Does anyone out there get help editing? How does that work?

Within one year of starting my videography business in my spare time (mikepulcinella.com) I am completely swamped! I am working on a documentary and a surprise 50th birthday party video at the same time. I've had a wedding in the can since October and a retrospective of the career of a female bodybuilder mostly shot and also awaiting editing. Next week I'm going to be shooting a standup comic's routine to make him an audition DVD for his agent. How am I going to get it all done?? I still have a day job so I am limited to editing on nights and weekends. I'm spending nearly all of my free time in front of the computer.

I've thought about hiring help with the editing, but apart from the 50th birthday party and the wedding, these projects are not straightforward. People come to me for (what I hope) is my unique creative style and if I were to give sections of the projects to other editors would I be giving my creativity away?

If outside help is necessary, how does one manage the mechanical logisitcs of it (external hard drives to hold the scratch files and such and putting the separate pieces back together) and still retain creative control?

Any advice?


To the moderators: I wasn't sure where to post this so if you feel it would be better somewhere else please move it. I'm not actively looking for an assitant editor at this time so I didn't think it was appropriate to put it in Helping Hands.

I edited a couple of projects, got the video on a hard drive. Another one, I got the client's hard drive camcorder to extract the footage... If the hired editor can look at your overall work and get a feel of what you want, I think it will work just fine.

For presentations some of the time involves scanning and color-correcting old photos. You can have that farmed out, along with organizing shots and clips.

That leaves you with the task of actually putting the presentation together, rather than dealing with the myriad of details of preparing the raw materials.

Thanks. Those are good suggestions.

I am beginning to wonder if I can also farm out other "grunt work" like the organizing and labeling of clips. I'm just not sure if I can get an assistant to see the things that I am looking for. Sometimes, I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for until I stumble across it!