How This Comedy Was Edited Before Production Wrapped

Editor, director, and producer Whit Conway explains how the Hulu comedy Never Change! was assembled on an unusually compressed post-production schedule. He discusses cutting scenes while production was still underway, building an organized Adobe Premiere Pro workflow, using searchable transcripts to locate alternate performances, and collaborating with director and co-editor Marty Schousboe. Conway also shares how constant iteration shapes comedy, why editors cannot become precious about an early cut, and how aspiring comedy filmmakers can create the work they want to be hired to make.

In this episode, No Film School's GG Hawkins and guest Whit Conway discuss...

How Whit’s previous collaborations with director Marty Schousboe led to Never Change!

Why the film’s budget and delivery schedule required editing to begin during production

Completing an initial assembly within a week of production wrapping

Applying lessons from the fast-paced editorial workflows of Saturday Night Live and Joe Pera Talks With You

Organizing footage into scene sequences and line-by-line collections of every performance

How front-loading editorial organization saves time when producers request alternate takes

Treating the first cut as a strong starting point rather than a version that must be protected

Adjusting individual jokes by only a few frames and testing different reaction shots

Preserving previous versions of scenes without formally tracking every editorial change

Recognizing when a joke needs more work versus when the filmmakers have simply watched it too many times