You Can’t Automate Taste: Editing, AI, and Creative Survival

Intro (00:00)
I don’t think people really understand how much of the creative comes together in the edit. I started out as an editor, so I have some appreciation, but certainly not at the level of our guest today. Today, I get to speak to one of the best humans in the ad industry, and it makes me reflect on how much of our conversation was about the human touch, handling creatives just right, managing clients’ expectations, and creating an environment where everyone comes together to stop talking about a project in theory, but actually get real about what’s left and how to make it

It’s the coming together of people, of creatives in a single space where everyone’s hopes and expectations for a project are finally realized. They know if they’ve made a massive mistake or if their instincts were right all along. For Jane Dilworth, that space isn’t just where the work happens, it’s where the culture lives. For nearly 20 years, she’s built Work Editorial into arguably the most respected edit house in all of the world of advertising. Not by chasing trends, but by honoring the craft. Championing editors and cultivating a creative culture where talent is nurtured.

You’re listening to Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs. Today on the show, I’m asking what does it take to build a company in a culture where editors thrive, creativity leads, and the work still really matters? Jane Dilworth, co-founder of Work Editorial, longtime champion of great editing and one of the fiercest believers in the power of collaboration and culture over money and hierarchy. In this episode, we discuss why editing isn’t really just technical. It’s deeply emotional and relational.

How Jane’s flat hierarchy and ego-free culture at work has helped them earn decades of loyalty from top editors, directors, and agencies. And why trusting your team and your taste in the process matters more than ever in a world obsessed with speed and margins. I’m struck by most chatting with Jane is just how easy it is to not be a dick. The creative industries are hard, but they can and should be fun. But it takes the commitment of the people at the top of creative companies to make it fun.

and to inspire the people that work there. I I had a fun chat with Jane, I always do. That’s why this one’s a little long today, but I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s an episode broadly about the culture that sustained a company that’s lasted 20 years.

and is still at the top of its game and at the top of all lists of the best edit companies in the world. ever wondered what makes a really great creative company last, not just through trends, but through industry shifts and economic storms, don’t go away.

Orlando (02:23)
Well, this is so exciting. mean, I’m so, it’s just so nice to see you.

Jane Dilworth (02:26)
Yeah, it’s so nice to see

you too. So nice to see you too. Are you going to be coming? I’m actually in Mallorca.

Orlando (02:30)
Where are you? Are you in London?

fantastic.

Jane Dilworth (02:35)
Yeah, we got kind of stuck here. We couldn’t get back to America in the January 21. We were in New York in 20. What we could have done, they said, you can go to you can go to Caribbean. Well, I didn’t try very hard. No, because they said, you can go to the Caribbean or Canada for two weeks and then maybe try then. And we’d already just bought this house. And we thought, you know what, I’ve already brought an avid over. We were working remotely anyway. I didn’t want to go back to our apartment in Brooklyn. It was like

Orlando (02:40)
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m sure you tried incredibly hard.

Jane Dilworth (03:02)
We have a house. So we ended up spending 21 here and it’s just sort of become our home.

Orlando (03:07)
for a business that so ran on, being there in person and that collaborative experience.

And that was such a necessity. And then obviously you kind of survived it by, I presume, going remote. And, you know, did you scale back any of your facilities?

Jane Dilworth (03:22)
Yeah,

we went, no, I mean, we went remote. I mean, some people loved it. Most of the editors hated it, to be honest. Producers loved it, but I don’t know, was hard because we, you know, as you know, editing is such a collaborative process and being in the room and also as an editor, you’re kind of the bridge between the director and the agency.

And you need to navigate that relationship quite delicately because the director wants one thing, the agency wants the others. Both of them ideas are valid. You can kind of like, it’s such a collaborative process, the edit suite. It’s not just like edit send, because then when it’s sent,

then everyone looks at it. People were looking at it on a boat, on their phone or in a car or like going, I don’t like it. And you go, you didn’t actually look at there was a lot of frustration. And in some ways we did really well as a company, but like psychologically, was a weird one because a good…

Orlando (04:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (04:24)
edit is when there isn’t a director’s cut, when everyone is reaching for the same goal and you get there by a kind of collaborative process. yeah, it was weird the lockdown, yeah.

Orlando (04:30)
Yeah.

when it comes to the edit, very often you’re trying to get out of the world of theory and into the world of reality. And I find that when you view an edit remotely, you’re still going, it feels like this. And it’s kind of like that. And, and, and I think that that’s the point where you really kind of, there’s nothing better than going,

Jane Dilworth (04:40)
Eugh.

Orlando (04:53)
This right here, that kind of area isn’t working. I’m feeling the image, this edit point right here. There’s something about pointing at the same screen together and unpacking why a particular edit decision doesn’t work that I think is very important and lost if you go too remote.

Jane Dilworth (04:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly. And also you can clear the slate quite clean. Even if you’re drawing a picture, you do a line, you rub it out. You try something just to see, and then you try it, rather than trying something, see it, come back in three hours. And then of course, when people have asked for something, they feel they should stick by But if you’re in the room, you can be like, no, no, no, forget it, that was crazy. Or actually, you know what, that’s really good. But you know what, if we did it with this, I mean, and that’s the nice side of.

Orlando (05:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (05:40)
being the edit process is being that kind of key to bringing something to the some editors like to…

Orlando (05:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Weirdly, weirdly when you, when

you name it, it becomes more final. Like if you’re in the room and somebody goes, that didn’t work. But the moment you export it and it’s V3 alt VO, suddenly it has a name and it has a, a proof that it was there and everybody either rallies around it or runs away from it, blaming whoever created that one.

Jane Dilworth (05:58)
Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, no, didn’t really. And also like the whole Evercast thing, lot of the editors found it really hard, because you really need to connect, because it’s such a

Orlando (06:17)
Yeah, so

I mean, just to, yeah, but just to fill in sort of what Evercast is, I mean, it’s a sort of edit and presentation tool that allows you to present your screen as you’re editing. Have you find that that still has a place somehow, or is it, have you guys run away from it entirely?

Jane Dilworth (06:18)
Well, I mean, it’s a relationship business, yeah.

I

No, not entirely, because like anything that comes along new there’s always going to be a benefit. I remember when people first start filming on digital cameras, or some director like, I’m never going to use it. And they’re like, I’m using it, know, straight away. Because you you realize, yeah, yeah, and everyone goes, that’s great. Yeah, and also, but you know, it’s like anything, it’s really useful. Like, you you can select, you can load somewhere else, you can, but actually,

Orlando (06:49)
Yeah. And then Fincher uses it and everybody goes, that’s okay.

Jane Dilworth (07:02)
When it comes to the crunch, nothing beats being in person.

I don’t think it’s the future. It’s just half of the future.

Orlando (07:08)
Yeah, yeah.

so I’m just I mean just to kind of you know, recap you know who you are and what you do. I mean you run Work Post which is sort of over the last. You I mean God 18 year 20 years. I mean it’s it’s been a long time. Yeah, fabulous.

Jane Dilworth (07:23)
20 years next year. we kind of,

we stopped, I started calling ourselves Work Editorial because I thought it sounded more posh. So because I think work post sounded a little, I don’t know, it reminded me of a little upper alley in the Wardour Street or something. yeah, next year will be 20 years. we were four partners equal 25.

Orlando (07:29)
Right. Right.

Jane Dilworth (07:42)
percent each. And for the first almost 10 years, we paid each of ourselves exactly the same amount of money each. Because what we wanted to build was a kind of culture of we’re in it to do the work literally, rather than making money the goal.

And so what we did is we just pooled the money in and every quarter we divided out. I mean, it’s got more complicated now. We got to America and America doesn’t really understand communes or that kind of sharing in quite the same.

Orlando (08:12)
I have noticed that.

Jane Dilworth (08:19)
in quite the same kind of way. We had to kind of like change the model a bit. But the ethos is still there.

