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06 12 Letter from the Editor In Memoriam Discovering Excellence Ed Abroms Sr., ACE BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE BY BONNIE KOEHLER, ACE 10 14 What’s New! In Memoriam News & Announcements Raul Antonio Davalos, ACE BY BONNIE KOEHLER, ACE Short Cut Comic BY JOHN VAN VLIET 16 20 In Memoriam Aspects of Editing Gerald B. Greenberg, ACE BY JACK TUCKER, ACE Frankenbites BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE 18 24 Paper Cuts Tech Corner Don’t Miss Out on Any Avocado A Brave Adventure with Milkshakes: The Art and Only the Brave Joy of Being a Film Editor REVIEWED BY BY HARRY B. MILLER III, ACE EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE 28 32 Global Editing ACE Holiday Party Perspectives Germany 34 BY CLAUS WEHLISCH, BFS AND ALEX BERNER, BFS Film Critics Association Awards 56 Cuts We Love 36 Gladiator The 2018 ACE BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON Eddie Awards

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02 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Cover image: Angela Bassett, , Isaach De Bankolé, Martin Freeman, Michael B. Jordan, Andy Serkis, Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, Daniel Kaluuya, and Letitia Wright in Black Panther. © 2018. The new DaVinci Resolve 14 is now to 10 times faster with new editing tools, full Fairlight audio post production and new multi user collaboration tools!

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© 2018 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, and Adobe Premiere are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Discovering Excellence With the annual ACE Eddie Awards behind us, we always explore what can be improved and how we need to evolve with the changing way content now comes to us – in terms of how it affects our awards ceremony and also the many others during awards season. Because it is not only the financial and economic bottom line and the amount of viewers that select winners but there are also aspirational, artistic and inspirational considerations that play an important role determining what will, needs to be or should be awarded. The ACE Board of Directors has a standing Blue Ribbon committee that each year carefully and expertly determines and advises the Board about the award categories and line-up. They discuss the changes in production, post-production and distribution affecting the creative assessment of and shows so the voting ACE membership can fairly choose their favorites. With the arrival of the cable-cutting streamers like , Amazon, and an ever-increasing number of choices presented on smart TVs and streaming devices, the competition has intensified. For editors it has meant that creatively much of the most interesting work nowadays seems to be generated by the small screen; and small is, of course, very relative with the ever-increasing size of home theater devices that in size and definition are beginning to resemble the screens of small theaters. The definition of small screen also includes cell phones and tablets. We might not want to watch a 90-minute drama previously released in theaters on them, but viewing a 20-minute sitcom does not seem to be so weird or unusual. It does, however, mean competition for the big screen, even if it only takes content-consumable time away. When theaters were the only way content could be distributed, there was room for cinemas that showed culturally and creatively interesting content in addition to the crowd-pleasing box office blockbusters. Now the indies find their audience on iTunes, Amazon and Netflix hoping that a successful run on the streamers can vault them into the mainstream. Even if that does not happen there has been a proliferation of festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Telluride, Tribeca and others that can shine a light on the indies that are daring to innovate. At ACE, we always try to broaden our view of what goes on in the film and TV business because it is our goal to award excellence in editing wherever it might happen. Excellence sometimes can be found in obscure places of creativity and we challenge ourselves to find ways to give it its proper and deserved attention. –Edgar Burcksen, ACE

06 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Photo by Peter Zakhary. Warner Bros. Pictures congratulates ACE Eddie Award Winner , ACE Dunkirk and ACE Eddie Award Nominees David Burrows, ACE Matt Villa and John Venzon, ACE The Lego Movie , ACE 2049 Official Periodical of the , Inc. Founded November 28, 1950.

EDITORIAL STAFF

EDITOR IN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL EDITOR EDITORIAL CONSULTANT Edgar Burcksen, ACE Adrian Pennington Carolyn Giardina

ART DIRECTOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT PRESIDENT Luci Zakhary Peter Zakhary Stephen Rivkin, ACE

VICE PRESIDENT BUSINESS AFFAIRS , ACE

PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION COORDINATOR PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ADVERTISING & DISTRIBUTION SECRETARY Jenni McCormick Marika Ellis Gemmalyn Brunson Peter Zakhary Lillian Benson, ACE

ADVISORY BOARD TREASURER Stephen Lovejoy, ACE Edgar Burcksen, ACE Harry B. Miller III, ACE Andrew Seklir, ACE

