Media Parents

Saying no to Edgar Wright was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, writes Offline Editor Nick Lear.

Editor Nick Lear training in Manenberg, Cape Town

I’d edited the making of documentary for Hot Fuzz and I was offered the same for Scott Pilgrim. I remember pacing around the South Bank on the phone to his producer trying to explain why instead of taking this opportunity of a lifetime, I was moving to Mozambique.

At that stage I’d worked extremely hard to get to where I was – a year and a half as a runner, a couple more years in the machine room, all the while spending every evening and weekend learning how to use the Avid. It was four years before I got a chance to sit in that magical editor’s seat and I was thrown in at the deep end – editing a 90 minute David Gray concert. But I was ready.

Cut to a few years later and I ended up at TVC Soho on Great Pulteney Street where I started with music videos and commercials and moved onto broadcast & documentaries, like Secret World Of Magic for Sky One, The Real Hustle pilot for BBC Three & Bethlehem: No Room for Peace for ITV.

Offline Editor Nick Lear writes about turning down Edgar Wright, and what next

But over the years, my faith/justice journey made me realise I needed to make a more direct impact on the world. I was newly married and we travelled on public transport all the way from London to Mozambique where we ended up running a feeding program that served over 2000 a day. We had a lovely staff of 40 to manage, but they didn’t speak a word of English – talk about transferable skills, I don’t think I had any!

Nick Lear with his first child in Mozambique

When we started a family there, my other half was at home for the first year and I did the second, so that she could run a microfinance program for low income women. After that we juggled childcare between us – not that we were working full 9-5 days, you really couldn’t in that heat.

Things got too much for us in the end, but instead of coming home, we started working and living in a township in Cape Town called Manenberg where there was a gang fight every other week and an incredible amount of disadvantage and pain still left from Apartheid. I started a small film school there with a really talented DoP called Freddie Reed, which is still running under local leadership.

Editor Nick Lear and wife Cate after arriving in Mozambique

Eventually I came back to editing as the one thing I know how to do to make a living. Working remotely, I tapped into the US market, with documentaries for Discovery+, The Olympics and recently a film exec produced by Hillary Clinton. I also had a stint back in the UK in 2022 when editors were scarce (remember that!) and I joined the agency TOVS and worked on things like Chateaux DIY and My Floating Home for Channel 4.

Now we’re moving permanently back to the UK – to Glasgow in a couple of weeks – and I’d love to cut meaningful documentaries as well as broadcast, whether on my home Avid suite or the great post houses there. Time for a new adventure!

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