Orlando (08:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

It’s so funny. know, it’s London is is obviously, on the front lines of lots of sort of creativity and business. You sort of forget Soho has a kind of kumbaya attitude to a lot of things. There’s a there’s a lot of talk about doing it for the love of the work and that kind of stuff. And I was always amazed when I worked with American production people, the phrase they would more often say is, “listen, nobody’s asking anybody to work for free here.” You know, that was.

Jane Dilworth (08:49)
⁓

you go, switch that round to London. Look, everyone is being asked to offer for free now.

Orlando (08:50)
That was not a yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it’s constant sort of the love of the work. And at the end of the day, it’s work for Coca Cola and Nike And so, yeah, that was a big culture change between the UK and the U.S. that I noticed.

Jane Dilworth (09:07)
I just love that the Americans aren’t scared of talking about money, whereas English people are very much like, oh, don’t want to be crass. like, there’s a lot of, you know, like you say, love of the work, which is course love of the work, but advertising, it’s not.

Orlando (09:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (09:23)
It’s not

art in that sense. mean, a lot of it is artistic and there’s amazing stuff we’ve done, but it’s like, yeah, that was a very refreshing, I have to say in America, you can talk about money and it’s not shameful, which is great. Yeah. Well, you have to.

Orlando (09:35)
Yeah, yeah. In the UK, it’s sort of

the idea of the sordid topic of coin.

Jane Dilworth (09:41)
Ugh, yeah.

How very dare you, yeah.

Orlando (09:44)
Yes, exactly. Work Editorial represents some of the best editors and commercial editors in the world. just last night, you guys won Ad Age, Edit House of the Year and Rich Orrick your partner, Editor of the Year. But you’ve also won Shots Magazine’s Edit House of the Year, Ciclope Edit House of the Year. having

known you for such a long time and having been through it myself a little bit, you know, it’s amazing that those Edit House of the Year awards aren’t a single, they may represent a single year, but really they’re many years in the winning because it takes quite a long time to be doing really good work so that you get a critical mass of truly exceptional talent. You know, it’s those years where a lot of commercial or a lot of

editing talent goes, I’m interested in knowing what Work Editorial is doing. I’m interested in them. And then after a little bit going, you know what? I’ll reach out and I’ll see if maybe I can go there because they represent really good talent. They do incredible work. They’re getting incredibly good briefs. And that becomes a snowball that, you know, that then you get awarded these Agency of the Year things. But every time somebody wins one of those things,

I always think in my mind about how many years it actually took them to win it.

Jane Dilworth (11:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s such a really good point, actually. And it’s actually one of the points that I say when, you know, someone could do a job quickly or that it’s like, yes, you could do that job in a shorter time, but that’s also a week plus 20 years It’s like, you know, a good portrait can be painted quickly by someone great because they’ve been they’ve been doing it and they have the skill. No, it isn’t. It’s actually hard, you know, like we’ve won.

quite a few over the years and it’s great, but it’s also that like, my God, are we gonna get it again? Is this the peak? Are we going down now? Because we’re always striving. But all the, I think the way we think about it is that like you’re always looking out for something that’s gonna make you excited.

Orlando (11:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (11:44)
you’ve got to always be focusing on the next script. Is this a good script? Is this an interesting director? And sometimes you can get a script through and you go, oh my God, the script’s really lame. And then you look at this director’s treatment, you’re like, wait, this director’s got an interesting twist on this. This could be something really good.

Orlando (11:55)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (12:03)
but you’ve always got to feel like you’re just starting. way, I had this conversation, I bet, yeah, and every editor is once you, you’re only as good as your last job, know, blah, blah, blah, which then gets a lot of editor paranoia, which is fun to deal with.

Orlando (12:07)
Yeah. Every, every year is a new start. Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s interesting. like you said, you know, that that fear of, is this the peak? Is it going to go down from here? And of course it sort of ebbs and flows, but you don’t get 20 years of longevity without, think, a really great culture, because I was at a place. I worked at Fallon when it was, you know, the the number one place in the world. mean, the year I

Jane Dilworth (12:35)
Thank you.

Mmm.

Orlando (12:41)
I think the year I got there, did Cadbury Gorilla, Sony Balls had been the year before, but they did Sony Paint and they did all of these huge, yeah. you guys were a lot of part of that work. But the moment it dipped, was such a, listen, a lot of people thrive there and people worked very hard, but it was not a fun place to work. It was a place where people,

Jane Dilworth (12:48)
⁓ Andy and Rich, yeah.

Orlando (13:06)
you know, really put themselves through it. And so really the moment it dipped, there was a lot of abandoning ship. And I don’t think I’ve seen an agency rise and then collapse so quickly under its own expectation because the moment it dipped even a little bit, everybody was like, well, I’m not enjoying it. I better leave here while it’s still the best thing on my resume and go to somewhere I can enjoy. And I had come from Wieden and Kennedy, which…

Jane Dilworth (13:18)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Orlando (13:33)
Classically, its longevity was born out of the fact that on a global level, it had a really tremendous culture. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (13:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, you

were there at that time when it was that, that kind of in Amsterdam, that real bubble. No, I think culture is important like that. You’re right. You know, and I think, I think,

Orlando (13:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I don’t worry about you guys dipping is one of the

things I always noticed is anytime I came in, whether it was for a session, speaking to your editors, any of that stuff, it always felt like you created a really rich, enjoyable culture that didn’t take it all too, took it seriously without taking it too seriously. And I mean, did that come very naturally to you? Is it something you have to work at? mean, especially now,

Jane Dilworth (14:10)
thank you. That’s good.

Orlando (14:16)
growing into the States

Jane Dilworth (14:17)
Yeah.

Orlando (14:18)
and expanding to multiple territories. How do you keep that at a global level? I’ve asked two questions there, I’m sorry.

Jane Dilworth (14:23)
I think, yeah,

no, no, no, no, it’s interesting too because it’s something that we really did talk about when we started because we’ve both been at other places and one thing I really hate is cliques in companies, little cliquey gangs and little two-some, little three-some, like, leaving people out. ⁓ This is something I find, I can’t bear it. so, when we, and I always have no offices for the producers or the EPs.

Orlando (14:34)
Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Right.

Jane Dilworth (14:49)
Everyone’s

in it together, everyone learns from each other. If you need to talk privately, take yourself somewhere. But everyone’s approachable. It’s like every office is the same. We never have any separate areas for people. try and avoid, editors work with assistants and producers when it works, but then after a few jobs, do the switch around because people can get very tight, then people feel left out.

Orlando (14:58)
Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (15:13)
then there’s a jealousy and then da da da da and you can kind of get this like school. It’s like any office I think you get these kind of like school yard vibes. And I think the fact that we started is yeah.

Orlando (15:22)
Yeah, so you move the editors around

into different suites specifically to make sure that the culture is ever moving and evolving. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (15:29)
I mean.

Yeah, and I think it’s not even

just the suites, it’s more like the staff. Because where I used to work, editors and assistants would be very tight and they’d be the fun ones and then someone would be with the unfun ones. They’d always be like this. I just think that’s really important to me personally and it was to Neil, was to Rich, was to Bill when we set up and the fact that we’re all equal as shareholders.

Orlando (15:45)
Hahaha

Jane Dilworth (15:56)
I think that made a difference, because even though no one knows that, there’s no one is the ultimate boss. Do you know what I mean? And my, I’m as important as Neil as Rich as Bill and now Stuart and Ben in LA, in New York, Stuart’s in LA. But it’s like, and also not having the hierarchy really overdefined. everyone can find everyone. Like our MD sits with the producers, everyone sits together.

Orlando (16:03)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (16:22)
And I think it’s something, it’s like you have to kind of put a bit of effort into it to make sure that people feel included and heard and we try and have mentoring in the company. So people like mentor juniors. But I think that’s it really. No, no, I think in London it’s monthly beer testing. In LA it’ll be something healthy. In New York, so it’s somewhere in between.

Orlando (16:35)
Mm Monthly trust fall exercises, I’m sure.

Yeah, no, of course.

