How to edit commercials like professional Super Bowl editors

How do professional video editors cut commercials for major events?

Professional video editors use five key criteria in order of importance: emotion, story, rhythm, sound, and action. Each criterion builds on the previous one to create commercials that connect with audiences emotionally while maintaining technical precision.

The Five Professional Commercial Editing Criteria

Over 100 million people worldwide tune into the Super Bowl each year, making it the perfect stage for companies to showcase their best advertising. When I edited a regional Super Bowl commercial, I relied on the same five editing criteria I use for every project.

Emotion: Editing for the Audience

When I say emotion, I'm not talking about the emotion of the characters in the scene — I'm referring to the emotion of the audience. As editors, we should always be editing with the audience in mind.

For this commercial, my target emotion at the beginning was anxiety. This came through whether you relate to the timid parents or the angsty teenager in the form of a five-dollar bill. By the end of the spot, I wanted there to be an emotion of delight, or at least a release of tension in the audience.

Story: Finding Structure in 30 Seconds

It's rare to have all the elements of a classical three-act story structure packed into a 30-second commercial, but even on short projects, you usually have some of them. It's important to highlight those story beats so you can take your audience on a journey.

In this commercial, we had the first element — normalcy, also called the Ordinary World — with the five-dollar bill sitting on his bed on his phone. Then came the inciting incident: the parents interrupted the normal world. Rising tension led to a sort of climax when the five-dollar bill threw a tantrum and stood up on the bed. Finally, we had resolution by the end of the spot.

That's a lot packed into 30 seconds, but how professional video editors approach story structure makes even short-form content feel complete.

Rhythm: Staying Invisible When Needed

Sometimes it's best for the rhythm of a scene to remain invisible. For a dialogue-driven commercial like this, I thought that was best. I created a nice steady tempo without any dramatic rhythmic contrast — just a nice steady rhythm taking us through the spot.

Sound: Using Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Music

An important part of any soundtrack is the music. As an editor, I have two main ways to incorporate music. One is diegetic music — music that's actually being created in or coming from within the scene itself. Then there's non-diegetic music, like a musical score that's not necessarily coming from the world of the film.

In this commercial, we had both. Throughout the first half, I used diegetic music: a hard rock song that appeared to be emanating from the five-dollar bill's headphones. I thought this really helped add to my target emotion of anxiety. At the end of the spot, we had non-diegetic music — the jingle that played under the end art card.

By using the diegetic music, I was able to create a cool moment of contrast when the five-dollar bill took out his headphone and the music stopped. It really emphasized that moment.

Rounding out the sound design were bird noises — you could see it was a nice bright sunny day outside. I also worked on making the door knock and door open as irritating as possible to really add to that anxiety at the beginning. I also added details to accentuate the shot when the five-dollar bill took out his earbud, threw down the phone, and stood up on the bed.

Professional sound design techniques can transform how audiences feel about your commercial from the first frame.

Action: Strategic J-Cuts in Dialogue

My fifth and final editing criterion is action — the in-and-out points of each shot. This commercial is a good illustration of how you can use J-cuts and L-cuts in a dialogue scene.

To get from shot one to shot two, you hear the knock at the door during shot one, then I cut in for the five-dollar bill to notice the knock. To go from shot two to shot three, you hear something off-screen — the dialogue of the dad. This is a J-cut because in the timeline it makes a letter J. The cut is here, but the audio starts here.

I want to say one more thing about J-cuts. They're often talked about as a way to smooth out a transition, and they certainly do that, but there's something more important happening: the power of seeing a character's reaction to what they're hearing off-screen.

Be deliberate in that. It was helpful to hear the dad before we saw him, but the key with this interaction was to hear the dad say "hey bud" in a loving, timid way while we see the angsty teenager stone-faced. That creates a specific kind of moment.

The Technical Challenge: Working with 3D Animation

This commercial had some really fun technical challenges, namely that the main character was 3D animated. My biggest challenge was editing a spot where I had no main character — I had to focus on the audio performance of the character.

Professional commercial editing workflows require adaptability when working with animation and VFX elements that don't exist during the initial edit.

The spot was shot on the Arri Alexa at 4K at 23.98 frames per second with Apple ProRes 4444 codec. High-end cameras actually shoot a very flat-looking image to give you the most options later when doing your final color grade, but that's hard to look at during an offline edit. I often apply a LUT to the footage — LUT stands for Lookup Table. Sometimes I'll apply a standard Rec.709 LUT to bring back contrast, but other times the cinematographer will send a custom LUT they were using on set.

As we got closer to picture lock, we passed off the audio to the 3D animator. He actually recorded an actor acting out the facial expressions to the recorded audio. It really started to come to life when we added even the facial capture performances, but the next level was when we got final animation from the 3D animator.

Want to learn the exact system professional editors use to evaluate and refine their commercial projects? Download the Think Like A Broadcast Editor guide and discover the 5 criteria top editors use to craft emotionally-impactful edits.

The Delivery Process: Raw Files and Technical Specifications

The key to delivering files to a 3D animator or colorist is to give them the raw footage at the native size and frame rate with all LUTs turned off. They want that flat image so they have the most room to work with.

While I sent the raw files off to color, I sent my raw audio off to a sound mixer by way of an AAF file, which keeps everything on its own track in an uncompressed format.

Finally, I passed the raw footage off to the colorist and he sent back the final color grade. The combination of final color, final 3D animation, and final sound mix brought the commercial to its polished state.

These five criteria — emotion, story, rhythm, sound, and action — form the foundation of professional commercial editing. Whether you're cutting a Super Bowl spot or a local business commercial, this systematic approach ensures your edits serve both the story and the audience.

Ready to master the complete system professional editors use to land high-paying commercial work? Edit Like A Broadcast Pro teaches you how to create emotionally-impactful edits that win serious clients with real budgets.