Ann Collins (#12) says the opening is cut last and the ending is the easier part, found by asking subjects how the story changed them. Two editors this week describe endings found a different way.

Nels Bangerter (#53, Dick Johnson Is Dead) says the fake funeral was the first thing shot, and the team realized "it could end as well as beginning there." Gabriel Rhodes (#54, Time) closes on a sequence played in reverse, with the mother returning, chosen so she is not shown too rosily.

Neither ending came from the subject's answer. One was waiting in the first day's footage, the other was a decision about whose doubt to leave in.

A video to make: list every ending you could cut for one documentary, and mark which came from the subjects, which from the first footage, and which from the editor's conscience.