But that raises a good point. mean, how do you keep that sort of culture? Because that’s the thing that amazed me is that there were certain things at Wieden I noticed it at BBH was very similar. know, Biscuit, I tried to kind of mirror a lot of the culture and the warm feeling that Shawn Lacy and the EPs over there created.

how do you create the same DNA in the New York office and the L.A. office as you have that worked so well in London?

Jane Dilworth (17:14)
think because we talk so much, like I’ll talk to Erica in New York and Marlo and Ellie, like pretty much most days, we are very inclusive. And also like they both come, they’ve both been with us since the start and they both know how we do things and they’re into it.

No one gets any benefit for winning a job. There’s no commission base. There’s bonuses at the end of the year for sales and blah, blah, but there’s no like, you do well, you’ll get more money. Because I think money is the thing that changes

Orlando (17:40)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (17:44)
If people are on different rates and everyone’s on a different thing, then people start to feel like, well then my office or like, my office.

And I think that’s kind of it really. I try to really avoid cliques I think. Cause I don’t know why that, just cause you know, this industry attracts a lot of people that like to bully people. don’t know why, but you know, and it’s just a sort of like shut that down, that kind of stuff right off all that kind of like.

Orlando (17:57)
Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (18:12)
we’re teasing or like we’re going off to the pub or bar and you can’t come or making people feel crappy about themselves know and I think if you consciously don’t want that then it doesn’t happen. I think you have to make an effort but I think that’s it really. Being nice to

Orlando (18:14)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah. I think as well.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, one of the things I think there’s also a sort of aftercare. One of the things I noticed at a company, I won’t name them that I worked at was I remember once one week being on a call where everybody was like, listen, we’re not doing a very good job for this person and da da da. And we, they could be growing more and whatever else.

Jane Dilworth (18:37)
⁓

Orlando (18:51)
And then the next week they decided to leave and we got on the call the next week and they were like, that person’s so stupid and why is he like going over there and like, what a dumb dumb. you know, obviously I’m paraphrasing and softening the language, but I remember thinking, so that’s how it is. So the moment I leave here, I’ll be nothing to you. You know, I will be the moron who left and that will be, you know, and, so it’s, it’s interesting that, you know,

Jane Dilworth (19:15)
Yeah.

Orlando (19:18)
the values you live by and whether it’s, as you say, moving people’s desks and trying to not have them in an entrenched office that’s the best office and trying to have people sit in an open, egalitarian way and just on a daily basis trying to make sure that everybody’s not an asshole in the cliques don’t form, requires work and people are incredibly attuned to those things. I remember that was a real defining…

thing for me. I listened to that call and I went, you know, and I went, so that’s how people are treated when they leave. And it’s all, we’re all family and we love each other here now. But it, the moment, you know, that you see the back of me, you’re gonna be, you know, incredibly negative.

Jane Dilworth (19:49)
Yeah, not cool.

Yeah, actually, learned a good lesson.

Yeah, I learned a good lesson from John Smith. Do remember John Whitehouse? He was one of the founders of the White House. think he did. But when we left and was set up, know, everyone was terrified of telling them blah, blah, blah. And we had a leaving party and I’d already left. But John, they were doing a leaving party and John said, Jane, make sure you’re there. And he got up at the leaving party.

Orlando (20:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Jane Dilworth (20:24)
just above one of the pubs in Soho. And he did a little speech and he said, know, fair play. You’ve all done great. We did this however many years ago. We wish you all the best luck. You you’re all great, blah, blah, blah. And I think everyone that left there came away thinking, I’m working at the White House. I’m really lucky. This guy’s great. And I was like, yeah, John, because you us feel good.

Orlando (20:46)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (20:48)
more than making us feel good. You made everybody feel okay about still being there. Do you know what I mean? And I really learned a lesson from that. And I remember saying to John, that was so good because you just made everyone feel good about the situation because life change is change. You you can’t stop people changing and hating them isn’t gonna make anything any better. I kind

Orlando (20:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (21:12)
just treat people as you’re treated And if it’s in your nature not to be horrible, just go with it. If possible. Try and be nice. I mean, some people might not say that about me. I don’t know. don’t know. Some will be saying that.

Orlando (21:18)
Yeah. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (21:27)
And they’ll be going, my god,

that Jane, she’s such an old bag, you know, whatever. I don’t know. I haven’t always been nice. Yeah.

Orlando (21:34)
growing into the States, obviously, you know, going from being a single editing shop doing incredibly well, growth makes a lot of sense, but then what does that actually feel like when you go, okay.

We’re going to open up and we’re going to move into an entirely different market. You know, we’re going to put resource, we’re going to put time, effort, energy and creative, you know, effort and energy into, you know, the States. What, what, what was that like?

Jane Dilworth (22:02)
Yeah, was, it kind of happened sort of organically because like I kind of said before, know, our directors were moving there. And so we were getting more more opportunities. And I just saw it as also the creative in America was getting a lot better in that time. It was some really interesting like jobs at Droga and like Widen Kennedy Portland and Widen Kennedy New York actually when we first moved to New York.

So that’s our reason for going to New York as well. It was following the creative and following the scripts and the directors. So, you know, they all sort of go in the same way. And then once we were in New York, we realized you need to be bi-coastal. So then we kind of, you know, thinking like, well, we need a partner in each office. And Neil was on a movie and he was like, well, I think I might move out there. So we were like, I don’t know. But then…

a very good old friend of ours, Stuart Reeves, who’s an editor and he’d been in Australia. We’d been assistants together back at the White House back in the crazy days. And he’d moved to Australia, become an editor, he’d moved to Arcade, moved to Rock, Paper Scissors. And then we were just chatting and he was like, look, I’m kind of up for it if you are. And I was like, well, this is it, we’re sorted because not only is he…

very talented, he’s also like got the same mindset and the same sensibility of being director focused, but also like knowing what a good script is and not being kind of like wanting the script before the cash, know, obviously the cash, you know what I mean? Like I said before, it was, yeah, and he has actually over these last 10 years, he’s become such an integral part of

Orlando (23:27)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jane Dilworth (23:50)
of our American office really. And then during that time as well, we’ve made Ben a partner now. Ben’s bought in and he’s like a shareholding partner now. So he’s in New York ⁓ and Ben’s been with us since we opened. was our first, I actually first hired him when I was at the White House when he was 17. He worked under me then. So then he came with us when we opened work.

And now he’s a partner editor, very creative guy and very good at his job. He’s great to have in the company. So he’s in New York too. So it’s kind of like the partners have expanded, but all with the same mindset.

Orlando (24:24)
Right.

Yeah.

What’s it like to set up an office where finally with Stuart, you go,

Okay, you’re gonna open up an office and I’m gonna kind of be at an arm’s length. You’re gonna kind of run, take this baton and run with it. What does that kind of feel like as somebody, every decision, everything has been your baby up until this point. I imagine it involves a lot of trust, but beyond the trust, what does that kind of feel like?

Jane Dilworth (24:50)
Wow.

Yeah, there is a lot of trust. There is a lot of trust. And so that’s why you have to have friends that you trust. And you can have a shorthand with, so you’re not going to fall out over stupid stuff either. But I think Stuart will probably tell you that I am still a bit involved. When I was in New York, be flying out to LA. mean, Neil does the decor. know what mean? and Fiona, his wife, of sofas.

Orlando (25:03)
Mm, yep.

Jane Dilworth (25:26)
Yeah, I mean, that’s something of my own that I need to relinquish a bit of control. So, yeah, I mean, he’s there physically on the ground, but we speak most days and ⁓ there is, but I am believer in delegating and I do think that’s really important and to the managing directors and to Stuart ⁓ and to Ben now to sort of like let them do things without having to always.

Orlando (25:29)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (25:57)
find out whether I’m going to like it or not.

But yeah.

Orlando (25:59)
And how

do you, how do you manage that? Like, I mean, how, you know, obviously I imagine during those growth years, you were spending a lot more time in the States. Have you found an equilibrium I presume that part of being a good global manager is knowing when to stay the hell away.