CONTRIBUTORS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Edgar Burcksen, ACE, is the Editor in Chief of and Harry B. Miller III, ACE, serves on the ACE Board a regular contributor to CinemaEditor magazine. He also of Directors. His recent credits include Panama 3D, Anita Brandt Burgoyne, ACE serves on the ACE Board of Directors. Warehouse 13 and Hitting the Cycle. Jacqueline Cambas, ACE Tina Hirsch, ACE Walter Fernandez Jr. was the Editor in Chief of Adrian Pennington is a journalist, editor and mar- CinemaEditor magazine from August 2010 until June keting copywriter whose articles have appeared in the Maysie Hoy, ACE 2013. He has worked in marketing and distribution at Financial Times, British Cinematographer, Screen Inter- IMAX and the MPAA. He has written for CinemaEditor national, The Hollywood Reporter, Premiere, Broadcast, Bonnie Koehler, ACE since 2003. RTS Television and The Guardian. He is co-author , ACE of Exploring 3D: The New Grammar of Stereoscopic , ACE Carolyn Giardina is an award-winning journalist and Filmmaking (Focal Press, 2012) and his favorite film of author who serves as tech editor at The Hollywood all time is Gilda. Michael Ornstein, ACE Reporter, for which she writes its Behind the Screen blog. She is also co-author of Exploring 3D: The New Jack Tucker, ACE, Emmy®-nominated editor and first- Sabrina Plisco, ACE Grammar of Stereoscopic Filmmaking (Focal Press, ever recipient of the ACE Award, was , ACE 2012). One of her first assignments at the start of her at the helm of CinemaEditor magazine at the close of career was a feature story about editing – and she has the 20th century. He has recently produced the docu- enjoyed covering editors ever since. mentary feature, American Empire, with his partner, director Patrea Patrick. Bonnie Koehler, ACE, has been a film editor for five decades, from Moviola to digital, from to John Van Vliet has worked in animation and visual ASSOCIATE BOARD Law & Order: SVU. She is currently at work on an essay effects for more than 32 years. Although his involvement Kate Amend, ACE collection about her experiences on the cutting room on bad pictures far outnumbers the good ones, all have floor:Nobody Dies Tonight. provided raw material for his drawings – for which he’s Mark Andrew, ACE grateful. Visit MigrantFilmWorker.com for more. Edgar Burcksen, ACE Harry B. Miller III, ACE SUBSCRIPTION, ADVERTISING & CONTACT INFO

LETTERS, SUBSCRIPTIONS, OR SUBSCRIPTION RATE OTHER CORRESPONDENCE $39 for one year. Subscription cost includes CinemaEditor Magazine printed magazine and online access. 5555 Melrose Avenue EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Marx Brothers Building, Room 108, BACK ISSUES Jenni McCormick Los Angeles, CA 90038 Please indicate which issue(s). Cost is $10 per issue. PH 323.956.2900 MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO American Cinema Editors TO ADVERTISE OR FOR ADVERTISING RATES Credit cards accepted. CinemaEditor is complimentary Peter Zakhary [email protected] to ACE members. THE ACE CREDO DIGITAL ADVERTISING QUESTIONS ACE WEBSITE QUESTIONS The objects and purposes of Libby Higgins [email protected] Kate Higgins [email protected] the American Cinema Editors CinemaEditor Magazine is published quarterly by the American Cinema Editors. The views expressed in this are to advance the art and science periodical do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Directors or the membership of ACE. Reproduction of the profession; in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. ©American Cinema Editors, Inc. All rights reserved. to increase the entertainment value of motion pictures by STAY CONNECTED attaining artistic pre-eminence and scientific achievement in the Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter American Cinema Editors (ACE) @acefilmeditors creative art of film editing; to bring into close alliance those American Cinema Editors website film editors who desire to advance www.americancinemaeditors.com the prestige and dignity of the film editing profession. Mark -

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American Cinema Editors would Join ACE at the like to welcome new ACE members: JUN Mike Banas, ACE 30 Debbie Berman, ACE APR 7-12 Avril Beukes, ACE , ACE American Cinema Editors will once again present a Creative Masters Series panel AUG Keiko Deguchi, ACE at the upcoming NAB Show. For more 25 Omega Hsu, ACE exciting details visit the ACE website.

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10 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 CONGRATULATIONS to honorees of the 68th ANNUAL ACE EDDIE AWARDS ACE Golden Eddie VINCE GILLIGAN Career Achievement Mark Goldblatt, ACE Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE and the winner of the Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) LEE SMITH, ACE - DUNKIRK

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one for editing. His two Emmy wins were for editing, one for My Sweet Charlie (1970), a television movie starring Patty Duke and one for (1971). His Oscar nomination was for editing director ’s Blue Thunder (with colleague Frank Morriss) in 1983. Badham shot over a million feet of film for his action-packed thriller. “He’s a great director. I enjoyed that film more than any other project. I got to cut all the really cool helicopter stuff,” Ed laughed with enthusiasm in his archive interview for the Motion Picture Editors Guild, conducted Sept. 26, 2013 (all of Abroms’ quotes in this story are excerpts from this interview). Abroms was a member of the Directors Guild of America, Motion Picture Editors Guild, American Cinema Editors (card #313) and a director on the ACE Board of Directors for nearly 30 years, 17 of those as our treasurer. During Ed’s tenure ACE grew from a small, honorary society to a major industry player with over a thousand members. Says ACE President Stephen Rivkin, ACE: “Ed was a wonderful man and a great talent. His passion for his craft and innovation led to an extremely successful career in both editing and directing. Ed’s many years of service to American Cinema Editors will continue to have a lasting impact on our organization.” “What a wonderful, generous man,” adds Tina Hirsch, ACE. “I met Ed on location in Vancouver years ago. He took the time to show me around the workplace, giving me all the insider information, showing me the ropes.” He began as an eager young USC film student/mailroom boy, pumping a bicycle on the Republic Studios lot (Universal) Ed Abroms Sr., ACE in the 1950s (“I took ’s place. He had just moved up 1935 - 2018 to apprentice in editorial when I arrived.”) moving up to elder statesman in ACE. Ed’s career and loving influence as an editor, scar®-nominated film editor and director Edward M. Abroms, director, mentor and revered friend, spanned over 60 years, from ACE, best known for Columbo (1971), The Sugarland Moviola to streaming digital. OExpress (1974), Blue Thunder (1983) and The Jewel of the “My parents wanted me to be a lawyer. That’s why they agreed Nile (1985), passed away on Feb. 13 in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to pay for USC,” he said. So when he was bitten by the film surrounded by his loving family. He was 82. in the Cinema Department freshman year, he did them a favor He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Colleen; his son, Ed, and dropped out to get a job in the industry. From the Republic Jr., also a film editor; his daughter, Lynn, an assistant film editor; mailroom, Ed moved to Technicolor for two years (where he and his daughter, Cindy, a former online colorist. He leaves three met his wife) until he finally got into the cutting room. Back at grandchildren: Brandon, Jordon and James, a film student who looks Universal, he moved up fast. forward to a career as a director and editor, like his grandfather. “I used to walk around to all the cutting rooms, there were 50 Ed was our ACE Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in or 60 editors working on the lot then, and say, ‘Give me some film 2006 and co-producer of our Eddie Awards show for more than to cut.’” His persistence paid off. His first solo editing credit was 20 years. His professional touch helped elevate our awards show on the television series, Tarzan, in 1966. He cut 14 episodes. above the others in the industry. Ed met a very young in 1969 and became the Says ACE Executive Director, Jenni McCormick, “I found cinema legend’s first professional film editor when he cut an episode myself continually learning from Ed’s vast experience as an of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery that Spielberg was directing. Four award-winning director and editor. ACE was incredibly fortunate years later, Abroms and Spielberg were working together again on a to have him in our leadership.” television movie, Savage!, starring Martin Landau. Ed was nominated for a Primetime Emmy® Award four times, “I get a call at 4 a.m.,” Abroms remembered. “It’s the kid, receiving two nominations in the same year, one for directing and Spielberg. He’s sick as a dog and can’t get out of bed. Can I take

