How Long Does It Take to Log and Cut a News Package?

Almost every group that joins our Newsroom Workflow and Editing sessions asks the same thing within the first hour: how long should it take to log the footage and cut a package? People want a number, and I understand why. A deadline is a number, and the edit is where deadlines are won or lost.

I spent many years reporting for regional television before teaching, and I can tell you the honest answer is that it depends on what you shot and how well you recorded it. A tidy shoot with clear notes can be cut quickly. A messy one can eat the afternoon before you have placed a single clip on the timeline.

So rather than give a figure, I give a way of working out your own figure, and that is what the rest of this piece sets out.

The figure also changes with experience. Trainees who are new to editing often take several times longer than a working editor on the same material, and that is normal. What matters is that the gap closes through habits, not through rushing.

Logging means watching your material once, properly, and writing down what is on it: where the strong interview answers are, which shots are steady, where the audio is clean and where a lorry drives past. It feels like time spent before the real work begins. In practice it is the real work.

A reporter who logs well can build the package from the notes, going straight to the clips that matter. A reporter who skips it ends up scrubbing through the same minutes again and again, rediscovering the same good line three times.

In our sessions we ask trainees to log a set of practice footage first, and only then to touch the edit. The ones who resist this at the start are usually the ones who thank us for it by the third week, once they see how much of the edit was settled by their notes.

• Note time codes for usable soundbites, not whole interviews
• Mark shots with shaky framing or poor audio so you avoid them later
• Write a one-line description beside each clip you might use

People still want something to hold onto, so here is a loose guide. For a short package built from one location, plan to spend a meaningful share of your total time on logging, a larger share on the cut itself, and a final stretch on checking, adding graphics and exporting. Beginners tend to underestimate the last stage, which is where errors in names, spellings and audio levels get caught.

I will not pretend these proportions are fixed. A package with two interviews and plenty of cutaway pictures behaves differently from a live-driven item with thin material. What I ask trainees to do is time themselves on each stage during practice and keep the results. After a few exercises they have their own working pattern, which is far more useful than anyone else's average.

This is also why we keep our editing groups small: there is room to look at each person's pace and see where the minutes actually go.

When trainees run over, it is rarely because they cut slowly. It is usually something earlier or later in the chain. Footage copied into the wrong folder, a clip with no clear name, an interview answer that turns out to be unusable because the audio was never checked on the shoot. Each is small, and together they swallow the schedule.

Another common drain is indecision in the cut. Trying three versions of an opening line, adjusting a transition again and again, polishing a sequence that the story does not need. A news package has a job to do, and a version that tells the story clearly and on time beats a beautiful one that misses the slot.

Priya Nair, who teaches editing and delivery with us after cutting packages for a regional newsroom, is firm on this point: decide, move on, and come back only if time remains.

• Name and file clips as soon as they are copied
• Check audio at the end of the shoot, not in the edit
• Set a stopping point for each section of the cut

Newsroom deadlines do not stretch, so we practise with fixed ones. A trainee receives material, a target running length and a clock. The exercise is less about the finished piece than about the choices made when time is short: which soundbite to keep, which picture to drop, what to leave out entirely.

That last skill is the hardest to teach. Most of us want to keep everything we shot. A working package keeps what serves the story and lets go of the rest, however good the shot looked on the day.

We also talk about the handover. A package that is cut on time but delivered in the wrong format, or without the right script and captions for the gallery, has still failed. Meeting the deadline means the whole chain, from the first clip logged to the file sent, so we rehearse delivery as carefully as the cut.

If you want a head start, you do not need professional software. Take a few minutes of footage from your phone, log it with time codes and short notes, then cut thirty seconds that tell one clear point. Time each stage and write the numbers down.

Do it again with different material a week later and compare. You will see where you lose time, and that is the most valuable thing to bring to a session. It gives us something concrete to work on instead of a general worry about speed.

Nobody expects to arrive fast. We expect people to arrive curious about their own habits, and willing to change the ones that cost them minutes.

• Log before you cut, every time
• Time each stage and keep the figures
• Practise on short, real material rather than polished examples