Jane Dilworth (26:16)
I think we’re in a slightly transitional period now. We’ll be, like I say, 20 years next year. So it’s like, OK, it’s time for a bit of a evolution where I think I’ll always be involved creatively because it’s something I’m passionate about. I love, I love, I mean, I go in on Wiredrive and watch everybody’s jobs all the time.

Orlando (26:24)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (26:38)
I see their rough assemblies. I want to see what people are doing. Sometimes I just want to see the dailies because I saw the script and I’m like, I want to see how they did this. So I’m kind of a bit of a edit nerd when it comes to kind of train spotting vibes. I kind of like, so, but that, think that side of me is good. That’s a good side.

Orlando (26:41)
Yeah, that’s great.

Yeah.

I love you likening it to train spotting. I mean, it’s

pretty great. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (27:05)
Well, it’s that, you know what I mean? It’s that kind of like

slightly obsessive, like, ⁓ there’s a 3039 at Liverpool Street. So, I kind of, I still enjoy that.

Orlando (27:11)
Yeah.

I like the idea, who’s that train spotting

kid in ⁓ the UK that’s done very well on TikTok and things and he wears a GoPro on his head, a fish eye GoPro and just gets excited watching trains. I sort of imagine maybe that’s your social media calendar sorted. Just a picture of you watching dailies coming in and watching first assemblies.

Jane Dilworth (27:25)
yeah.

Yeah.

I think that…

Yeah, and everyone’s like, what is she doing? Why is she still on Wi-Drive? Like, yeah, I’ll get a little gilet. That’s all have to do. Portable laptop. Yeah, exactly. On the train station using station Wi-Fi. Yeah,

Orlando (27:56)
I love that.

What are the major sort of challenges? mean, obviously, you know, falling margins and, you know, tighter timelines like those, those are sort of well-worn tropes at this point. Are there any other kind of major challenges that you’re concerned about on the horizon or that you’re sort of facing immediately?

Jane Dilworth (28:19)
I think in-house, agency in-house, because I feel like it doesn’t give people a chance to flex their muscles, be in a room with people, even if it’s a job which isn’t particularly creative challenging, but you get to sort of practice, you know, and there was a lot of that, a lot of like, or even pitches for people or, you know, just things, agency in-house is the thing that’s the…

Orlando (28:21)
Yeah.

Mmm. Mmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Jane Dilworth (28:45)
for independent shops like ours, it’s the thing that is frustrating because you can’t, know, course Rich Neal, Bill Stewart, Ben, they’ll get jobs, but it’s like how do you build someone, you know, how do you get young creatives meeting young editors sitting in the room? So in the States, actually in the UK in-house as well a bit now.

Orlando (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (29:08)
And now they’d one-stop shops, you know, like, come here, we can do it all for you. And then you find out it’s all owned by Omnicom. And you go, well, they’ve got themselves a little kind of mum and pop shop vibes. And then you look behind, you’re like, ⁓ I see. It’s Mr. Omnicom sitting behind the curtain, you know. You’re

Orlando (29:08)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it’s funny with that in-house thing, because an agency isn’t an environment where a young editor is going to go, ⁓ I see a path to respect and to, ⁓ you know, higher up the hierarchy and higher up the ladder where I can be

truly valued for my creative input here. And I think that that’s what has always been wonderful about edit houses is just like you grew up as an assistant at the White House, I think that the wonderful thing about a young editor coming in is, they, they know they have a lot to learn, but they also see a path.

to being a valued, respected person who can make enough money to buy a house. And I think that that is strangely not something that we talk about enough. It’s hard enough to buy a house now. And the promise of the previous generation was, if you work hard at a company and you progress there, you will earn enough money to be able to put a down payment on a house. And I think that those opportunities are fewer and further between. And I do think that

Jane Dilworth (30:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Orlando (30:34)
If you’re a young editor and you go into an edit house, there’s a path there. There’s a, you know, I can see the senior people and if I learn from these people, I will have what they have, which is a very good salary, a bunch of respect in my field, the ability to get esteem from my peers. And you know, it’s a thriving environment for them, whereas I don’t think agencies are. were, it’s a…

Jane Dilworth (30:47)
you.

Hmm.

Orlando (31:00)
It’s a temporary relationship at an agency. You are expected to find something else to do, you know, by your mid to late 20s.

Jane Dilworth (31:03)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that because it’s, ⁓ yeah, know short term thinking, ⁓ which is a real shame. I mean, I think it’s harder in UK now, like to have an edit house, just like, you know, pay the rent, pay this and the other, but it’s still needed, you know, we need it, we need it. We need to be, you need a creative place to come to feel kind of like inspired by the other people that are there and like.

Orlando (31:17)
Hmm.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (31:40)
But like you say, being an assistant, insisting on some huge, sitting in the room with like a director that you admire, it’s nothing like it. It’s like, gives you so much inspiration and seeing someone create something out of nothing, I remember that as an assistant, see these, you know, those rushes and you’re like, my God, what’s going to happen? And it’s, you know, like a bing bang bong. you’re, mean, I still get it. I get excited by it. I think it’s such an incredible part of the filmmaking process because

Orlando (31:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Jane Dilworth (32:10)
you’re literally closing a book and opening another. Like you said before, it’s like the shoot’s done, everyone’s gone home, the production manager’s off, everyone’s got their thing, they’re done, and now we’re like, okay, next. And what you’ve got is what you’ve got. And there’s something quite brilliant about that and having to sort of like pull that together and the excitement of that. I remember Neil doing a job and he needed, it was with Juan Cabral, and he needed a reaction.

Orlando (32:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (32:39)
He was searching, searching, searching, couldn’t find the shot, couldn’t find the shot. And he just managed to find a bit before the camera went off. And the little girl just was having a little laugh about something. It wasn’t even meant to be filmed. And then he was like, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what I needed. And it just made it. And it was great because it was a beautiful ad. know, Wonka Brer is an incredible director.

Orlando (32:46)
bright.

That’s great. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (33:07)
And we’re just, it was just missing that little thing that Neil could find in there, you know, and those little things that just go, ooh.

Orlando (33:10)
Yeah.

Orlando (33:15)
you. What do you see? Because obviously part of it is directors are coming in, people have just done a shoot. Now you’re the first stop that they’re taking in the steps of finishing this thing. But before you’ve come to it, they’ve

shot a bunch of stuff, they’ve gone on location potentially, they’ve had all of the problems, they’re now left with whatever’s left and sometimes I imagine your guy’s job is to polish a turd, other times it’s to live up to the incredible stuff that has been shot. What?

Jane Dilworth (33:45)
Hmm.

Yeah, no,

that’s so true. Yeah. yeah, because it can work in two ways because sometimes nothing gets caught that they wanted to, you know, they shot 15 hours and none of it’s great. Sometimes you get the rushes and you’re like, this is incredible. This is going to be amazing. And sometimes you’re like, my God. I mean, even just this job that Rich won, the

Orlando (34:01)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (34:11)
thing for the Channel 4 one, he called me and he was like, my God, this is either gonna be amazing or really embarrassing. Like, I don’t know which one. It’s either gonna, so he just like spent a weekend with it, yeah, spent a weekend with it, trying to kind of like get it together and get the sound together. And I think that’s the challenge. And that’s why I think, know Rich especially and other editors don’t like being on set because

Orlando (34:20)
bright. Yeah. Yeah. It’s on a knife edge. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (34:37)
it stops at the shoot and you don’t know that that one shot that’s fabulous that took all day to set up and you want to leave it on the floor you haven’t got any emotional attachment to it so you’re just coming fresh. So in a way that’s a kind of, know, so sometimes it’s like I don’t want to know all the dramas on set and you come in and you go, oh, you can’t get rid of that shot. That took all day or we paid that extra like millions because they were on something, you know, like you don’t know the dramas.

Orlando (34:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And you’re like, it’s empirically

bad. But the agency’s probably thinking we talked the client into that shot. They spend X amount more. We can’t just leave it on the cutting room floor. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (35:06)
Yes, exactly, exactly.

