Released theatrically in March 2024, “Laapataa Ladies” (translation: Lost Ladies) was praised for its story, screenplay, and cast performances, winning Best Film (Critics’ Choice) at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne and being selected as the Indian entry for the Best International Feature category of the 2025 Oscars.
We spoke to the film’s editor, Jabeen Merchant, about how she used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the movie — currently streaming on Netflix — and organize the many hours of footage that was shot for it. Trained at the Film & Television Institute of India and based in Mumbai, Merchant is known for her wide experience in the Indian film and TV industry covering more than 25 years. Her work spans mainstream Bollywood, art house cinema, television, web shows, short fiction, and documentary films.
From working with superior industry-grade cameras and external storage devices to enhancing collaboration as well as the review and approval process with other Adobe apps — “ Laapataa Ladies” demonstrates how the Adobe video ecosystem surrounding Premiere Pro can empower authentic storytelling and accelerate video editing workflows globally.
How did you begin your journey into video editing?
I’m from the generation of editors who were trained on 35 mm film and videotape. But when I left film school and began work, the first computer-based editing systems arrived in India, in Mumbai at least. I worked on a number of different systems and at one point, like a lot of other editors, I made the switch to Premiere Pro, because I found it was very well suited to the method of work that I have developed over the years. I’ve now used it to edit a number of feature films, fictional series, and documentaries.
What’s your video editing workflow like?
This is the method I normally adopt when I’m editing: I begin by making assemblies. I sort clips by scenes or topics and sync up the sound and the multiple cameras. Then I line them up without cutting anything at all yet, without cutting a frame. I call these my assembly sequences and they become my go-to-space for each scene as I work on it.
There I can view all the footage and discuss it with the director if necessary. Then I do a sequence-to-sequence edit where I mark the selected portions I want and move them to a fresh timeline, and from there I start to build the actual scenes.
My timeline almost never has multiple video layers. Unless I’m actually compositing the layers, I don’t leave extra clips lying about. I just keep what’s needed and prefer to create more edit versions if there are alternative choices. I manipulate clips and use copy & paste to move things from one sequence to another, and the razor tool to delete unwanted parts.
I also work with audio right from the start. Soundtrack laying and mixing is my thing: I change the audio levels, mute certain tracks, and add basic sound effects if required. I like to build everything together as I work and that’s so easy to do with Premiere Pro.
What was your workflow like for “ Laapataa Ladies” specifically?
I took over the project from another editor at a very early stage in the process. The entire film was shot and they had done an on-location edit already. Because I had to start from scratch and it was a very large project in terms of the footage, I decided to switch to Premiere Pro to be able to do my best work.
Some scenes were very long and complex, with hours of footage, multiple characters, camera angles, and takes. There was a lot of material, and an assistant had to manually re-sync some of the sound, which took up extra time, but otherwise the transition to Premiere Pro was very easy. We spent a couple of weeks figuring it out through trial and error, for example whether an XML or an EDL would work better or a combination of both.
My sequence-to-sequence editing method came in very useful, and the director — Kiran Rao — was also very involved. She was happy to roll up her sleeves and patiently work with me through the footage, which not many directors like doing. It was incredible to be able to collaborate like that with Kiran and having multiple timelines allowed the work to happen very smoothly.
What Premiere Pro features do you find most useful when you’re editing a film or series?
I use graphics templates a lot. The way I can import stock footage by using Adobe Creative Cloud is very useful, too. Being able to quickly create little graphic elements is great, and I also love the way I can work with titling and adding text. It’s very fast.
I also very much enjoy creating my own subtitles and use Speech to Text to automatically generate captions. That’s just so easy compared to other software. I can practically do it on the fly. I’m currently editing a documentary film, which we need to transcribe hours of interviews in English for, and I found the captions generated with Speech to Text are about 90 percent accurate — even with Indian-accented English. It really cuts down on the time spent working on the sequences and doesn’t break the workflow at all.
Another thing that I really like about Premiere Pro, which sets it apart from other editing software that I have used, is the ease with which it allows me to import media in a variety of formats. And then to export finished edits, reference clips, captions, and even markers once I’m done. In terms of speed and quality, I haven’t come across anything else as good as this. For “ Laapataa Ladies”, we had literally hundreds of preview screenings at different stages of the editing process. My team and I never had any big problems, even though the project files grew more and more complicated.
How do you collaborate with other team members?
Sometimes I work with several people in different cities and then use Team Projects to edit collaboratively in Premiere Pro. I have also used Frame.io for the reviews and approval process on a number of projects, which is also really good for remote collaboration as it seamlessly links up with Premiere Pro too.
However, we tend to choose not to put the footage in the cloud and work with cloned hard drives with the same file path because in India you never know when your internet will crash. It makes us feel more secure so we won’t be stuck when it does happen.
“ Laapataa Ladies” is aimed at women and made by women. How important was the female perspective?
With “ Laapataa Ladies”, we were able to bring that woman’s gaze to the telling of the story. Stories can be told in many different ways. We had so much footage to play with, and the first cut was close to three hours long. There’s a lot that changed and got restructured, added and removed. Many decisions were taken, and it was a process of many months, a very collaborative process. But in the end, this is firmly a woman’s way of looking at the world.
What’s your one piece of advice for any editors trying to break into the industry, particularly women?
Of all the different branches of filmmaking, editing possibly has the most room for women. Some of the best editors are women, and I’ve always had Indian women editors as role models. Renu Saluja has inspired all of us, for example, and in Mumbai there is a large community of women editors right now.
If you are starting out as an editor, remember there are no shortcuts. If you don’t do things the right way from the start, you’ll just end up spending more time and getting into trouble later on, so it’s worth doing that hard work at the beginning. Get your thoughts in a row before you start cutting anything. Watch your footage and understand what you’re doing, then organize it.
Try the latest video-editing features by updating your Premiere Pro app today. And just announced at Adobe MAX, experiment with the all new Generative Extend in Premiere Pro (beta) powered by the Firefly Video Model in the Premiere Pro beta app accessible through the Creative Cloud Desktop app. To enhance your workflow even further, explore the many integrations that are available as part of the Adobe Video ecosystem.
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This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