12 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Photos courtesy of The Abroms Family. over and direct for the day? So, of course, I did. I had my DGA card by then.” Ed had cut the pilot for a new series, Columbo. “Peter Falk would improvise and was tricky to cut. That cigar was always changing hands,” he said. In their book, Stay Tuned: An Inside Look at Making Prime-Time Television (1955, revised in 1981), producers Richard Levinson and William Link, who started the Columbo television series, remember, “We asked Ed Abroms if he would supervise our editing and his contribution was invaluable. He inserted amusing optical effects, energized the pacing, and whenever any actors – including Falk – got an advanced case of the cutes, Abroms left it on the cutting room floor. In gratitude we assigned him the last episode of the season to direct and he was the only director to bring us in on schedule.” That launched Ed’s directing career that would eventually include over 50 hours of television. He went on to edit and/or direct episodes of The Virginian, , The Rookies, Cannon, The Six Million Dollar Man, Ellery Queen, Hawaii Five-O and Murder, She Wrote. But after making his mark as a director, Ed couldn’t wait to get back to the cutting room. “The editing room was my first love,” he said. “I enjoyed myself much more as an editor. You have to have chops to sit in the chair. Even today the editor has a tremendous amount of creative power.” Ed’s television editing style was ahead of its time. “I liked to start CLOSE and work my way out. Get to the MASTER later.” This at a time when every show opened in the MASTER and worked its way in to the coverage. Ed had crossed paths with Levinson & Link, the HBO movie, The Guardian, merited Abroms Michael Ritchie, an innovative director on Run for Your Life who the CableACE award. Ed edited Sam Peckinpah’s last feature, was changing the look of television, and Ed was game to push the The Osterman Weekend, and officially retired in 1994. envelope and make TV more cinematic. As to the demands of such a robust career: “We got in at 7 In 1974, Ed reunited with Spielberg and cut his feature film, a.m. and often worked seven days a week and we didn’t see our The Sugarland Express. “Spielberg shoots film that goes together families much. I was just glad I was able to do Scouting with my like silk,” he said. son (from Cub through Eagle Scout).” Being an editor afforded Ed the opportunity to edit films Ed was always quick to say that as hard as he worked early in his abroad: England (The Jewel of the Nile), Australia (Street Fighter), career, the demands on the film editor’s time today are even greater, and Toronto, Canada (The Guardian). Once again working for with “expectations about sound effects, music – they want the editor today to be a one-stop post shop. We used to have time to have fun in the cutting room when I was starting out. We had time for practical jokes. Not so much today. Today, they never shut the cameras off. It’s cheaper to shoot everything and let the editor figure it out. And the stuff the assistants have to know today is mind boggling.” About learning to cut, he added, “So many editors today have not had the years in the cutting room as an assistant and apprentice to learn how to tell a story like we did. Film schools are great, but practical experience is what makes or breaks an artist.” All of us in ACE who have been lucky enough to have the practical experience of knowing Ed Abroms, Sr. shall be forever grateful that he never stopped inspiring us to be better artists, too. “It was an honor to serve alongside him on the Board of Directors,” says Rivkin. “He is an inspiration. We will miss him dearly.” –Bonnie Koehler, ACE

Photos courtesy of The Abroms Family. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 13 IN MEMORIAM