Yeah

That’s happened. That’s

happened. And then you’ve got to try and put it back in later. no, it is. It’s the challenge. then, you know, unfortunately, you never get enough time. mean, pre-digitization, you know, digital filmmaking, you had time because you had to process the film. You had to load it for four hours or whatever you had. Then you had to select it in real time. So you actually had a good three or four days of just processing. And also then…

people there was a bit of time after the shoot for people to kind of like not be like, where’s the dailies? Let me have a You know, is a shame that we don’t get enough time.

Orlando (35:47)
Mm.

Yeah, there was a, I mean, just

to explain it, the way the process used to work is that you would send the film off to a place like The Mill or MPC. You would get them to do what was called a one light, which is just passing the most basic light through the image. You would get that back on a DigiBeta or BetaSP, and then that would be loaded in by you guys, and you’d be editing with what looked like a very sort of milky rough

Jane Dilworth (36:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Orlando (36:16)
pretty

crap version of the edited thing. That was called the offline because you’ve taken the main data and moved it offline where you can kind of play a little bit. And then you’d export an edit decision list and then it would go back to the online where everything would be kind of conformed and finished. Yeah, yeah.

Jane Dilworth (36:18)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, get to the neg cutters, cut the neg get it to the telecine. Yeah, exactly. And

then you need to pull more shots. Yeah, so it was a it was a

Orlando (36:38)
Yeah, and you’re right,

the slowness of that allowed everybody a bit of time to decompress, maybe get excited about the expectations, but also distance themselves from, well, that was the last shot we shot and that was yesterday. You’d have about what, two to three days, probably a week.

Jane Dilworth (36:57)
Yeah, good three days. Yeah.

especially if it was a two or three day shoot in different locations, you’d have to get the neg from somewhere, get it to the lab, get it processed, get it to all that stuff that you just explained. Yeah. So that’s unfortunate. We kind of don’t have that time. And there’s no more time for all these lovely long lunches anymore either in those times. That used to be the…

Orlando (37:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jane Dilworth (37:21)
editor’s downfall was a like kind of four hours to load and be like, okay.

Orlando (37:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s I mean, was

it’s something I was kind of wanting to get into is obviously, you know, from being at White House Post to work editorial, you know, you’ve been doing it a very long time. How have you seen the obviously the technological shift we just talked about going to a much more immediacy, but also the benefit of that is you’re editing with something that is much closer to what the finished product is going to look like. So there’s a sort of give and take. What?

These edit shifts that have happened over the last 25, 30 years, What do you wish we had kept from the previous generation and what, I mean, it could just be margins, but what do you think that we’ve gained and lost, I

Jane Dilworth (38:07)
I think, yeah, margins.

I think the time, I think that’s the trouble because also you can shoot more stuff, which is great, but they used to shoot, you’d get four hours worth of footage on an average job, three hours, two hours sometimes just a one day shoot or something. And now you can get like so much.

Orlando (38:30)
Mm.

Jane Dilworth (38:31)
And unfortunately there’s just not enough time because, you know, we’re still human. So even though you can load it in a second, you still have to, an editor still has to look at it. It’s like Neil just had a job and it was all, it was a horse in slow motion, all fabulous, blah, blah. But it was like, they needed a kind of shake of a head, but it was like, there was 23 hours. And you go, okay, speed it up and select it sped up. Yeah, but then you’re not going to see what it actually looks like.

Orlando (38:38)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (38:59)
So he ended up trying to just like get it. And also, because how it used to work is that you select the footage, put a little assembly together, have a little chat with the director, they’d either select with you or come with you afterwards. You know, there’d be an arrangement. Each director liked their own way of doing things. And then you select again, because you have an extra day to go, okay, now we’ve got this together, let’s actually select again, through all the footage, look through it all again.

Orlando (38:59)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (39:26)
and see where we could actually maybe there’s a better take of this or a better thing of that to go with the new assembly. And you’d kind of like select as you go. And that’s kind of had to go because now people don’t even get a chance to, I think that would be the only thing I would advocate. It’s like, especially in the States when we get three weeks and they want to come in and mess so quick, but it’s like, I haven’t finished wallpaper in the living room. And they’re going, where’s the lamps? You know what I mean? I haven’t done it yet.

Orlando (39:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (39:57)
It’s like when you’re trying to put a party together and people keep coming in, you know what I mean? And you’re like, don’t come in yet, I haven’t got the canapes.

Orlando (39:59)
Yeah. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (40:05)
And they’re like, how welcoming, you know, but it’s like, stop, can’t, can’t get. So that’s the only thing I’d like is that we’ve missed that time for, for just the creative process to, to actually do, cause then what happens is then of course you get together with the agency and then they go, we will need to reselect. So you’re kind of going back into the footage again when you could have all done that. And also now that.

Orlando (40:05)
You can’t win

Jane Dilworth (40:32)
You know, there was a lot of trust back in the day. It was funny listening to Dav’s talking about John Hegarty because I remember when I was an assistant editor at the White House working with Andrea and all that, know, John Egarty come doing all those Levi’s and things like that. And he trusted the creatives, he trusted the directors and the clients trusted him. I mean, that happens a lot.

Orlando (40:55)
Mm.

Jane Dilworth (40:57)
now quite a bit with Tor actually at Apple. He’s pretty good like that. on the whole, there’s a lot of trust has gone out of it. I think a lot of it clients don’t really trust. They think they know best of it. was actually, saw an interview with Frank Zappa.

Orlando (41:07)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (41:16)
And he was talking about how in the old days the record executives were great because they didn’t know shit. They didn’t know anything. And they were like, well, lots of guys are coming to your concert. So you must be onto something, sign him. And now like a regular exec’s like, don’t know, they’re all musicians. They’re all, do you know what I mean? They’re like, if you don’t know it, it doesn’t mean that it’s not good.

Orlando (41:16)
Right.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it started with Video Village and playback, didn’t it? It used to be that, you know, back in the Collinson Dickinson, Pearce days you’d go, well, that guy Ridley or that guy, Tony seems to know what’s happening in the camera and we have no way of understanding it. And then slowly Video Village comes in and people are able to go.

Jane Dilworth (41:53)
You

Orlando (42:00)
sure about that or I don’t like that take.” And you’re like, well, it’s only the first take, so relax. But it allowed everybody to become instant experts to a degree And especially as media has become democratized, everybody’s sort of an expert. Everybody’s edited something, some home video on their phone and they’ve trimmed it and cut out a section and

Jane Dilworth (42:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah

Orlando (42:21)
They’re like, I understand editing now.

Jane Dilworth (42:22)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly. I there’s a lot of that. I mean, and also have to say as well, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that things got easier. But what I think is, it’s like, I think it’s just harder to, I just wish we had still more time. think time is the only thing I would wish on any job, any job, big or small, they come in way too quick. That’s the only thing. It’s like, give us a few days. It used to be like in the UK, especially it was a week.

Orlando (42:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (42:50)
You have a week with the director and they’d come in and they’d all be like, oh, can we come in now? You know what I mean? And you’d be like, wait downstairs. You can come up when we’re good and ready. And this is how it’s going. And now they’re like, we’re in. So I think that’s it. And I think that’s, yeah, it’s just, that would be the only thing I would welcome. But I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s quite interesting that people can cut things on anything, but.

Orlando (42:50)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah. ⁓

you

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (43:19)
You know, it’s still a skill. You can see when something’s been cut well. It’s like anyone can do, you know, Adobe graphics. It’s like, you can see when someone’s got taste. And I think it’s just kind of trying to stick with the good stuff.

Orlando (43:30)
⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and you you mentioned the kind of different ways of doing it and in between America and the UK and America, the edit is very firmly the agency’s responsibility. They pay for it. They are your client. Whereas in the UK, the edit is the production company’s responsibility. And so it’s sort of putting you either closer in America to the creative directors or closer to the director in the UK working with the production company. How do you

Jane Dilworth (43:47)
100%.

Yeah.

Orlando (44:03)
What do you notice are the biggest differences in those two ways of working?

Jane Dilworth (44:08)
The relationships, I think. Because I think the UK way, it really, get good, you get foster strong relationships, which then produces great work because the director-editor relationship is so important. And, know, when you think of like Rich and Ringen or like Neil and Rupert and Bill and Peter and Sara and Anton and like all the people that are now Rich and Steve, it’s like,

people and unfortunately the way it was in the States back, it’s changing a lot, you know, directors weren’t really invited into the edit because the edit places were like, well, no, you’re not paying us. We’ve got the footage, thanks. And a lot of the time they do the director’s cut with their regular person, but that did start to change. And that’s right, when we only opened in the States because we found ourselves going out there a lot.

Orlando (44:52)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (45:04)
And then, so we were going out, because Ring had moved Peter moved Rupert moved So we thought, well, let’s get a little tiny shop in New York. And then when me and Rich moved to New York, we were like, hey, come on, welcome to New York. And we suddenly realized we were like the tiniest fish in the biggest pond, you know what I mean? And you were like, why is there anyone that remember me and Rich? We’re like, oh my God, what have we done? Everyone hates us. we’re like, oh shit.

Orlando (45:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (45:29)
You know, and talking to our reps, great, the Uncle Lefty you guys, they were like, look, you’re great. And I was like, well, what are we doing wrong? And I’m like, nothing, nothing. So what we kind of worked out together is like, stick to what we know. It’s like our relationships with production, like Smuggler and Park and Hungry Man and know, all of the Caviar, all the guys, know, but Biscuit, especially, and all these people. And they were our contacts. So we were like, look, let’s not do Taco Tuesday.

You know, like some of those elder places, I should be careful. I don’t want to slag anyone off, but it’s just a different way of working. you know, you’d get, you’d get, edit houses were getting relationships with agencies and getting accounts. So one edit house would be doing all of like IBM or Red Lobster or like McDonald’s. So we were like, well, we’re never going to, we don’t have the, we don’t have the bandwidth. We don’t have like tons of finishing, tons of editors. have.

Orlando (46:03)
No. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (46:27)
just a few top people and we work with directors. So we can foster, we can just, instead of trying to compete with all these great big houses, edit houses that were incredibly successful in New York, we’re like, well, let’s just try our thing in New York. So we just sort of stuck to our guns and we’re like working with directors and then, know, creators wanna work, good creators wanna work with good directors. And we’re just, I mean, we still,

No, wouldn’t mind a account or two from time to time, know, not not adverse to a bit of cash. But I think ultimately our goal is to stick to that. sticking to creativity is our goal. It’s like trust in the craft trust in the goodness of the work is the script good? Yeah, that will bring

Orlando (46:57)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (47:14)
You know, if you do the good work, the money will follow. That’s the thing. And like if a director’s interesting, director, we can try. And now I think we’ve got a good relationship with agencies in, because we trust good creative. You we want to work for the good agencies and give them what they want. But we also want to support what the director’s idea was and make sure that it’s all working, being that key rather than being.

just what the agency want. I’m not saying other edit houses do that, of course. Other edit houses don’t want to be… Told off!

Orlando (47:42)
Yeah. course

they do. That’s why you’re better and they’re terrible.

Jane Dilworth (47:53)
I don’t want to get told off. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. ⁓

Orlando (47:54)
Yeah.

⁓

Can I just ask you very quickly,

And what, mean, how are the economics of it all changing? Cause I mean, obviously we spoke to Lee, and, you know, we were obviously talking about Technicolor and, and, you know, the, collapse of the mill and MPC. And he was kind of, you know, shedding a bit of light on, a Digi Beta machine costing 200 K. I mean, obviously Digi Beta has gone the way of the ghost now, but

working in edit and post, you have to have a good and robust machine room, lot of assistants to be loading that material. You have to have offices and physical offices and suites in very high cost locations like like New York and Soho in London. how how are the economics of it all changing and how do you stay ahead of that?

Jane Dilworth (48:42)
It’s interesting, yeah, because it’s, yes, a lot of it is cheaper. It’s cheaper, the equipment is cheaper and things like that. So that’s, know, people can edit at home on Premiere and all that. But it’s harder, it’s harder, it’s harder. And I think that’s why you have to kind of try and keep as nimble as possible in that sense. And also it really does, it goes against the grain, but almost like,

focusing just on good jobs, on creative people, what you’re doing, because anything good money will follow. If you go for money, it doesn’t, that’s my experience from work. It’s like if you chase the money, the good work doesn’t come. If you chase the good work, the money will come. But it is hard. It’s very testing at the moment. It’s tough for sure.

Orlando (49:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (49:37)
I wouldn’t go into opening an edit company for bucks, put it that way. It might have done in America back in the 90s. think some people did very well, but UK, it’s funny. It’s hard. unfortunately, I’d like to have more time and a bit more cash. That’s all I’d like from clients.

Orlando (49:41)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

you know, you talk about the good work and, and chasing that. And very often what you’re sacrificing with that good work is they usually don’t have the budget or their, but their expectations or, or, hope exceed whatever budget they do have. Very often it’s funny when, as a producer,

the creatives would come to us being like, this is one of those jobs everyone’s gonna work on and want to work on. And you look at the script and you go, no, it ain’t, you know, I will go and pitch it like it is. And, you know, I think a lot of times people go, that producer, they thought it was such a good job. No, the producer’s been told by the creatives, they have to pitch it as though it’s that to try to get the most out of it. But it is, there is always that funny moment at the start of a brief where,

Jane Dilworth (50:28)
I don’t think so.

Yeah.

Orlando (50:46)
you sort of have to break it to everyone down the line. No, this is just an under-resourced job and it’s not a creative job that’s gonna make us bridge the gap of your under-resourcing.

Jane Dilworth (50:53)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly,

exactly. I know. mean, get agency friends of mine that’d be like, hey, do you think Kim Gehrig would look at this? I’m like, no. It’s awful.

Orlando (51:07)
Not

unless it’s got 10 days and she needs a summer house.

Jane Dilworth (51:11)
Yes, exactly,

exactly, exactly, exactly. I know, I know, no, I know. It’s, yeah, think what it is is keeping your eye on like interesting directors as well. Because like I said before, it’s like sometimes it kind of doozy script if it gets with the young or any director that’s interesting and they take a twist on it and you’re like, this could be interesting and this could be a good relationship.

Orlando (51:15)
You

Jane Dilworth (51:35)
You know, if you keep your eye out on the culture of the business and who’s a cool person to look at, yeah, I don’t know, it’s hard then.

Orlando (51:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. It brings up another thing, is, is it’s obviously become incredibly difficult to develop talent both in directing and editing and, know, how, how difficult is, that becoming for

Jane Dilworth (51:58)
is becoming a bit more difficult because people, there being less money, there’s less trust. So there’s more people that are available, there’s more editors ever, probably more directors than ever or two. I think it’s harder to get people to trust someone without that kind of like stellar work on their reel, like to get them to see, sometimes you say, okay, we’ll split it, and so and so we’ll look over it.

but it is, and there’s a lot of people that are starting up in their bedrooms who are really good. So sometimes you have to kind of like find people who are a little bit like on the journey already. But it is harder because I think, yeah, people used to be a bit more trusting.

Orlando (52:44)
Yeah, think that there used to be a feeling that, if they’re at Work or they’re at the Whitehouse those guys know who’s talented and not. So we have a lower budget job that a junior producer is producing. We’re lucky to have a good editor that works at the Whitehouse That’s now, I’m sure, ⁓ a Work Editorial ⁓

Jane Dilworth (52:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I’ve got opportunities

in an assistant editor that I probably might not get today. You know what I mean? get like, so I think that’s the trouble. And I think that’s because there’s a less, you know, lot of it’s in house, they can get all those. Also, what’s hard is that those little jobs that used to like build careers, they’re getting done in house.

