Leon Retief recently won the South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) for Best Editor on a Television Drama for his work on A Place Called Home, which airs on Thursdays on SABC1.

Leon describes the show as  “almost like a well-oiled machine. It was developed by a very experienced production company, T.O.M. Pictures, and followed through with some talented crew. This means that between all the sweat and tears, the art had some space to move around in by experimenting on new things. The story is always king, but the producers and executive producers were open to new ways of telling the story.”

His award is a tribute to the rest of the crew. “I see editing as the enhancer and not the maker. Too many directors think they can fix it in post. If it didn’t work on set, chances are it is not going to work in post.”

In the nineties, Leon assisted Avril Beukes, who taught him the old style of editing. “Because drama has a certain discipline and structure, you can plan your workflow very well. I learnt a lot about preparation and planning the cut before jumping in.”

He found cutting in the vernacular the most challenging part of the show. “It’s pretty crazy, but living in South Africa, I guess it makes perfect sense." "I didn’t think I could do it in the beginning but was amazed how much you can understand looking at behaviour, tone and body language.”

Using Final Cut Pro. Leon always kept in mind the pace and what he was trying to say.

He spent a good deal of his time sourcing music to set the mood.  Once he found the clips he liked, Leon would re-cut the scene according to this enhanced mood. “Most of the time it would work so well that we kept the source music as the final. I guess this comes a bit from my background as a musician but also my craziness to pushing the boundaries while not losing track of the story.”

He says this sometimes brought the most unexpected moments. “It might sound silly, but I found this  stimulating and exhilarating. I love the way a cut can create tension or just loosen the scene. I don’t mean that you have all the power in the editing room, but when you get in sync with your actors and directors flow, you can have some pretty amazing magic.”

As an editor, Leon believes he “works in an invisible realm. In drama, mostly the audience shouldn’t see editing. I look for those small moments when some clever editing makes a scene flow much better without audiences seeing editing as editing.”

Sally Fink