How the Brilliant Intuitive Editing of ‘Mindhunter’ Helps Propel the Emotional Narrative Within Each Scene

Video essayist Thomas Flight (previously) breaks down the brilliant editing choices that were used in the excellent Netflix series Mindhunter, specifically noting how these seemingly intuitive choices helped to propel the emotional narrative within the scene.

I want to break down the editing of several scenes from season 1 & 2 to illustrate some of the subtle but effective techniques minehunters editors are using to tell the story …Whether the editor is consciously or intuitively making these decisions, part of how we can find good editing is by looking for meaning in the edit. In many cases when you scrutinize the edit, the less arbitrary the editing decision seems, the better the edit.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.