Orlando (53:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

you know, you guys, mean, editors are a very kind of tech forward bunch, you know? I mean, obviously kind of, you know, they’ve, they’ve developed their craft in the world of computers and things like that. What are you seeing in terms of new, you know, new tech? mean, obviously a lot of attention is going to AI, but AI is also sort of.

making little assemblies now and doing that first pass and doing those sorts of things. I mean, obviously that’s happening at the sort of content level, not at the level you’re at, but these tools are out there. What are you seeing in terms of technology that’s interesting or technology that you’re flitting around trying to bring into your workflows?

Jane Dilworth (53:53)
Hmm.

To be honest, not really doing much. suppose it’s helpful for like after effects, things like that, making things look better when you present a client to get an idea across. So you still have to send something to the mill, get it back or the mill or whoever. So a lot of that can be done.

Orlando (54:25)
Or you can drop in a key

frame, let’s say that, you know, if you’re waiting on a post shot, you can probably drop in a really kind of fair looking key frame now and go, yeah, this is about what we’ll get back from, you know, from whoever’s doing the post.

Jane Dilworth (54:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And now people’s like

used to have to kind of use much more imagination when you’re looking at things and now people want to see what it actually looks like. But no, I mean, it’s funny, whole thing, AI thing, I don’t know how that’s going to impact us or whether we ever going to need it or something. don’t know. I mean, luckily, AI doesn’t have taste yet. you know, there is a skill.

Orlando (54:54)
Right.

Jane Dilworth (55:02)
to a good edit and it’s usually when you can’t see it. I remember there was a job, the rich cut, the Levi, no, Lynx. It started with a couple’s head on the pillow and that they ended up getting dressed at the end. It won a can and did a whole, it was an amazing ad and it was back in, I think it was 2004, three, four, something like that. But that was copied. Like that first shot, I’ve seen, it was suddenly,

Orlando (55:06)
Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (55:30)
copied and copied and copied. And then never none of it had the impact that that job had because it wasn’t the shot that made that ad. It was, it was essentially, we’ve done other jobs like that, you can see, and then the job’s successful. So they go, we’ll do one just a bit like it. But they just don’t ring as true. It’s like if you would see, I’m sure Sony balls as well, like people did try to do things a bit like it, but nothing ever really.

Orlando (55:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (55:58)
had that same visual sort of feeling.

Orlando (56:02)
It’s

funny because at creative companies, you never see a phrase kill an idea faster than, well, yeah, but it’s been done before. You know, and, and I think that that’s really kind of what separates both really creative companies from kind of lesser creative companies. There’s kind of a, well, we could do a similar thing at those sorts of companies. But it’s certainly thing that’s that separates AI from, from good creatives.

is an AI is trying to approximate something new from everything that’s happened before. Whereas really good creatives are going, well, yeah, mean, obviously I could do that. But what would be the point? You know, if I’m not going to do something new and unique, why am I here?

Jane Dilworth (56:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like if some soap commercial just wants a bunny jumping through some daisies, okay, do it, but like, then that wasn’t for them anyway. think, I mean, I have faith in change and I think change is always good. I have faith that creativity will always be wanted and people like looking at things that are good and make them feel something. So I feel like that will, I think there’s gonna be a lot of…

Orlando (56:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jane Dilworth (57:10)
You know, I think it’s always a, it was in a few of recessions that we had, you know, there’s a big shakedown and everyone has to really get on their game and you have to get good at what you’re doing. Otherwise you fall by the wayside, you know, that’s just the nature of it. And so this is a new shakeup, isn’t it? It’s a new kind of like, ⁓ you better get good at putting a pitch together and directing the spot or cutting the spot or writing the script.

Orlando (57:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (57:36)
or it’s going to have to be the bars, it raises the bar a little bit, which maybe is no bad thing, I don’t know. We haven’t seen any really great scripts, like some scripts just aren’t very exciting, you know, when you think about those great, like, you know, probably I shouldn’t say this publicly, but you know what I mean, sometimes you’re like, where was that, where was, you know, is Nike’s Right the Future or the…

Orlando (57:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it does feel like, but I think that a lot of that comes down to economics as well. The ambition to take huge swings.

Jane Dilworth (58:03)
Alright.

Orlando (58:12)
And I do think that content creators are the ones now creating all of the stuff that’s fun. You know, they’re going…

Jane Dilworth (58:19)
Yeah.

Orlando (58:21)
Well, what would happen if I filled this whole pool with beach balls and then dove into it? You know, they’re doing those things that are pure on some level. And I think that the wonderful thing about advertising used to be that it was a place where creatives when they got some budget to do stuff. And very often it was a bit like, you know, letting the monkeys free and the or the patients free in the asylum.

Jane Dilworth (58:29)
Yeah.

Orlando (58:48)
⁓ and, and I think that the other thing is, is it used to be that advertising was the fun, creative place to go. And now kids are coming out of college. Like it used to be the place where there might be a pool table or a ping pong table or some breakout areas. And it might have a fun design but I think now.

Jane Dilworth (58:48)
Mm-mm.

Orlando (59:08)
Agencies are on such small margins, they don’t have the space. You can’t get enough space that you can justify putting a ping pong table there because you should really staff that with four desks for four creatives. And so now kids are coming out of university going, I could become a creator, immediately start creating insane things with my friends and we can get high and we can immediately distribute it to the world.

Jane Dilworth (59:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Orlando (59:32)
and do fun stuff, and at least then it’s our own creativity off our own back. Or I’m gonna go into tech, where Google has free lunch every day. They have massages at your desk if you want. They have, you know, sensory deprivation pods. They have ping pong tables. They have pool tables. They have all kinds of snacks. They have, you know, HR that actually worries about your mental health. They have, you know, because they have the resources for it.

Jane Dilworth (59:40)
Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

Orlando (59:59)
You know?

Jane Dilworth (1:00:00)
Yeah, that’s true. That’s very true, very true. well, I suppose it’s just more places to go to be creative now, isn’t there? Like you say, yeah, you can’t just go and work for a company and just do all their TikTok and all that thing, and that can be great. Yeah, I suppose it’s try to sort of like still feel optimistic that there’s still some good things to be done. I think that’s my going into this

Orlando (1:00:06)
Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (1:00:26)
20 years of work is thinking like it’s there’s still there’s still a lot of Optimism and to embrace change Rather than I mean I would you know, I don’t know. We’re just going through a weird time You know, knows what’s happening in the world private recession things always happen and Clients spend less money. So, know people have to be more creative in some ways with their jobs, but know we’ve done some like that

Orlando (1:00:33)
Yeah. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (1:00:53)
the Riyadh stuff we did, the Megaforce stuff, some of that’s kind of bonkers, crazy, fun. Yeah, they’re great. There’s still some cool people that it’s, and Steve, which is obviously in Sara, testing boundaries. We did all that Mark Malloy stuff with the underdogs, that was cool. I mean, know lot of the ad business hated them because they were like, God! But the trouble was people loved them.

Orlando (1:00:55)
⁓ I love Megaforce Yeah, I love it. Love it so much. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (1:01:18)
on

YouTube and everything, everyone loved the underdogs. It was so much fun because it was making advertising engaging and interesting. I think there is still some things, but I think a lot of it is direct to client, like some Google stuff we’ve done, or Apple stuff that we’ve been doing, because that’s TOR going straight to, and he’s the one that you get it past, there’s no one else. It’s quite good actually. We get some really good creative stuff’s been done

Orlando (1:01:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have two more questions if you’ll allow. One is what what what do you wish clients knew about your business?

Jane Dilworth (1:01:48)
Exactly. Okay.

I wish that they would take a beat to understand the process because I think people don’t realize there’s the skill of it. I think they understand the skill of a cameraman and they understand the skill of VFX. But sometimes the skill gets bypassed. And that’s what I’m trying to do actually with

we’ve been doing in New York, like get people in to actually explain what we do and the value of a good edit, what is a good edit and things like that. That’s all I would like people to because also it’s, you know, like when you can see the results of VFX, you can see the time I’d say, my God, they moved that shot and then it was a this and now it’s a this. You can’t see what’s in someone’s head.

