What do documentary makers say about paper edits, string-outs and card walls, and where do they disagree on how much structure to plan before editing?
Roger Nygard surveys documentary editing: paper edits from transcripts, assistant-built topic string-outs by transcript word search (his own method), story cards on a wall whose order can invert, interview-first blind assemblies with talking heads moved repeatedly, and judgment-based endings, plus Herzog's counter-position of shooting what you want for the screen. Statements by other filmmakers are second-hand in this article.
Roger Nygard surveys documentary editing: paper edits from transcripts, assistant-built topic string-outs by transcript word search (his own method), story cards on a wall whose order can invert, interview-first blind assemblies with talking heads moved repeatedly, and judgment-based endings, plus Herzog's counter-position of shooting what you want for the screen. Statements by other filmmakers are second-hand in this article.
Curator qualifications: Pages read 2026-10-22; practitioner accounts, no outcomes measured. Other filmmakers quoted without locators to original interviews.
Limitations: Pages read 2026-10-22; practitioner accounts, no outcomes measured.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://cinemontage.org/shoot-then-rewrite-new-book-explores-how-editors-can-help-make-documentaries-soar/",
"note": "CineMontage: Shoot, Then Rewrite (Roger Nygard, Feb 2025) (live)"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Roger Nygard surveys documentary editing: paper edits from transcripts, assistant-built topic string-outs by transcript word search (his own method), story cards on a wall whose order can invert, interview-first blind assemblies with talking heads moved repeatedly, and judgment-based endings, plus Herzog's counter-position of shooting what you want for the screen. Statements by other filmmakers are second-hand in this article. · locator: CineMontage: Shoot, Then Rewrite (Roger Nygard, Feb 2025) (live) source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |