WonderCon 2025 was in full swing at the Anaheim Convention Center, March 28- 30. This convention is host to a variety of incredible panels. Impact24 PR’s “3rd Annual Scene Breakdown: Behind the Camera of Film and TV Shows” panel at WonderCon 2025 gave fans an inside look at their favorite media. Industry experts shared their knowledge of their respective crafts. Documentary Editor Wax Taber spoke with us about their experiences with film editing.

Taking a Look at Editing Documentaries with Wax Taber

Editing documentaries is a different world from other types of film editing. Wax Taber jokes that, “It’s masochistic!” They go on to explain that documentary editing means becoming a little anti-social.

If you have ADD or ADHD like I do, that helps because you have hyper-focus, which is one of our talents, because in documentaries, there is so much footage. There is so much footage…in real documentaries where it’s run-and-gun and they shoot, and whatever happens, happens. You’ve got to watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage to even figure out what the hell it is you’re even editing. And then, you’ve got to study it just like, you know, a character. It’s a living, breathing thing.

Wax says that there is good chaos on the back-end when editing this way. However, the task of getting started on a project can feel overwhelming. They talk about overcoming that very feeling:

I always kind of remind myself of how I felt when I first started. You know? That energy, that excitement. And, because I’m a fan, I’m constantly watching other documentaries, scripted, anime, all kinds of stuff. And like, remembering, I’m working in this business. I’m lucky enough to be one of those people – well, not lucky, I worked really hard to do it – but, you know what I mean.

Their most recent series, “The Class,” is available on PBS. It is a documentary following high school students trying to navigate their lives through the 2020 pandemic. “It’s just the coolest series…” they say, “It like, it blows you away.”