"It's about the craft but also about evoking the emotions, keeping liberated and seeing those magical moments unfold," says JD Smyth of LA-based Rock, Paper, Scissors on the essence of the edit. "It's essential to have an eye that combines different elements to come up with something cohesive."

Formerly an in-house editor at RSA, London, JD Smyth first got a taste of the industry early in life, making it to the set of Return of the Jedi at the tender age of seven.

"It was a Saturday morning," recalls Smyth. "Seeing the Millennium Falcon only half painted and made of balsa wood blew the lid off Star Wars - that made up my mind to get involved in the industry and somehow investigate the creative process."

Step forward two decades to find Smyth as a full-time in-house runner at RSA, London. "They were good at training people up to what they wanted to do," says Smyth, who soon became a second AD before cutting made its call. "I've always been interested in the notion of storytelling and the visual narrative so it felt right as soon as I started doing it."

RSA offered Smyth some exciting directorial talent to work with, enabling the young editor access to footage shot by Johnnie Hardstaff, Laurence Dunmore, Carl Erick Rinsch, Adrian Moat and Sean Ellis to name a few. Amusingly, the recent Sony Handicam "Store" by Rinsch through Saatch & Saatchi, London features Smyth himself, an odd experience for the editor.

"I'm the guy who pulls the switch in that one - they wanted to cast a guy who looked like he'd spent a long time in a darkened room," laughs Smyth. "It was very curious cutting yourself for the first day and somewhat off-putting, but I soon forgot about my presence."

Music videos have been in the mix for Smyth, his recent Radiohead work with Hardstaff his most powerful promo piece to date.

"It was a labor of love and an excellent experience," recall Smyth, who used over 500 cuts throughout the piece in three months of intensive post to capture the mesmerizing promo for the band.

"It was such a multitude of different mediums and Johnnie has such an organic feel and a startlingly original eye," says Smyth, explaining that Photoshop, Illustrator and Softimage were flexed to the max for the film. "In essence we carried forth an emotion throughout the piece on something that could easily have just been sanitized imagery."

Co-Operative Bank, Axe Dimension, Grolsch, Rowntrees Megabean, Financial Times and UNICEF/GMC are other clients cut by Smyth thus far. The creepy short Left Turn shot by Sean Ellis proved to be his most ambitious work to date.

"That was my biggest challenge so far," admits Smyth on Left Turn. "Because it's a horror movie, you had to work out at what point to cut: is that more effective and creepy if we let that roll on a few more frames, or do we cut and let the audience hear what's going on? Plus, that's the longest piece of work I've cut so far, so trying to relay that narrative work with both dialogue and action and trying to scare the shit out of people became imperative. We got a good print and managed to show it in a few theaters - it's always great to see people jump out of there seats at the right moment."

As for what makes good editing, Smyth says it's all about one's desire: "I think, primarily, it's the passion for the image that pulls you through. You have incredible responsibility and I wouldn't say that there are any hard and fast rules. It's really about following a path, telling a story yet keeping an open mind for all those genuine emotive moments that may pop out at you."

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