Sometimes, auteurist film directors edit their own films, for example, Akira Kurosawa, Bahram Beyzai, Steven Soderbergh, and the Coen brothers. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively 're-imagine' and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. The job of an editor is not simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates or edit dialogue scenes. On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique and practice of assembling shots into a coherent sequence.

Film editing is often referred to as the 'invisible art' because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that they are not aware of the editor's work. Film editing is described as an art or skill, the only art that is unique to cinema, separating filmmaking from other art forms that preceded it, although there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms such as poetry and novel writing. The film editor works with raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences which create a finished motion picture. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking.

Film editing for dummies