Just as YouTube amateurs are cutting their own movies digitally, Canada’s professional editors are circling the wagons to protect their turf.

Leading the charge is a trio of the country’s top editors – Paul Winestock (The Best Years), Paul Day (The Weight) and Roger Mattiussi (Fido) – who aim to launch the Canadian Cinema Editors Association by mid-October.

‘I don’t want to sound elitist,’ Winestock says, ‘but not everyone can be a cinematographer or editor at the highest level. There’s something about the craft that can make or break a movie.’

These English-Canadian cutters are creating a non-bargaining national association (like their francophone counterparts in Quebec did in March), with the Canadian Society of Cinematographers as their model.

The group wants to encourage acceptance of the craft and hopes that the CCEA will enable Canadian editors to talk shop.

Hot topics include how emerging products and technologies such as DVD, streaming media, interactive TV and new video editing software are changing both how editors work and the workplace itself.

Gone are the days when directors and producers kept their distance as editors cut and spliced film on a Steenbeck machine.

Now that film and video are edited on computers, Vancouver-based Mattiussi insists producers and directors too often treat editors like mere technicians, urging them to cut too much footage in too little time. ‘We’re not button-pushers. We’re human,’ he says.

Chief among editors’ demands is getting producers to budget for assistant editors so that the next generation (many of whom have never touched celluloid) can properly learn where to cut, and what succession of images works best to tell stories.

‘The machinery is different, but the process is the same,’ Mattiussi says of editing on a Steenbeck or a computer. He says the best editing includes the ability to make good choices based on initial viewings of dailies.

‘Assistants do well when they watch dailies and look at the material and tell me how to put it together,’ Mattiussi explains. ‘If they don’t understand how to see what they’re looking at, they won’t make it.’

What’s more, aspiring editors need to witness veterans parrying with producers and directors in front of the computer to learn edit-suite diplomacy.

‘The people coming up behind us in the digital world aren’t learning political and social skills,’ Winestock adds on the subject of much-needed mentorship. The result is young editors are liable to be pushed around by producers and directors who believe computers allow you to do more in the edit suite, and faster.

‘Because people pressure you to go faster, you can go faster,’ Winestock notes, ‘but there’s less time to think.’ He adds that producers and directors need to give editors time and space to do their best work, ‘or expect compromises’ and inferior product.

The digital age also means editors are often swamped with a glut of footage to glean in the same time frame.

‘With HD, directors think they can shoot as much as they want,’ Winestock explains, adding that there’s been no corresponding growth in post schedules or budgets.

Veteran directors who understand film shorthand may shoot 30 minutes of footage a day, but others deluge editors with up to two hours of dailies.

What’s more, digital technology has enabled a slew of new directors to come and go in the Canadian industry, as opposed to veteran filmmakers who know how to pick a good script and collaborate with their favorite editors. The latter group includes leading practitioners like Susan Shipton, who assembles Atom Egoyan’s films, and Ronald Sanders, long at the cutting edge of David Cronenberg’s films.

The CCEA has received backing from the Directors Guild of Canada – Ontario and other Canadian guilds. Because Quebec established its own editors association last March, the CCEA will focus on English-speaking Canada. Winestock estimates that there are about 500 professional editors outside of Quebec. Once incorporated in the coming weeks, the CCEA will go about signing them up for industry representation.