Cut above the rest as Sreekar Prasad reveals how films truly take shape

MUMBAI: If storytelling is a symphony, then the editor is the quiet conductor making sure no note hits the wrong beat. That truth unfurled itself beautifully at the 56th International Film Festival of India in Goa, where legendary editor Sreekar Prasad, winner of multiple National Awards and one of the most prolific editors in India, delivered a masterclass that was equal parts wisdom, wit and wide-eyed revelation. Titled From Mind to Screen: Vision to Execution, the session moderated with warmth and precision by Saikat Sekhareswar Ray peeled away the mystery of a craft often hailed yet rarely understood.

Prasad’s first assertion landed with the crispness of a perfect cut: editing is not about match cuts or technical trickery, it’s about emotion. “It is not always about match cuts; it is about where the cut can go deeper into the story,” he said, arguing that the best transitions are the ones that serve the heart long before they serve the eye. Holding a shot for a second more, letting silence breathe, or cutting away exactly when a character cracks these, he said, are decisions of intuition, not instruction.

He sympathised with the editors who complain of incomplete footage or shoddy shot planning, but he minced no words, “The editor’s job is to get the best out of the footage you have.” When he began his career, he too had to work with whatever came his way. But over time, that helplessness transformed into agency. He began entering the filmmaking process earlier not after the shoot, not during the shoot, but before the shoot even existed as images.

“The best place for an editor is at the script stage,” he stressed. Today, he reads the first draft, second draft, third draft and all drafts that follow sometimes as many as ten. Being at the table from day one helps him visualise the rhythm and shape of a film’s emotional arc even before the director has locked the locations. He often spots missing scenes, misplaced details or structural weaknesses long before they become irreversible. “Even achieving 60–70 per cent of what you imagine makes for a great film,” he added, acknowledging the unavoidable chaos of production: actors, weather, budgets, logistics, egos, the whole cinematic circus.

And does he charge extra for this early labour? He laughed. “This is not a price-tagged activity. Once you commit to a film, money stops being the driver.” Editing, for him, is not mechanical assembly but emotional authorship.

Prasad then opened a rare window into his actual workflow. His process unfolds in three distinct stages, He demands daily rushes from his directors. While the film is still being shot, he is already sculpting each scene independently, selecting performances, trimming weak spots, refining energy. At this stage, transitions don’t matter; truth does.

All micro-edited scenes are stitched together. Here begins the dance between scenes: adjusting angles, fixing mismatches, smoothing flow, reinventing the rhythm. A close-up ending one scene may need reworking if the next begins with a close-up too. Logic, space, tension everything is recalibrated.

This is where Prasad becomes co-author. “Every film is rewritten in the edit room, sometimes by 10 per cent, sometimes by 60 per cent.” Redundant scenes vanish. Emotional beats shift. Two parallel storylines may be rearranged entirely. Sometimes, a character’s drunkenness is overstated in early drafts; when the visuals arrive, one strong moment is enough, so the rest is cut. “When you see it, the script feels different because films live in three dimensions.”

A clip from The Terrorist served as a live case study. Prasad explained how much of that film was constructed without a rigid screenplay, stitched together through visuals, silence and emotional intuition. He spoke about the art of silence, calling it cinema’s most overlooked strength. “You must be as comfortable with silence as you are with dialogue.” That philosophy later shaped films like Vanaprastha, where stillness wasn’t empty, it was eloquent.

From here, the masterclass plunged into one of editing’s most whispered-about virtues invisibility. Editing, Prasad argued, is supposed to vanish. “If you notice the cut, something is wrong.” Timing is everything. If two people speak and respond at just the right moment, the cut disappears; if the rhythm slips, the illusion shatters.

He dismantled the myth that editors merely enhance great performances. “Editors often spend half their time covering up bad performances,” he said with a grin. Reaction shots become tools of salvation but only when used organically. Insert them carelessly, and they scream “patchwork”. Insert them gracefully, and they deepen character.

One of the session’s most fascinating segments was Prasad’s take on parallel narratives. “It’s like driving two or three cars simultaneously,” he joked. Modern audiences are impatient; they demand pace. Intercutting parallel scenes that echo each other emotionally has become an essential tool to accelerate momentum. In real-time sequences like assassination attempts, the editor must maintain simultaneous logic, tension and coherence, a feat bordering on choreography.

Then came a revealing contrast. Editing for a big star film and editing for a festival film are not the same universe. “A star’s entry may last ten seconds because you’re waiting for the hooting.” Festival cinema, on the other hand, lives in subtle glances, restrained pauses and narrative intimacy. Switching between both worlds as he did while cutting PS2 and the international festival film simultaneously requires a mental reboot. “You must absorb the story and know exactly what the film is meant to be.”

When asked what cinema means to him after decades in the craft, Prasad turned reflective. “Cinema is a social and cultural footprint. It stays. It should not make you cringe years later.” A film may outlive its creators. An editor’s responsibility, therefore, is not just to entertain the present audience but to honour future ones.

He views cinema as both memory and message, a way to record time, emotion and society. “You tell a story only when you feel instinctively that this story must be told.”

The masterclass closed with Prasad urging young editors to practise patience, openness, resilience and relentless curiosity. Editing, he reminded them, is equal parts technique, emotion, persuasion and discovery.

And if the audience walked away believing that films are shaped by directors alone, Prasad left them with a final, invisible cut, Behind every powerful story is an editor quietly rewriting it frame by frame, silence by silence, and instinct by instinct.