Narrative Editing: Finding the Story in the Footage — A Case Study of Rosie Lee

To many people, editing a narrative film can sound deceptively simple: take the best shots, put them in the right order, add some music, and make the story flow.

But good narrative editing is rarely that straightforward.

When the goal is to make a film feel distinctive, emotionally powerful, and true to its characters, editing requires much more than technical decisions. It requires a systematic analysis of the story, the characters, the performances, the footage, and the relationships between them.

For me, narrative editing begins with asking a simple question: What is the audience supposed to feel at this moment, and what is the most effective way to make them feel it?

Editing Rosie Lee was a particularly rewarding experience because the film gave me something that is not always easy to find in short-film editing: exceptional material to work with. Occasionally, I receive invitations to edit short films, but sometimes the story is relatively shallow, the characters lack depth, the performances do not offer many layers to explore, or the footage does not provide enough possibilities for the edit to discover something unexpected.

Rosie Lee was the opposite.

The story had depth. The characters had emotional complexity. The performances were strong. And, importantly for an editor, the footage offered a remarkable amount of choice.

That combination created an interesting challenge: when you have good material, how do you edit it in a way that makes the film feel distinct rather than simply assembling the best-looking shots?

Finding the Rhythm of the Story

The first thing I noticed when I started editing Rosie Lee was how naturally the performances created a rhythm.

The actors (Jordan Whitby & Sophie Matthew) seemed to instinctively understand when to deliver a line, when to respond, when to hold a moment, and when to allow an emotion to emerge. There was a natural flow within the performances that gave me something to follow.

This is extremely valuable in narrative editing.

Sometimes an editor has to create rhythm almost from nothing. A line may feel too long, a reaction may arrive too late, or the emotional transition between two moments may not quite work. In those situations, the editor has to construct the rhythm through cuts, pauses, reactions and changes in shot size.

With Rosie Lee, much of that rhythm was already present in the performances.

My job was therefore not to impose a rhythm on the actors, but to recognise the rhythm they had already created and protect it.

That distinction became important throughout the edit.

The Importance of Coverage

The second thing that immediately stood out was the quality of the coverage.

In filmmaking, coverage refers to the range of shots captured for a scene—different camera angles, framings, shot sizes and perspectives that allow the editor to construct the scene effectively in post-production. This might include wide shots, medium shots, close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, reaction shots and other variations.

The director Sachin Ladva and director of photography Tom Hyland on Rosie Lee had done an excellent job with this.

They had covered the scenes from multiple angles and perspectives, giving me a broad visual vocabulary to work with. There were different framings, different shot sizes and different ways of looking at the characters.

For an editor, this is freedom.

You are no longer simply asking, “Which shot works?”

You can ask much more interesting questions:

Whose perspective should we experience this moment from?

How close should we be to the character?

Should the audience see the reaction immediately, or should we withhold it?

Should these two characters feel connected, or should they feel isolated from each other?

Good coverage gives the editor options. But having options does not automatically produce a good edit. In fact, it can make the creative decision more difficult.

The challenge becomes deciding which possibilities actually serve the story.

Let the Characters Drive the Edit

Because Rosie Lee is strongly character-driven and their performances were powerful and emotionally detailed, I decided early on that I wanted the edit to be driven primarily by the actors and I did not want the audience to miss those details.

That led to one of the most deliberate choices I made in the edit: I relied heavily on close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots rather than allowing wider coverage to dominate the film.

In fact, I used a wide shot only twice throughout the entire film.

We had six takes of the wide shot.

Six.

And I used it twice.

That might sound slightly painful from the crew members' perspective, but I think it illustrates an important point about narrative editing: having a shot does not mean you have to use it.

Wide shots are often an obvious choice for establishing geography. They tell the audience where the characters are, how they relate spatially, and what the environment looks like.

But I deliberately moved away from that conventional approach.

I did not want the audience to simply observe the characters from a distance. I wanted them to experience the emotional tension through their faces, their reactions and the subtle changes in their behaviour.

It was a relatively bold creative decision, but it felt appropriate for the story.

Shaping the Relationship Between Characters

The opening of the film provided another important clue.

At the beginning, the story is centred on Sylvia. It begins with her, and through her we experience the pain, loss and spirit that define the emotional world of the scene.

