Sex Education

Editors – David Webb, Steve Ackroyd, Phil Hignett and Izabella Curry

The Sex Education editing team of David, Steve, Phil and Izzy join The Rough Cut to talk about their work on Season Three of the hit series.

Sex Education is a British teen comedy-drama streaming television series created by Laurie Nunn for Netflix. The show follows the lives of the students, staff and parents of the fictitious Moordale Secondary School as they contend with various personal dilemmas, often related to sexual intimacy.  The first season of Sex Ed was released in January 2019, the second in January 2020 and, after a pandemic related delay, the third in September 2021. The series has been renewed for a fourth season.

DAVID WEBB

David Webb is partner, Managing Director and a film editor at Final Cut Ltd . He cut his teeth on music videos in the early 2000’s for George Michael, Charlatans, Super Furry Animals, Paul McCartney and Robbie Williams among others. David also collaborated with Edgar Wright on many of his early music videos, including Mint Royale’s ‘Blue Song’, the inspiration for Wright’s film Baby Driver. Earlier in his career, he spent a decade cutting commercials before moving into long-form at the request of director Jim Field-Smith. Webb has collaborated with Jim ever since, working on The Wrong Mans; Endeavour; Criminal; Defending The Guilty and, most recently, Truth Seekers.

STEVE ACKROYD

Steve Ackroyd is an award-winning editor represented by Final Cut. After starting his career cutting ads for the BBC, Ackroyd was headhunted by the edit house & expanded into the world of commercials and music videos.  In 2015, Ackroyd made the leap into longform TV with Channel 4’s multi-award winning comedy Catastrophe, directed by Ben Taylor – he proceeded to be the sole editor on the show for the first 3 seasons. Ackroyd has since cut series such as Hang Ups, Frank Of Ireland and all 3 seasons of the internationally acclaimed Sex Education for Netflix. He’s just finished a stint on the UK version of Call My Agent and is currently working with director Paul McGuigan on four-part drama Inside Man for the BBC and Netflix, starring Stanley Tucci and David Tennant.

PHIL HIGNETT

Prior to joining the post team for Sex Education in Season Two, Phil’s work could be seen on the series Dead Pixels and Year of the Rabbit, also helmed by Sex Education director, Ben Taylor.  Phil is also credited with editing six episodes of the comedy, Stath Lets Flats.

IZABELLA CURRY

Izabella is a film editor based in Brighton and London. Her credits include the feature film Two For Joy [directed by Tom Beard] which premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2018 and the short film Kara [directed by Deepa Keshval] which was premiered at The London Film Festival 2017.

Editing Sex Education

In our discussion with the Sex Education editing team of David Webb, Steve Ackroyd, Phil Hignett and Izzy Curry, we talk about:

  • Balancing multiple story lines and “checking in” with characters
  • Collaborating in a COVID bubble
  • Team building through table tennis
  • Working with director Ben Taylor
  • Taking inspiration from Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight

The Credits

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