festivals around the world, picking up awards along the way. But still, she faced the awful paradox of not having a long-form broadcast credit to prove herself worthy of a jump into series television.
All that changed when her CV fell into the hands of producer Ally Henville at Easy Tiger.
“Ally saw that I had the ability, but not the opportunity, and so she repurposed a shadow director’s attachment model and created the framework for me to step up and prove myself, working under mentor editor Nicholas Holmes ASE”.
Boesenberg says it was a fantastic learning experience, and most importantly, she earned a solo credit for the episode. “Before it even went to air, I was being approached for more work.”
First Cut is her attempt to replicate her experience and offer a life-changing opportunity for talented editors to earn that all-important first broadcast credit.
She says the beauty of the program is that it’s an exceptional opportunity for editors to gain learning and insight they can’t get anywhere else, while also facilitating real-world experience with no risk, financially, to the schedule, or to the overall quality of the shows First Cut editors work on. Over time, this program offers the risk averse screen industry a way to solve its shortage of credentialled TV editors.
Boesenberg says she’s hopeful that if the pilot program goes well, Screen Australia will consider continuing its generous support into the future.
In the meantime, four talented editors are about to be given the chance to announce themselves to the industry, and Boesenberg couldn’t be more delighted.
Petria Wallace is a freelance writer and creative producer, and former senior ABC TV/Radio journalist.