Assistant Editor Contractor
Newlab is seeking an independent contractor Assistant Editor to support the production of high-quality, documentary-style content across digital, social, and experiential platforms. This role is highly execution-focused, requiring close collaboration with the team to ensure projects are technically sound, efficiently structured, and creatively supported from ingest through delivery. The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, systems-driven, and fluent in unscripted storytelling workflows, with a willingness to work in-person.
Key responsibilities include ingesting, logging, and organizing raw footage from various sources such as multi-camera interviews, vérité-style footage, event coverage, drone shots, and b-roll. The Assistant Editor will maintain structured project folders and naming conventions, sync audio and video, group multi-cam sequences, and manage archival, graphics, music, and stock assets. Additionally, they will prepare clean project files for lead editors, generate and organize interview transcripts, pull selects, build string-outs from unscripted interviews, assist in identifying narrative arcs, create paper edits, and support story development workflows.
The role also involves building rough assemblies and radio cuts, cutting interview-driven segments, montages, social loops, and recap edits, preparing internal review exports with timecode and version control, and incorporating feedback notes into revised assemblies. The Assistant Editor will prep final exports for multiple platforms, ensuring correct formatting, aspect ratios, codecs, and caption integration, and maintain version tracking and final archive organization. Types of projects include documentary-style pilot case studies, founder interviews and profiles, unscripted event recap videos, sizzle reels, montage-driven edits, looping event visuals, fast-paced social-native content, and brand narrative films.
This is a 1099 contractor role, offering compensation of $30 per hour for up to 10 hours a week. The position requires in-person work and is based in Detroit, MI.