How A Pro Video Editor Cut McConaughey (Breakdown)

How many editing techniques can we learn from a Matthew McConaughey commercial?

I’ve been a pro editor for over 20 years, and today I’d like to invite you into my edit suite so we can take a look at a commercial starring Matthew McConaughey that I completed last year. Be sure to watch the above video for the full lesson.

Over my career I’ve landed on five editing criteria that I use for every project—emotion, story, rhythm, sound, and action. These are derived from Walter Murch’s book, In the Blink of an Eye (affiliate link), and we’ll look at the commercial from these five perspectives. At the end of this article, I share the single most important thing I learned from working with Matthew.  

Emotion

The first thing I want to consider is the emotion, or, what do I want the audience to feel? Emotion is not an editing technique, but rather the foundation on which you make all of your other editing decisions. If you play a musical instrument, for example, you probably learned your scales—that’s technique. But when you get together with a band, you don’t play scales (hopefully!). Rather, you play to serve the emotion of the song. I like to think of editing the same way.

When I read this script, I was struck by the inspiring message of the piece. The ending definitely packs an emotional punch, but we still have a lot of important information to get across to the audience beforehand. For the first two-thirds of the piece I wanted to evoke a sense of curiosity and understanding from the audience. At the end, I wanted the audience to feel inspired to take action.

 Story

While this is not a narrative, there is definitely a story structure to this commercial.

In Act I, Matthew sets up the ordinary world. There is new federal funding available for school safety, and at the end of Act I he states the problem—schools don’t know how to access those funds.

This point takes us into Act II, where Matthew explains the solution, detailing how schools can overcome those obstacles.

And in Act III, Matthew shares an emotional personal story. I consider this to be the climax, with the resolution being his final call to action.

One of my favorite aspects of this commercial is how the director, Scott Rice, used the different locations of the school to reinforce the story structure. Act I is in front of the school and in the hallway, Act II takes place in front of the chalkboard, and Act III at the students' desks.

Rhythm

For this spot, I knew I wanted a steady, brisk pace. To accomplish this, it was important to consider each cut, and keep them tight. 

Sound

There is subtle world-building at the beginning of the shot, such as birds chirping and student voices in the background (which get increasingly louder as Matthew enters the hallway of the school).

We also wanted to give a nice burst of energy as we went from Act I to Act II, when Matthew enters the classroom. I accomplished this with the added sound design of a school bell, and a music edit that pushes us into the next scene, complimenting the energy of the camera panning and the following of Matthew.  I also added more of a subjective sound at this point, a whoosh that emphasizes the whip pan to the chalkboard. To help bring the animation to life, I added detailed sound effects to this scene.

Action

Our first editorial decision is the in point of shot one. I mentioned I wanted the rhythm of this spot to have a brisk pace, and the first in point helps establish that pace. Matthew's voice comes in quickly in just one frame. If we expanded this to six frames for example, doing so would establish a totally different pace.

The cut from the first shot to the second shot is a J-cut, where the audio of the next shot comes in before you cut to the visual. I think using this technique helps tie these two shots and locations together as they are both part of Act I.

Quick tip: whenever you cut in, make sure it’s motivated. The decision to cut into Matthew’s close-up was to help emphasize this point. A cut in can say to the audience, "Let’s get closer!" (this is important).

The next cut is a good example of in and out points helping define the rhythm (I cut to the next shot before Matthew fully leaves the frame). This gives a greater sense of urgency than if I let him fully exit the frame, while also adding to the energy of this transition.

After being on the chalkboard for a time, I knew that going back to Matthew would be an opportunity to create an impactful moment, so we deliberately cut to the close-up on this line (after which we cut wide for his walk to the desk).

I wanted a nice smooth transition from Matthew standing to Matthew seated. Matthew starts to sit in the wide shot and I cut in closer as he finishes sitting down. You could call this a match on action since his sitting motion happens over two shots. But I like to look at it as Matthew finishing his preparation to sit, and then sitting in the next shot.

The final cut is from Matthew to the art card. I wanted to make sure Matthew’s face settled so it left the audience with a nice visual image of him. To maintain the brisk rhythm I only let five frames pass between his face settling and the art card.

The most important thing I learned from editing this spot with Matthew is the importance of preserving the actor’s cadence and rhythm that they established on set. When Matthew watched his takes on the playback monitor, he was listening carefully to his cadence of the delivery, and it clicked with me that cadence and rhythm play a big part in a performance feeling authentic.

Austen is an ADDY award-winning film & commercial editor with over 20 years of experience. He has worked with global brands like Meta, KPMG, SAP, and Christianity Today. His PSA work has championed causes like school safety (with Matthew McConaughey), driving safety, and anti-tobacco. A thought leader in the editing field, his online lessons quickly amassed over 100K views after launch.