The Cutting Room: A Filmmaker’s Safe Space

Her long list of credits, running the gamut of genres, includes Love and Basketball (2000), Eve’s Bayou (1997), The Woman King (2022), The Old Guard (2020), and most recently Twisters (2024), directed by Lee Isaac Chung and executive-produced by Steven Spielberg. She’s been nominated for Emmys, Eddies, and more. She is a leader in the editing community, serving on the board of American Cinema Editors and as a Governor of The Academy. Yes, that Academy. Teri has also passionately taken on the role of mentor, sharing with filmmakers, from the least experienced to the most, her wisdom and advice. 

I, too, am a film and television editor. I have a double-decade career in all types of editing, from reality and documentary to my current work in narrative feature film and scripted television. My credits include The Photograph (2020), American Crime Story: Impeachment (2021), Queen Sugar (2017-2018), and Kindred (2022). I love being an editor, with all its hills and valleys, and even after 20 years, my eyes still widen at the filmmaking genius that elevates our big and small screens. Many times over, that genius has come from Terilyn Shropshire.

Teri and I first met when I was an editing fellow at the American Film Institute and Teri and Gina Prince-Bythewood were speakers at one of our legendary (at least in film school circles) seminar classes. The film we were examining was Love and Basketball, one of my favorites, and at the end of the class I worked up the courage to introduce myself to Teri. I eventually asked if she would be interested in mentoring me through our thesis projects, and to my surprise she said yes. Weeks later, Teri and I are in a tiny AFI cutting room watching my, ahem, “baby editor” cutting skills as she generously shows me the techniques, tricks, and the no-no’s that make up the craft of editing. I will never forget Teri’s words on that day: “Cut when it feels right.” She helped validate my instincts, and I have relied on this validation to this day.

As a “unicorn” (what we, the fortunate few Black women who have found success in feature film editing, call ourselves), Teri has forged a path of excellence in craft, creativity, and the ever-important ability to mentor. I sat down with her while she was working on Twisters at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch.

Shannon Baker Davis: When did you first know you wanted to be an editor?

Terilyn A. Shropshire: It came out of a process of both studying film and studying journalism. I went to USC, University of Southern California, and when I really started to go out and shoot my own films, I didn’t necessarily enjoy the process of having to shoot. I found that when I got back to my room to start trying to figure out what I did—putting the shots together, problem-solving, “what if-ing,” which is part of the process—it was editing where I felt like I just put my shoulders down. I just loved the process of finding the story, discovering the story, rediscovering the story, and changing up the story. It was something I could spend hours doing. 

SBD: You talked about rediscovering the story in editorial, and I think some people don’t understand that is exactly what editors do. You help discover what the footage is going to be. Beyond the script and what was shot, it can become a whole new thing.

TAS: Yes, I think it’s very easy to say, “A director goes out and directs a movie, or a writer is the person who creates a story.” You can look at a cinematographer’s work. You can look at a costume designer’s work.

I always like to think of us as storytellers who use editorial tools, in collaboration with other storytellers, to put the best story on-screen. I always think of myself as a filmmaker who edits.

What I love most about what I do is actually working with the director to facilitate the intent. The script is the intent, and if we do our job right, we’re showing the best of everybody’s work, the best of everybody’s talents, and the best version of the intent. And you need us to do that. I don’t think people realize the weight of what we’re tasked with.

SBD: You talked about the relationships that you have with directors Gina Prince-Bythewood, Kasi Lemmons. How do you feel your relationship has influenced their tastes, their process, and their creativity or vice versa? How have you evolved together as partners in filmmaking?

TAS: Well, we certainly have grown up together as filmmakers. But I hope, if anything, for them I have just been that person next to them that receives their thoughts and their frustrations. I hope that what I give them is this space to try things and to be open. I have a sign in my editing room that says, “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy any evidence that you tried.” But it’s not true. Even I get resistant about things. Sometimes an idea will come up and I’ll be like, OK, I don’t know about that. But what I do know is, if I don’t try it, then they’re always going to wonder, Is it going to work? What every editor should hopefully be doing is creating a safe space where you can try, fail, and try again.

SBD: I do feel that directors and, when you’re in television, showrunners have to be so guarded sometimes when they’re out of the cutting room. When they come into the cutting room, all of that should just go away. The vibe should be, “Tell me what you feel.” It’s a special relationship where you need to feel that whatever you have in your heart, you can allow it to come out of your mouth and not be judged for it. And directors and showrunners don’t necessarily allow themselves that freedom when they’re sitting in a studio executive’s office or they’re in a meeting about marketing.

TAS: There’s kind of an honor within the editing room, that what happens in the editing room stays in the editing room. It’s a creative space where trust should be built upon, not broken down.     

SBD: Let’s talk about the actual craft of editing. Good editing has the power to convey emotion and humor and celebrate and critique culture. What are the tools you use to convey emotion?

TAS: Silence. I think that silence is underrated. And I think that often the emotion happens in the silences. I think the emotion also happens in the reception of information, the reactions as opposed to the actions. Part of the artistry of editing is making the decision as to who is giving information and who is receiving information, how long someone is giving information and how long someone is receiving information, how long or short someone processes information. It’s the communication between the lines. 

During dailies, I might laugh or cry or feel many different emotions. I want to hold on to that when I start cutting because I want the emotion to still resonate when I finish cutting the scene. You have to be careful not to cut so much that you’ve taken away that initial feeling.

Music is a very delicate thing. Sometimes the tendency is to bring in the music before your audience has even had a chance to feel that emotion. And sometimes that can feel manipulative. So you really have to say, “Wait a second. Are you giving your audience a moment to process?”

SBD: Let’s talk about performance. As editors, of course with the directors, part of our job is to critique performance. What advice would you give a room full of young actors?

TAS: That’s a hard one, because every film is different. But I’ve been in situations where younger directors will finish the take, and they’ll be very excited that they’re done and say “cut.” Then you hope that the cinematographer or the cameraperson will take a breath so that even though the director’s saying “cut,” there’s still that moment between the word “cut” and what the actor may be doing before the camera turns off that may provide you with an expression you need. So, I guess I would tell actors that even when you hear the word “cut,” be aware that where you’re hearing “cut” and where I actually may be cutting might be different. But having said that, I will communicate with the director if I see something that an actor’s doing that could be problematic for us.

SBD: So, since you’re final sound mixing at Skywalker Ranch Soundstages, talk about the editor’s role in sound design, sound mixing, and everything you hear in a film.

TAS: I had a compliment one time where a director said that they direct to get to the editing room, and I would give the same compliment to sound people; I feel like I edit to get to the mix stage. Once I’m at the mix stage, I’m handing it over to the people that are going to continue to dress it and make it its best self. And so, if it’s up to me, I would have the sound team on from day one. Even when I’m reading a script, I’ll start to think about the sound of the film. When I’m cutting a scene, I’ll start dropping things in because it helps me tell the story and see what my cutting rhythms are expressing. It helps with the dynamics and modulating beats within a scene. The mix stage is my happy place. 

SBD: What I love about you is that just sitting in the chair—and the chairs on the big films that you work on could be enough—it was enough for me just to see you when I was at AFI and you and Gina brought Love and Basketball to our seminar class. I was like, Oh my God, this is a Black woman editor. I’m a Black woman editor. That could be me one day. Just for you to be there is validation for aspiring Black editors, but you don’t just do that. You actually literally open the door for people, by sponsoring editors like me for ACE membership and Academy membership, and then also mentoring through programs like Academy Gold and unofficially by just listening when I call with my troubles.

TAS: That’s why, when we talk about editing as a craft and a discipline, it is something that relies on us, you and I, making sure that, even though it’s very challenging, we create and maintain a teaching environment of some sort in our spaces. Training and the development of skills and experience is essential to performing the job. We are under such pressure to deliver the project, sometimes nurturing the learning environment falls by the wayside. It is essential that we rediscover the opportunities to train and help young filmmakers get to where they want to go.

SBD: I’m curious. What’s something you haven’t worked on that you’ve always wanted to try?

TAS: I think that even though I did do a bit of a musical when I cut Black Nativity (2013), I feel like I could really have fun with an old-school musical.

SBD: Yes. Well, Gina could do Love and Basketball: the Musical.

TAS: [Laughs] Gina is a musical person. She’s just not into directing a movie musical.

I’m living out my dreams, even to be here at Skywalker Ranch working on a big-budget film. I was one of those kids, back in the day, that was in a dark theater watching Star Wars (1977), mind blown, with this reverence for George Lucas and Spielberg. And to be in a position where now I’m sitting here talking to you at Skywalker Ranch built by George Lucas on a movie that’s being produced by Steven Spielberg, I feel like it’s truly a full circle moment for me.

And we should always have a certain measure of awe in what we do. You never want to lose that. But I’m also celebrating where I am in my life and my career. I’ve worked hard for this, and I feel like I deserve this, and I don’t know what’s next, but I’m going to try to keep doing this as long as I find the joy in it.