They settled in Key Biscayne for an “ideal childhood,” said his brother. After graduating from Loyola University in New Orleans, where Raul was the campus radio DJ, he attended The London International Film School in England. There, his mentor who had worked with John Ford, confirmed what Raul had discovered on his own: “The editor’s chair is the best seat in the house, kid.” Raul joined ACE in September 2001, with sponsorship letters from Carol Littleton, ACE, , ACE, and David Siegel, ACE, and was an active member for 16 years. He contributed to the Membership Committee, where he was a clear voice for fairness and diversity, and the Internship Program. He also taught film editing at the Inner-City Filmmaker’s summer workshops in L.A. and was a charter member and lecturer for the young filmmakers program at his Miami high school, Belen Jesuit Prep, founded in Havana by Queen Isabella II of Spain in 1854. Raul joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2016 with sponsorship letters from members Bonnie Koehler, ACE, and , ACE. It was while working with Littleton on director Larry Kasdan’s The Accidental Tourist (1988) that Raul had the epiphany that an editor could create a scene that was “an aria, pure cinema, pure emotion.” Raul worked with Carol for almost 20 years as an apprentice, assistant and then associate film editor on Kasdan’s films beginning with Silverado (1985) and including Wyatt Earp (1994). On Dreamcatcher (2003) he was the co-editor with Carol. Raul’s credits also include Taylor Hackford’s Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll (1987); Benny & Joon (1993), starring Johnny Depp; China Moon (1991), which was directed by John Bailey; and Meet Wally Sparks (1997), starring Rodney Dangerfield. Raul Antonio Davalos, ACE His solo feature credits include Cronos (1993) for director 1954 - 2017 Guillermo del Toro, Via Dolorosa (2000), again for Bailey; and The Amateurs (2005) for director Michael Traeger as well as a aul Antonio Davalos, ACE, passed away peacefully on long list of television films and additional prime-time episodic Oct. 23 at Providence Saint Joseph Hospital in Burbank, series including Amazing Stories. Raul dedicated his career to Rsurrounded by friends and family. He was 62. reaching the level of artistry of his inspiring mentors. Diagnosed in December 2016 with an aggressive form of Raul might have told you that his proudest editorial achievement brain and lung cancer, he fought it bravely. was as film editor of the award-winning indie, The Way, which He is survived by his wife, Cindy Fret; daughter Alina and was given a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film son Alex with his first wife, Petra; and brother Mario, who flew in Festival in 2010. The film was written and directed by Emilio from the Dominican Republic to be by his side. Estevez and shot on location along the Camino in northern Spain. Raul was on his third season as film editor for the television Raul loved character-driven stories that, in his words, “reflect and series, Empire, at the time of his death. He worked with his wife contribute to our human experience.” as his assistant on the series since the show’s debut. He and Cindy To be acquainted with Raul Antonio Davalos, ACE, contri- met on Gilmore Girls in 2003 where he worked on the entire seven- buted to the human experience of all of us who had the honor of season run from 2000-2007, cutting 52 episodes. They would have knowing him. We, his colleagues in ACE, often said that he was celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve. one of the kindest people we had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Raul was born into a distinguished family in Havana, Cuba. He shall be remembered and deeply missed. He plans on starting His great-grandfather was president of the island nation before a film festival in heaven with Kubrick, his favorite director, and the revolution. They fled during the Communist takeover, arriving invites us all to join them some day. in Miami on Halloween night 1960 when Raul was five years old. –Bonnie Koehler, ACE

14 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Photo by Alina Davalos. Photo courtesy of the Davalos family. We would like to congratulate Lee Smith, ACE ACE Eddie Award winner for Dunkirk

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC) IN MEMORIAM

editor on Alice’s Restaurant, which led to his first full editing credit on ’s Bye Bye Braverman. Greenberg teamed up with William Friedkin for The Boys in the Band, which led him to Friedkin’s next project, the Oscar- winning The French Connection. This featured the famous car chase with Gene Hackman’s “Popeye” Doyle pursuing a hit man riding an elevated train across Brooklyn. This has been called one of the finest examples of editing since Battleship Potemkin (The Art of Motion Picture Editing, Vincent LoBrutto). The French Connection producer Philip D’Antoni made him an associate producer as well as supervising film editor on his next production, The Seven-Ups, which also featured a great car chase. Greenberg went on to edit such films as Electra Glide in Blue and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and was part of the team that edited ’s Vietnam epic, . , ACE, another of Dede’s Boys, was the team leader. Greenberg is credited with editing the famous Ride of the Valkyries sequence in the film but he was firmly against editing timed to music, which he referred to as “Mickey Mouse editing” (CinemaEditor, Quarter 1, 2015). After completing Oscar-winnning drama Kramer vs. Kramer, Greenberg went to work for Brian De Palma on Dressed to Kill. The film represented a departure from De Palma’s earlier low- budget thrillers filled with blood and guts. Greenberg’s editing Gerald B. Greenberg, ACE struck a perfect balance between eroticism and suspense. 1936 - 2017 This led to five more films with De Palma including Body Double, Scarface and The Untouchables, which features the shoot-out at erald B. Greenberg, ACE, died Dec. 22 after a long illness, the train station that is an homage to the Odessa steps sequence leaving behind a huge legacy and collection of memorable from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. Gfilms that bear his stamp of originality. He was 81. Greenberg was part of the crew for the ill-fated Michael Known as Jerry by his friends and colleagues, Greenberg Cimino epic, Heaven’s Gate, the film that broke United Artists. earned an Academy Award® in 1972 for The French Connection, The picture was pulled in the first week of distribution and a and in 1980 achieved a rare feat of earning two Oscar® nominations flurry of studio executives were trying to figure how to salvage it. in the same year, for Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now. When one of these people approached Greenberg with his notes In 2015, he received the ACE Career Achievement Award, and he was told, “I only take notes from the director.” will also be remembered as a dedicated artist, painfully honest, He went on to do Awakenings, For the Boys and American who spoke his mind regardless of the consequences. History X (with Alan Heim, ACE), and in 1981 he stepped in to Starting out editing music for commercials and documentaries help his mentor, , finish Reds. His final credit was in in New York in the ‘50s, his break came when he got the job of 2015 for Point Break. apprentice to Dede Allen, ACE, on ’s America, America. Greenberg was a champion for editing, and he did not think In 1967, the moviegoing public was stunned by the brutal we should take a backseat to anybody. killing at the end of Bonnie and Clyde, a film brilliantly edited The late , ACE, said every movie is really four by Allen. That scene took movie violence to a whole new level, movies: the movie imagined, the movie written, the movie and it was edited by Greenberg, who was Allen’s assistant and directed and the movie edited. We are the last stop in the process the first one to be known as one of ‘Dede’s Boys.’ Said Allen in and ours is the only one that will be seen. Greenberg called the ACE-initiated documentary, The Cutting Edge: The Magic of the shots as he saw them. We all need to do that particularly Movie Editing, “Jerry did all the initial editing of the sequence. since he is gone. The final film is our responsibility. Fortunately All I did was cut it down.” for us Jerry Greenberg’s work lives on for us as a reminder. His time working for her was a remarkable education that We have lost a giant. developed into a lifelong friendship. He was Allen’s associate –Jack Tucker, ACE

16 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Photo by Peter Zakhary. We would like to congratulate Vince Gilligan THE 2018 ACE GOLDEN EDDIE HONOREE Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE ACE EDDIE AWARD WINNER Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy) I, Tonya

and all the ACE Eddie honorees and winners roy Takaki, ACE, is a fountain of you’ll understand why he is one of the positive energy who is well-known most successful and respected film editors T in the industry but especially among in the business. His on-the-surface simple the younger generation of professionals in advice in Don’t Miss Out on Any Avocado the post-production realm. For years, he Milkshakes includes starting out as a great championed the ACE Internship Program, post-production assistant through the long he has spearheaded the ACE Diversity and winding road from apprentice to assistant Program mentoring underrepresented editor to finally becoming a successful minorities in post, and he has been a film editor for film and TV, and should be very-much respected mentor and teacher required study material in the last semester of upcoming post-production assistants, before graduating at film schools. Because assistant editors and junior editors. you might have studied Eisenstein, analyzed Reminiscing back from the early days of Hitchcock, know how to make the perfect his career till the present, he has gathered a cut and are a whiz on the Avid, but nobody lot of funny stories, but more importantly, prepares you for the reality of getting a job, very wise suggestions and practical holding onto it and progressing successfully recommendations on how to start, bolster in your career. The assumed triviality of and enjoy a long and successful career in simple things like getting to a job interview post-production and especially editing. on time, no, at least 10 minutes before the You would never expect a book appointment, might seem common sense, Don’t Miss Out about editing to have in the title Avocado but in the reality of how somebody gets on Any Milkshakes but this exotic drink from the hired, just small details can give you the Avocado Milkshakes: Philippines is a metaphor to always exploit edge over other well-qualified candidates. your opportunities. In the last chapter of These important life and job lessons are The Art and Joy of the book, Troy explains how somebody not commonly taught at film schools even Being a Film Editor was offered an avocado milkshake on the though they’re more important than having by Troy Takaki, ACE first day of work in the Philippines, but only a complete knowledge of film history. tried one after three months on the last day The book, however, is not only for Lulu Press, Inc. before leaving the country: a truly missed students or people starting their careers. opportunity. This is just one example of As Troy notes, “You never stop learning,” how Troy explains many important notions and that means that even if you are a well- of being a film editor. If you expect a book attuned film professional there might be about the intricacies of the art, craft and something of value in his book since you technical aspects of editing, you will be might have forgotten the simple truths disappointed – but if you want to know of how to handle your job, your job how to become a great film editor you will environment or your job communications. be delighted. As you would expect from a Our job as film editors can get stressful film editor who knows about storytelling, sometimes due to the long hours, difficult Troy knows how to engage the reader with characters and unreasonable requests, but the dos and don’ts of getting your foot in reading a few chapters of Troy’s book will the door of the film and TV world and to put everything back in perspective. It’s a empower you to stay and thrive there. quick read and it will refresh things you His life lessons encapsulated in what might already know and practice – and he calls “The Tao of Troy” are divided into who knows it might teach you something short, easy-to-read, and often funny but new. I certainly picked up a thing or oh-so-important stories that seem almost two and apart from that it’s a delightful, redundant in their conclusions. However, positive look on the job we all love. when you follow his lead through the book, –Edgar Burcksen, ACE

18 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Don’t Miss Out on Any Avocado Milkshakes: The Art and Joy of Being a Film Editor. ©Troy Takaki, ACE/Lulu Press, Inc. Deluxe_ACE_EddieAwardsAd_Final.pdf 1 1/24/18 5:01 PM

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K Frankenbites BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE

s editors we have awesome powers that are not often previous episodes; the same goes for reality or non-scripted shows. talked about although we all know and use them When I edited The Young Chronicles – the only TV whenever we see fit. Mostly, we always talk about our series I ever worked on – I didn’t have as many opportunities as I creative powers and how we use the art and craft of wished to steal because all the episodes were dealing with vastly Aediting to shape our productions. But these creative powers also different locations and periods, but it did happen. contain an ingredient of manipulation that we often use to further Doing shows that emerge from one location with the same cast the quality, impact and enjoyment of the product. in the same time period of course creates more opportunities to And I’m not talking about the formidable power of choice do a lot of stealing especially if the shooting has time limits and that we use to create performances in narratives or sequences the script has story problems. But stealing shots still falls within in documentary and reality programs: Whichever take we deem the parameters of what is considered content of suitable to move the drama, narrative or intellectual argument the sequence it was put in. forward can make or break a sequence in the eyes of the director, However, you can also use shots to create sequences that producer and ultimately the audience. Apart from just choosing were never scripted and create dialogue with lines from other we also have the power to exclude, omit or delete , shots sequences to create an apparent missing link in the script. In the or sequences either because we consider them redundant, Young Indiana Jones episode, “Austria, March, 1917,” I created unnecessary or wrong for what the motion picture is trying to tell a new sequence in the train at the border of Austria that did not or argue. Now we’re getting closer to the manipulative power of exist. I used earlier footage of Young Indy in a dark train cabin editing – because editors cannot only leave something out, we that did not show his face so I could insert any dialogue I needed can also add something that was not originally meant to be there. to explain a missing plot line. In ADR the actor would revoice my We’re able to ‘steal’ shots from other sequences and insert them temp dialogue to make it innocuously fit into the episode. in a sequence that misses a look or reaction that we need to make In the changing reality TV world where the ‘reality’ not always the drama work: In documentaries we can use a sunrise that carries enough drama to make a show or sequence interesting, was shot on a different day, week, month or even year to open a they come up with all kinds of ‘creative’ ideas to heighten the sequence in a certain location or we might even find a stock shot excitement by rewriting dialogue, revoicing the unknowing that will do the same trick. participant and, if it does not fit into the mouth or the temperament When you’re editing a TV series the ‘stealing’ of shots or clips of the performance, then they can even blur or defocus the becomes an easy solution to help a sequence or performance since face giving the impression that the recorded person did not there can be an abundant library of material that an editor could want to be recognized or did not sign the quitclaim. This kind have access to if they can only remember what has been done in of manipulation seemed far-fetched to me until I recently started

20 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Congratulations to

ACE Golden Eddie Award Honoree Vince Gilligan

ACE Career Achievement Honorees Mark Goldblatt, ACE and Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE

and all the 2018 winners I had never heard the term before admitted that selling parts of aborted fetuses was a regular practice at the clinics, they almost were able to torpedo funding for the [‘frankenbites’] but he explained that organization. So, as an editor, you have to be critically aware of it meant manufacturing a line of what the constructive and destructive powers are of your craft. dialogue with elements of other lines You have to scrutinize the depth of your commitment to a project and the cause it is advocating, highlighting or criticizing. When (like manufacturing a person with body I edit documentaries I do not even want to touch the territory of parts of other people in the cinematic ethical challenges because I make sure that the ‘frankenbites’ I classic, Frankenstein). manufacture are always strictly connected to the actual content of what a character was saying or arguing. Although actors are trained speakers for narrative and scripted editing with a director who had worked years in reality TV as an shows, the common public is not always blessed with that smooth editor and he told me bizarre and hilarious stories of how they speech ability. So as editors, especially for documentaries, we tried in the editorial process to make the shows exciting when have learned to help our subjects out by removing their ‘uhs,’ their the reality was boring. ‘you knows,’ their ‘I means’ and other impediments that blur the Although these stories were entertaining coffee break tales content of what they’re trying to communicate. However, these as we were editing a documentary, it became something more little stopgap speech interjections are not the only obstacles. tangible for me when he urged me to ‘frankenbite’ a piece of People often speak in unfinished sentences or repeat themselves dialogue of one of the characters in the film. I had never heard the before they come to a conclusion. term before but when he explained that it meant manufacturing a This is where the ‘frankenbite’ becomes a very handy tool line of dialogue with elements of other lines (like manufacturing to smooth out a sentence. The “I was really, I mean, devastated, a person with body parts of other people in the cinematic because you know I felt like upset and devastated by this behavior” classic, Frankenstein), I realized that I had done this many times turns into “I felt really upset and devastated by this behavior.” before in feature films. What the character wants to communicate stays the same but When, for instance, an actor says, “I do not like to tell you I by cleaning up the sentence you even make her or his statement love you,” you can make him say, “I like to tell you I do not love more compelling. You have to be, of course, keenly aware of you” by moving the words, “do not,” in the sound track; you have volume levels, speech cadence and intonation; closing your to make sure, of course, that you can’t see him saying the line by eyes when you play back your ‘frankenbite’ usually tells you putting it on the reverse angle looking at the person he is talking if what you were trying to do actually works. When you have to, on a wide shot, extreme close-up of only his eyes, in the dark transcribed interviews at your disposal that is also very helpful or whatever trick in the book you can come up with as long as because in the ‘Find’ menu on your computer you can search for you obscure his lips saying the words. Sometimes I could even the words or pieces of lines that will be appropriate to reinvent a put words in actors’ mouths if the lip movements of what he was sentence. How you fit this line into the picture editing is the next actually saying fell in line with what I wanted him to say. challenge, but as an editor you have many tools available by using In drama these editorial tricks are protected by the narrative of B-roll, cut-aways or listening shots. The final check if what you what the film is about; but what about the ethics of using this kind did is acceptable will be when you’re screening the film for the of manipulation in reality-based shows and documentaries? You people you interviewed; I have never had anyone tell me that “this have to realize that you’re not reporting news that has a definite was not how I said that” because we all think that we’re more ingredient of veracity that you cannot escape and even though eloquent than we really are. objectivity seems to be a victim of the 24-hour news cycle, at It does not often happen that as an editor, you’re confronted least most of the major networks are still trying to adhere to the with ethical issues and the morality of the tools you’re using to ingrained code of letting both sides of an issue have their say. tell a story or make an argument. But what are the boundaries of Most of the time as a documentarian you already have taken a what is responsible and irresponsible when you’re telling a story side on a certain subject and you’re trying your best to inform and that is not based in fiction but deals with people and situations convince the viewer of the importance of the arguments you’re that are connected to the real world? Can you change what people showing, whether it’s a political issue, a scientific, historical or actually said into what you had hoped that they would have said? artistic subject, or any other topic that you can imagine to make Especially when you’re working in documentaries, there’s a fine a film about. But does that allow you to massage the realness line of what is ethically responsible and morally acceptable. of what was recorded? Even if you’ve taken a side, it does not mean that you can throw We’ve heard how the documentarians of The Center for Medical away all your scruples to draw the viewer into your camp. And Progress made films about the ‘baby parts’ Planned Parenthood although I’m sure that as consummate editorial professionals was supposedly selling. By manipulating video and audio in we will never lower ourselves to that level, it is something about such a way that it seemed that employees of Planned Parenthood which we absolutely need to be vigilant.

22 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Disney Digital Studio Services Congratulates The 2018 ACE eddie Award Honorees and winners Director Joseph Kosinski’s 2017 feature, Only the Brave, was the first project to use phase one of the beta-locking software. A TV series began using it in October of 2017. Adobe “wants to be more in this world” of creative picture editorial, says Bedient, who is familiar with project sharing NLEs, having worked for 17 years at A Brave Avid Technology. Michael Phillips, a respected developer who also Adventure with spent years at Avid, also is a consultant to Premiere. Adobe is serious. “We had a great experience. There were some bumps, we had Only the Brave some things we sure needed worked on,” says Billy Fox, ACE, the editor of Only the Brave. Premiere Pro has added “I had a meeting with a number of Adobe executives and project project and bin locking managers, and said I was interested but … I have to have shared projects.” Not ready for the editor’s cut, Adobe promised a version BY HARRY B. MILLER III, ACE of Premiere with project locking by the director’s cut. After talking to Kosinski, and being assured of support from Adobe, they went with Premiere to edit Only the Brave. major advantage Avid Media Composer has had over other Asked about this first stage of Premiere with bin locking, NLEs in competing for Hollywood’s editing business is assistant editor Jamie Clarke says, “It worked great for the first A project sharing and bin locking. Project sharing: Any editor version. We kept pushing Adobe to keep developing.” The version or assistant can open a master editing project. Bin locking: Anyone currently released would, to Clarke, be stage three. can open any bin contained within the project. That bin would then be The post crew included Fox, Clarke, another assistant and a VFX locked by the first ‘owner’ and unchangeable for anyone else. Apple’s editor. The latter worked with Adobe’s After Effects. “The whole 7 allowed opening of several projects at one time, but world was all shared. And it worked fantastically,” says Fox. nothing could be locked. Adobe’s Premiere Pro wouldn’t allow one Asked to compare Premiere to other NLEs, Fox says “I do a to open multiple projects, nor lock any project. Not anymore. tremendous amount of sound work and I find their sound solution is Adobe’s Premiere Pro CC, version 12, now can open multiple very sophisticated.” The edit timeline was set to mix in 5.1. “I found projects. And a project opened within a master project can be the sound quite advanced.” locked. Exactly like locking an Avid bin. This is a huge advance And his comparison to Avid? “In Premiere, the playback is for Adobe. It is a step that can make them a challenge for always going.” The timeline keeps playing, even while you open Hollywood’s attention. other folders, or trim clips. “It has an effect in terms of how efficient According to Adobe’s Van Bedient, with Premiere Pro you you are, how much time you save. It has an efficiency in momentum. first create a Master Project (New Project). It acts as a container. Avid is a continuous world of stopping.” Then, go into Preferences, and activate the new setting, Colla- Complaints from other productions about slowness opening boration, Enable Project Locking and provide a Username (or projects and clunky turnovers to sound didn’t apply here. Time spent workstation designation). “The design goal was to improve opening reels was very acceptable, according to Clarke. And with the upon existing models, but also for it to be a seamless transition new master project paradigm, every reel (project) can be open at one with no learning curve for users familiar with other platforms.” time. And sound turnovers to went without issue. Other platforms like, oh I don’t know, Media Composer? It helped that Only the Brave used a shared storage system called OpenDrives, also used on the movie, Gone Girl. The system uses all SSD drives and caches all the assets, to increase the data speed. On this project 24TB of storage were available. Only the Brave shot for 60 days with the Sony F65 camera at 4K resolution. FotoKem’s nextLAB system was hired to sync dailies. They also transcoded all the outputs needed for editorial and viewing over PIX. Editorial got QuickTime ProRes 422, 2K files, transferred overnight from the shoot location in New Mexico to editorial in Los Angeles. The movie was mastered in 4K, HDR at Technicolor. According to Clarke, the system was about as stable as Media Composer. There were a number of crashes, but AutoSave proved helpful recovering the last edit state. And a big advantage Premiere has over other NLEs is the ability to easily create DCPs for screenings, he added. In my own limited testing, having two users on a Nexus shared storage system, Premiere worked as advertised. When bins were locked, you couldn’t make any changes in a timeline. Premiere

24 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Premiere Pro screens ©Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. BCC error screen ©Boris FX. Screenshots courtesy of Harry B. Miller III, ACE. American Cinema Editors would like to thank