Orlando (1:02:21)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (1:02:42)
as they’re creating and it’s just one person, one editor creating something. So it’s very hard to kind of go look how great it is without, yeah, it’s just for some reason. And also you’re with the director, you’re with creative. it’s a collaborative thing. It’s like the bass player or the drummer in the band, know, without them, can’t, the music’s shit, but.

Orlando (1:02:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (1:03:05)
You don’t always go, my god, that bass line. You know what mean? You’re looking at the singer and the guitarist. So I think that. I’d like them to sort of like realize that it’s what an important part of the process. It really is. That’s it, yeah.

Orlando (1:03:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And the last question that I’m asking everybody and is the late great Dan Wieden had a quote where he said, you’re useless to me until you’ve failed big at least And so I’m asking everybody like, what can you remember and would you be willing to admit a time where you failed in a small way, in an epic way? I’m obviously, I would prefer epic, but you know, I’ll take anything I can get.

Jane Dilworth (1:03:28)
haha

Yeah, don’t

know. mean, when I was an assistant, the editor I worked for said I went from worst to first. I don’t know how I made it. I believe in mistakes. I think they’re great. I think you have to make them because without them, you don’t move forward. And I believe in owning up straight away and I can spot a blagger miles away. If anyone, I’d be like, I’ve been there.

Orlando (1:03:48)
That’s not bad.

You

Jane Dilworth (1:04:03)
I think

the only story I got, I think, was when I first started producing and I double-booked Russell Ike with Tarsem ⁓ and Frank Budgin.

Orlando (1:04:12)
okay.

So two people who don’t often suffer mistakes well.

Jane Dilworth (1:04:19)
No, and their producers, Tommy Turtle and Paul Rothwell. Tommy Turtle and Paul Rothwell, oh my God, I had to pull, I just went on that instant. I managed to do it and he did, but I think, I managed to get out of it. He did both jobs. I managed to work it. I managed to work it. was a kind of first thing of like, oh.

Orlando (1:04:24)
God, Tommy Turtle. Yeah.

he did!

Wow.

Jane Dilworth (1:04:48)
I couldn’t believe it. We were using, it was awful. It was awful. We were using now up to date diaries. know, you could suddenly move and I was so unprofessional now thinking back to all the processes we have now, just like those little Imac’s and the thing. And it suddenly went over and I was like, yeah, he’s free in an early way. But I managed to make it work by making everyone, everyone be trust and have faith and don’t worry and it’ll be okay. And it was like,

Orlando (1:04:48)
Yeah, your legs go, you change temperature immediately.

Jane Dilworth (1:05:17)
two big jobs. was that Reebok Sofa I know if you remember that, anyway, was a Frank Lajert and the Tarzan one was I think one of those Pepsi Gladiator or David Beckham-y ones. So it was like, it was two big ones, two massive directors at a massive time and I learned that you have to keep being nice to people and put your hands up.

Orlando (1:05:21)
Yeah, I remember that,

Yeah. Got two big ones.

Well, that’s amazing to put your hands up very immediately and then sort of have everybody working around that mistake. I that takes a tremendous amount of bravery to admit and then charm to pull off.

Jane Dilworth (1:05:56)
Yeah.

It’s even making me feel scared now thinking back to it because it was one of those, it was one of those ones where I just had to just go, ah. And of course Russell was like, I hate you, fix it.

Orlando (1:06:05)
Yeah.

Well, also, Tarsem and Tommy Turtle especially. mean, know, Frank but, you know, but Tarsem and Tommy Turtle weren’t known for suffering fools or taking anything going wrong, particularly in stride.

Jane Dilworth (1:06:24)
No, Tommy

was a fucking hairdryer, but like Paul was disappointed, which is even worse. It’s like a kind of, yeah, that’s it. Yeah, I can handle abuse, but disappointment is something else. No, but it was all right. But it was, it was a real kind of like, okay, okay, okay. that was the biggest one I can think of that I learned from. I did tons.

Orlando (1:06:30)
⁓ God, yeah. Yeah. God, that really is bad.

Yeah.

Jane Dilworth (1:06:51)
because I feel like without them, you don’t move forward. And I prefer people to be brave and make mistakes. ⁓ But you have to own up straight away and go, what do I learn? And never do it again, basically. Yeah.

Orlando (1:06:56)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, you, know, and, and as well, you have to be, you’ll probably make the same amount of mistakes being timid, but being timid, there are very fewer ways out of not making them again. You know, if, if, know, you’re, you’re not going to find bravery in the timidity, you know, if you at least are out there trying and taking swings, you can make a more educated swing the next time, you know.

Jane Dilworth (1:07:21)
Mm, mm.

You

Exactly, exactly. yeah, all those things. And I think really is like so much of like what we do is gaining trust from people like our my job, especially is like, I trust me, this will happen. I, you know, it’s like, we can make it work. So that was my big lesson.

Orlando (1:07:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And as well, think, you I’ve always found that I’ve always made friends better around in work environments where you’re around people who you’ve, you’ve watched them go through difficult things. Because if I watch you go through something difficult and you watch me go through something difficult, you will see the values that guide that person in the way they handle it. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (1:08:00)
⁓

Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (1:08:18)
And so I immediately then trust people more. I’m like, I know what values really guide you because I’ve seen you under pressure. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (1:08:25)
Exactly. that’s when you make those,

that’s why the friends at the biz, like you’ve been through so many things. Sometimes some jobs you’re just like, my God, how did we get through

Orlando (1:08:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Orlando (1:08:34)
Jane, thank you so much for doing this. It’s just so, it’s, mean, I, you know, well, that’s what I, mean, honestly, between the two of us, I’m surprised we got to the end at all. But I think that like one of the things is I’m actually,

Jane Dilworth (1:08:35)
We bettas.

I could talk forever, I’m so sorry.

Yeah exactly! It’s dangerous!

Orlando (1:08:56)
I’m a pessimist constantly trying to dress as an optimist. And I, what I truly value about you is that you really are an optimist very often dressed as a pessimist. ⁓ and I just love that about you because I think it’s, it’s, it’s infectious. And I think that when people talk about creating a culture or creating a creative environment,

Jane Dilworth (1:09:00)
Right.

Yes, trying to be cool. I should try to be a goth. Yeah, I’m so cool.

Orlando (1:09:25)
An optimistic attitude that’s infectious is the thing. It’s the silver bullet that kind of starts everybody feeling good about waking up and starting their day. so not to blow too much smoke up your butt, I do think that that’s one of your wonderful, endearing and enduring qualities as well. And ⁓ it’s just such a treat to chat to you.

Jane Dilworth (1:09:42)
I’ll take it.

⁓ thank you Orlando.

No, it’s been so great. Honestly, I loved it. It’s so good. Like I said, though, weeks you could chat forever. well, I think you’re mean, you say you’re a pessimist, but you’ve got the ability to like get up and start something new and start something new. Since I’ve known you, you know, you’ve always turning a page, which I find admirable. Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (1:09:59)
Yeah.

Well, ⁓ thank you. That’s, yes, I am,

I don’t know. You’re right. I have no idea where that comes from, because most of my day is going, that’s gonna be rubbish. That’s gonna be rubbish. This is gonna be rubbish. That’s not worth doing. ⁓ well. ⁓

Jane Dilworth (1:10:18)
You

You

This is great. I’m looking forward to it. Looking forward to joining all

the other people you’ve got. You’ve had some great people so far. So I feel very kind of honored to be with such a esteemed guests

Orlando (1:10:32)
Yeah.

Oh, well, you are the esteemed of the esteemed. And no, it’s an honor for me to have you. It’s an honor for me to know you. just, really love you and value you so much. And thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it a lot.

Jane Dilworth (1:10:38)
Yeah!

Ugh.

Same.

But yeah, well, thank you for having me as usual. Thank you so much. Okay, take care and I’ll see you soon, I hope. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Orlando (1:10:56)
Awesome. All right. Thanks so much, Jen. Absolutely. Absolutely. Bye

bye.