Ghanaian film editors are not lazy – Filmmaker Morton

Gabriel Mortinno Morton, a renowned filmmaker, has debunked assertions that Ghanaian film editors are lazy and inefficient in their work.

His comments come after some key stakeholders in the movie industry labeled local film editors as unserious, inefficient, and lazy as they preferred to work with foreign editors.

According to Mortinno Morton, who recently won the Best Video Editor of the Year at this year’s Film Crew Association of Ghana Awards, low budget allocations to big productions do affect the efficiency of film editors.

He noted that the lack of better remuneration and underpaying editors due to friendship do affect their work.

Mortinno Morton urged film producers to be more realistic with their timelines when working with film editors so that they would be able to do a better job.

“I urge all producers to know this, editing takes time, so they should stop treating editors like we just have to blow air on our machines and the editing is done.

“Editing a finished work depends on the type of work an editor is receiving and the type of editor. This also includes the number of days it took to shoot the film, how many hours of footage have been shot, and the producer’s budget for post-production,” he said in an interview.

Mortinno Morton is a Ghanaian freelance film director, editor, and content developer and the founder of ‘mXquared Studios,” a film production company in Ghana.

His experience covers documentaries and fiction films such as Unplugged, God is African, the Ghana by Card comedy special, If Only, and The Burial of Kojo, among others.

Some of his works have been recognized at film festivals and ceremonies such as the Africa Movie Academy Awards, Ghana Movie Awards, Montreal film festival, Accra indie film fest, Australia Inspirational Film Festival, and Cannes Film Festival.