PRODUCTION
EDITING CRAFT
...SEX EDUCATION 3
The editing team behind Eleven Films/ Netflix show Sex Education (series 3) - Steve Ackroyd, David Webb, Phil Hignett & Izabella Curry, were awarded Best Edited Series:Comedy at the BFE Awards. Here, Steve, David and Phil explain the importance of music, and teamwork, to the show
How was the show briefed to you? SA [Director] Ben Taylor had a really good treatment, a mission statement, which he sold to Netflix and Eleven Films which was a detailed concept document laying out the John Hughes feel, very 80s, music led, fast and funny. That got us excited. DW We’d been sent a script but until we were sent the pitch document, it really didn’t make sense. It’s really helpful because you’ve got some notion of the director’s vision before you get on board. Ben is a real fan of John Hughes and that era of
movies. In fact, we’re all of a similar age so those are the movies that we grew up on, so it was all very familiar territory for us. Initially we went a bit too far with it. We made playlists before we started the show which were solely 80s music. It was too much of a restriction, so we ended up broadening it out, which is why musically, as well as visually, it is this smorgasbord of references.
Music is very important in the show, do you choose it? DW We do. Not that I’m undervaluing the music super who’s delightful. But we do take the lead on that. We spend days and weeks choosing music. Typically, before we start the show, there’ll be a playlist of 100 to 120 tracks we feel might have a place in the show. And then we have really fun sessions where, if there’s a scene which is going to be dressed with music, a bunch of us will audition tracks. We’ll play the same sequence with 10 or 15 different tracks and gauge the
temperature of the room. SA It’s not dictated to us scene by scene bar sometimes the opening montages because they’re so shot specific that often Ben has an idea for that. But as for the music in the main body of the series, it really is what we feel is right on the day when we get the assemblies.
Do your editing backgrounds help with this show? SA One of the main pushes for Ben when he was selling his idea to Netflix and Eleven was that he wanted it very much music led. That’s one of the reasons why he likes working with us because all of us come from a short-form background in music videos and commercials. It’s kind of our bread and butter and it’s where Ben’s come from as well.
Is the freedom over music choices rare? PH I came in on season two and I followed Steve and Dave’s lead on the music. I think it’s pretty
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