Documentary Editor – Long-Term Music, Travel & Human Stories Series

I'm looking for an exceptional documentary editor to become a long-term creative collaborator on an original music and documentary project called Finding Eden. The format follows me spending roughly a week in a different town or city - initially around the UK, later Europe and potentially worldwide. The basic journey is: Day 1: Arrive, observe and understand the place.Days 2–3: Meet local people, follow stories, explore culture and collect field recordings.Day 4: Use those sounds, conversations and experiences to create a new version, fragment or interlude from my music.Day 5: Perform a live show that incorporates elements created during the week. The long-form films are not intended to be travel vlogs or conventional artist tour content. The aim is to create cinematic, emotionally intelligent documentaries about people, place, creativity, identity, home, love, loss and change, with music acting as the thread connecting everything. Creative references include the human curiosity of Anthony Bourdain, the cinematic documentary language of Max Jolliffe, and the atmosphere and sincerity found in strong Patagonia / independent documentary filmmaking. What I'm looking for The most important thing is not flashy editing. I need somebody with exceptional instincts for: finding the story hidden inside large amounts of observational footage recognising small human moments that carry emotional weight narrative structure pacing restraint humour tension dialogue editing music editing knowing when not to cut turning real events into compelling films without manufacturing drama You'll potentially receive hours of footage from each trip and need to discover the strongest film within it. I want somebody who thinks like an editor and storyteller, not simply somebody who assembles footage. Your responsibilities You would primarily be responsible for: ingesting and organising footage creating proxies where required reviewing and logging material identifying narrative threads constructing long-form documentary edits dialogue and interview assembly pacing and structural development potentially incorporating music and temporary sound where appropriate creating revision cuts collaboratively potentially extracting selected short-form pieces from the long-form material I am a producer and audio engineer myself, so final sound design, final audio mixing and final colour grading can be completed by me if necessary. That means I care far more about your storytelling ability than whether you personally offer every element of post-production. The relationship This first project will effectively be a test of how we work together. If we find the right creative chemistry, the intention is for this to become a recurring role across an ongoing series rather than a one-off edit. I'm particularly interested in editors who want to become creatively invested in a body of work and gradually understand its characters, themes, musical language and visual world. You do not need a huge commercial résumé. An emerging editor with extraordinary taste and storytelling instincts is far more interesting to me than somebody with hundreds of generic corporate edits. When applying, please answer the screening questions thoughtfully. Generic AI-generated applications or copy-and-paste proposals will be easy to spot. I'm looking for somebody who cares deeply about documentaries, music and human stories.