Where editing becomes a practised skill, not just a concept
Motion Cut Lab runs hands-on editing workshops for people who want to move past tutorials and actually build a working process - frame by frame, cut by cut.
Each programme is structured around real footage, structured briefs, and feedback that points to something specific. You leave with work you made, not notes you took.
How the work here is structured
Most editing courses give you a tool walkthrough and call it training. The sessions here start from a different point: you receive raw footage, a brief, and a deadline - then you edit. Instruction comes in response to what you actually produce.
That means feedback is specific to your choices, not to a hypothetical student's choices. It also means the problems you encounter are real ones, not simplified stand-ins.
Footage-first briefs
Every module begins with actual camera files - mixed quality, multiple angles, some unusable takes. You sort, select, and build a sequence before any technique is formally introduced.
Cut-by-cut review
Instructors review your edit in the timeline, not as a finished export. That distinction matters: you see exactly where a decision created a problem and what an alternative would look like.
Peer screening sessions
Each cohort watches each other's cuts together. Seeing twelve different approaches to the same material - same footage, same brief - is one of the fastest ways to understand editorial instinct.
Deliberate repetition
Skills introduced early reappear in later briefs at higher complexity. Pacing decisions from week two show up again in week six with a score underneath them. That repetition is intentional.
What the commitment looks like
A standalone full-day session focused on one area - narrative assembly, sound design, or colour grading. Suitable if you have a specific gap to address.
- 6 hours of structured editing time
- Raw footage pack included
- One-to-one timeline review
- Session materials to keep
Eight consecutive Saturday sessions covering the full editorial process from ingest to export. Designed for people building a consistent practice from the ground up.
- All single-session content included
- Three extended briefs across the term
- Peer cohort access throughout
- Portfolio review at programme end
Prices shown in NZD and include GST. Places are limited per cohort to keep review sessions practical. The next intake opens quarterly - contact us to check current availability.
After the last session, what stays
The practical question is what happens six months later, when there is no instructor and a client is waiting. People who finish the full programme generally describe the same shift: they stop second-guessing their first cut and start using it as a diagnostic tool.
That is a specific, learnable thing - not confidence in the abstract, but a reliable process for moving from raw footage to a working assembly without losing time to hesitation.
Access to session materials, brief archives, and the peer network from your cohort stays open after the programme ends. Editing is a practice, and the resources here are designed to support continued work, not just the eight weeks you are enrolled.
The people who run the sessions
Reuben Tait
Lead instructor - narrative editing
Reuben spent eleven years cutting documentary and short-form drama for New Zealand and Australian broadcasters before moving into teaching. His sessions focus on structural decisions - how to build a sequence that holds attention without relying on coverage to paper over problems. He is direct in review and expects participants to defend their cuts.
Aroha Ngāti
Instructor - sound and pacing
Aroha works primarily in post-production sound and has been part of the Motion Cut Lab programme since its third year. She runs the sessions on sound design and pacing, two areas where editing decisions are often made by instinct rather than intention. Her approach is to make that instinct visible so participants can examine and adjust it.
What the programme is built around
Editing is one of those skills that looks learnable from a distance and turns out to be genuinely difficult up close. The gap between knowing what a cut is supposed to do and being able to execute it consistently - that is what the sessions here are designed to close, incrementally, over time.
The programme does not promise a particular outcome. What it does is give you a structured environment where the work is real, the feedback is specific, and the repetition is enough to actually change how you work.
"Editing is not a technical skill with a creative side. It is a creative skill that requires technical fluency."
- Reuben Tait, lead instructor
01
Practical from day one
No theory-first modules. The first session begins with footage and a brief. Concepts are introduced in response to what you encounter while editing, not before.
02
Small cohort size
Twelve participants maximum. That limit exists because meaningful timeline review takes time, and the peer screening sessions only work when everyone can contribute.
03
Software-agnostic approach
Sessions are taught across Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. Editorial decisions are discussed in terms of the cut, not the shortcut. Participants work in whichever application they already use.
04
Portfolio you actually built
By the end of the programme you have three completed edits from the extended briefs. They are yours to use, not examples produced under artificial conditions.
When you hit a wall mid-project
Every editor reaches a point where the sequence stops working and the reason is not obvious. Sometimes it is a structural problem. Sometimes it is a pacing issue buried in the sound mix. Sometimes it is just fatigue making a good cut look wrong.
During the programme, instructors are reachable between sessions for questions that cannot wait until Saturday. That access is not a guarantee of a quick answer, but it means you are not sitting with a broken sequence for a full week before anyone can look at it.
After the programme, the cohort stays connected through a shared workspace. Past participants ask questions, share work in progress, and occasionally collaborate on briefs. It is not a managed community - it is just a group of people who went through the same thing.
Email during sessions
Reach instructors at help@motioncutlab.com between Saturday sessions. Response within two working days during active programme weeks.
In-person at the studio
Sessions run at 52 Abbotts Way, Remuera, Auckland. The space is available to current participants on session days from 8am.
Phone for urgent questions
Call +64 4 939 2759 during studio hours. For general enquiries, email is usually faster.