So rather than immediately relying on wide shot coverage to start the film, I chose to stay close to Sylvia.

I wanted the audience to feel that she was deeply immersed in her own world.

This is where shot choice becomes more than visual preference. A close-up does not simply show us a character's face. It can also tell us how connected we are to that character's internal experience.

For that reason, I deliberately avoided using over-the-shoulder shots until George begins to speak.

That moment changes the relationship.

Once George enters the conversation, the scene becomes a dialogue—not simply Sylvia experiencing her own emotional world. I then began introducing over-the-shoulder shots because they establish a clearer relationship between the two characters.

We start to feel that they are not just existing in the same space. They are communicating with each other.

That is one of the things I enjoy most about narrative editing: a change that looks extremely small technically can completely change the emotional meaning of a scene.

Using Camera Angles to Shape Power

Another detail I paid close attention to was camera angle.

Camera angles can subtly influence how powerful, vulnerable or dominant a character feels. A lower camera angle can make a character appear more imposing, while a higher angle can create a sense of vulnerability or weakness.

These effects are often subtle, but in a character-driven scene, subtlety is exactly what makes them useful.

One example comes when Sylvia hits the table.

I chose a lower-angle shot at that moment because I wanted to reinforce the sense of power and intensity behind her action.

Later, the dynamic changes.

When the emotional explosion is approaching and George has already sat down, waiting for Sylvia, I chose a higher-angle shot of him. The visual relationship has shifted. George no longer feels as dominant. There is a sense of vulnerability and weakness.

The important thing is that these decisions were not made simply because one shot looked better than another.

They were made because the characters' emotional positions within the scene had changed.

That is how I try to approach narrative editing: not just cutting according to what happens, but cutting according to what the characters are experiencing.

How I used the Wide Shots

Despite deliberately avoiding wide shots for most of the film, there are two moments where I chose to use them.

Neither was accidental.

The first is when the siren goes off.

The second is at the ending.

These are moments when the emotional and narrative perspective of the characters changes.

Until this point, the characters have been caught up in their own conflict. They are arguing, reacting and struggling with what is immediately in front of them.

But when the siren sounds, the world outside their argument suddenly becomes impossible to ignore.

And by the ending, they finally realise something fundamental: before the Nazis win, they should cherish each other rather than arguing.

That is why I wanted the film to open up visually at these moments.

After spending so much of the film close to the characters, the wide shot suddenly has greater meaning. It gives us distance. It allows us to see the characters finally becoming together within their environment.

In other words, the wide shot becomes emotionally significant precisely because I had avoided using it for most of the film.

If I had used wide shots repeatedly throughout the film, those moments would not have carried the same visual weight.

Narrative Editing Is About Meaning, Not Just Continuity

This experience reinforced something I believe strongly about narrative editing.

The editor's job is not simply to make the footage continuous. Continuity is important, of course, but it is only the foundation.

The more interesting question is: what does each cut communicate?

A close-up can say, stay with this character.

An over-the-shoulder shot can say, this is now a relationship.

A wide shot can say, step back and understand the bigger picture.

A low angle can suggest power.

A high angle can suggest vulnerability.

And sometimes, the most powerful editorial decision is to leave a perfectly good shot on the timeline and never use it.

For me, that is what makes narrative editing so enjoyable. When the footage is rich, the edit becomes a process of discovery. You are not simply putting images together. You are searching through performances, camera angles, pauses, reactions and compositions to find the version of the story that communicates most effectively.

Finding the Film Within the Footage

Ultimately, my approach to narrative editing is about finding the film that already exists within the material.

That does not mean being passive. Editing requires strong creative decisions. Sometimes you have to reject the obvious choice, break a conventional pattern, or deliberately leave beautiful footage on the cutting-room floor.

But those decisions should come from the story.

With Rosie Lee, the performances told me to stay close. The character relationships told me when to change the visual language. The camera angles helped shape the power dynamics. And the rare use of the wide shot allowed the moments of realisation to breathe.

The footage gave me possibilities.

The story gave those possibilities meaning.

And the edit was the process of bringing the two together.

For me, that is the essence of narrative editing: not cutting the footage into a story, but discovering the story through the cuts.

Cheuk Yin Ng

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