Sam Seal

Broadcast Editor

Contact Details

samseal57@hotmail.com

Profile 2023

12 years at the BBC, 9 years at BBC Television Centre Videotape Department, 6 years as a staff editor in Central London facilities houses, freelance since 1993, so 40 years as a Broadcast Editor and six years of broadcast experience in less senior roles at the BBC before that.

Comprehensive experience of Comedy & Light Entertainment, Sport, Promos & Trailers, Children’s TV, Pop Promos and Pop/Rock Music TV.  Over the last few years I’ve also gone in for a bit of guest tutoring on various courses run by the NFTS.

Selected Credits

I edit exclusively on Avid.
It would be nice to learn Premiere and Resolve and (especially) After Effects but…
I’m busy.
With Avid projects.
All the above credits are there because they’re shows I felt I made some kind of difference to, but in my time I’ve done workaday stuff and “been in the room” on a good number of other famous shows like Top of The Pops, Blackadder, Alas Smith and Jones, The Young Ones, Doctor Who, Match of the Day, Sportsnight, Grandstand,  The Old Grey Whistle Test, and – one of my faves – The Hot Shoe Show with Wayne Sleep and Bonnie Langford, which I was the assistant editor for, that won a  BAFTA for editing. I’ve also done a lot of pop promo work, mostly in the 90’s when they were all the rage and had serious budgets, but there’s really no accreditation process for pop promos.  I made several promos for one music company where they just needed a promo in a hurry for an unexpected hit, so they gave me the track and a budget to buy archive footage and left me to make it all myself.  Happy days!

Additional Information

Roster of companies worked for includes;
TSI
CBS
SKY
BBC
IMG
LWT
ESPN
CHRYSALIS
CHANNEL 4
ARSENAL TV
CHELSEA TV
EVOLUTIONS
TOTTENHAM TV
THE EDIT WORKS
BRECHIN PRODUCTIONS
CAPRICORN PRODUCTIONS
EUROPEAN TOUR PRODUCTIONS
SMALL BACK ROOM PRODUCTIONS
NATIONAL FILM & TELEVISION SCHOOL (Teaching)

Working with Corporate Clients

As well as all the broadcast work,  I’ve completed many projects that needed to satisfy corporate sensibilities for blue chip companies like Rolex, Omega, Mercedes, BMW and Disney.   It’s futile to list them all because their concerns, values and ambitions are almost always the same, (even though they all claim they’re specific to their brand!) as is the craft needed to address them.   They’re just people who have a story they want told well.  I find it interesting that the higher up the food chain you are in the corporate world, the more it looks and feels like broadcast work, with a “let’s do the best we can and not insult anyone’s intelligence” vibe to it.