Tribeca West Kilroy Realty Corporation

for being a sponsor of the 2018 ACE Eddie Awards and for generously providing the bar for the evening is exceedingly fast when moving through a timeline. Saving the controls to refine a chroma key. Those include spill replacement, project is extremely fast, although this was a small-sized test, not matte refinement, mask shapes and light wrap. Like many BCC a large, complex project. And the interface is completely modular, filters, it can use mocha for tracking shapes. where you can move any window/panel to any screen location. Reportedly, Adobe has a Hollywood team, a group devoted to Media Composer Source Settings can now adjust audio sync for making them the number one solution for all editors. On projects individual clips, from sub-frames to five frames in either direction. like Only the Brave, they had engineers on site to observe the Even in clips created in (Blackmagic Design’s) Resolve, which workflow, to see the editor’s face. According to Fox, Adobe pretty cannot be modified in Avid’s perf slip function. Source Settings much had an office space with post. are accessed by right-clicking on a clip, or in the Source monitor. Having competition among NLEs is good. Final Cut Pro 7 pushed And master clips now can be changed. Previously with perf slip, Avid to make many changes to keep competitive. And lots of editors only sub-clips could be changed. Currently in Source Settings would be happy to contribute to other platforms’ development, as one can adjust the color encoding (add a LUT), resize and adjust they have with Avid’s Media Composer. the aspect ratio, change the playback rate and now adjust audio. And yet, Adobe will not have an easy time in Hollywood. I found But be warned: A change in audio sync isn’t reflected in the audio an episodic series that had, in 2017, abandoned Premiere after timecode. Currently a clip with a five-frame adjustment will make several episodes and many problems, moving to Media Composer. an incorrect EDL by five frames. The Fox feature, Deadpool, had considerable problems with Premiere (CinemaEditor, Quarter 2, 2016, Vol. 66), especially with High Sierra will kill FCP 7. FCP 7 is a 32-bit application, meaning AAF turnovers to sound. Because an editor can put a stereo clip and there are limits to how much computer memory can be addressed. a mono clip in the same audio track, an exported AAF creates three MacOS High Sierra (10.13) is 64-bit, and will not run applications audio channels. And it doesn’t include level or plugin information. built for 32-bit. That said, MacOS Sierra (10.12) has presented no Testing this version of Premiere shows no AAF change. And change problems in my use of Media Composer, FCP 7 or . notes, which are essential for features, were a tremendous problem. And there is a strong bias for Media Composer. With good MediaMover and Automatic Duck Media Copy. If you work reason. For Hollywood feature and television editors, nothing on multiple projects, keeping track of where media is stored is around has worked better. difficult. Despite being the best NLE media manager, Media Composer doesn’t allow for folder or file names that tell much And in other tech news… of anything about the media’s source or content. MediaMover by Random Video will examine the attached drive specified, find the BCC Pan And Zoom is still vastly superior to Avid’s Pan & Zoom. folders that contain Avid media, and then reveal which projects are Pan And Zoom works best by linking to an image file (.jpg, .tif, associated with the media therein. That media can be moved offline etc.), rather than importing. You can work with an uncompressed to another folder or drive. 4000 x 2670 image, instead of one imported to 1920 x 1080. This Automatic Duck Media Copy will find media associated allows for a great amount of control over displaying and animating with an Avid sequence, and copy those full clips to a specified still images. Its most important feature: If the linked file has been location. Want to take the day’s dailies home? Build a sequence moved, breaking the link, BCC Pan And Zoom will display the of those dailies, export as an AAF file (with no media), drop that file name and last known location. With Media Composer’s Pan & AAF into Media Copy and specify where you want those media Zoom, you get no information if a link is broken, not even the file’s clips copied to. A great way to have a complete duplicate of name. BCC also lets you set up a Watch Folder, that will look for media without consolidating. It works in Avid, FCP7, FCP X and files, which can include sub-folders that are searched. presumably Premiere Pro.

Sub-Caps warning. Sub-caps can be a terrific replacement for BCC error many types of titles created in the Media Composer Title Tool. message The advantages include: Sub-cap titles don’t need rendering; for a they don’t have a head or tail media limit so they can be as long missing file. as any sequence and be expanded on the head by any length; and adjusting the font, bounding box, drop shadow, screen position (and many other parameters) can be adjusted for all titles in the And a major flaw has been fixed: BCC Pan And Zoom effect same sequence at once by clicking on Edit Global Properties. now shows up in an EDL, even if the image file is offline. Previously The big caveat: Many properties can be adjusted for all titles by it did not, leaving out a lot of information for online. mistake. There are global parameters settings within a sub-cap title, based on sequence or track, that can unintentionally change all titles BCC Primatte Studio keyer, also in the latest BCC update, is a rather than just one. In fact, many properties are by default set to be fantastic alternative to Media Composer’s SpectraMatte. It features the same, which makes sense if you are subtitling a sequence and a fast and accurate Auto Analyze keying function, plus many other want all to look the same.

26 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 PRIMETIME EMMY® AWARD-WINNING EDITOR MITCHELL DANTON, ACE Cutting It in Hollywood TOP FILM EDITORS SHARE THEIR JOURNEYS

“For anyone who dreams of becoming an editor, it is an essential read.” Betsy A. McLane, CineMontage

“A remarkable insight into the evolution of an editor as an artist.” Jack Tucker, ACE, CinemaEditor “A valuable addition to any editor’s reading list.” Jonny Elwin, Film Editors on Film Editing

AVAILABLE ONLY AT CuttingItInHollywood.com

FEATURING STORIES & EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH SOME OF THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS: John Axelrad, ACE Michael Kahn, ACE Zene Baker, ACE Paul Karasick Josh Beal Ivan Ladizinsky Norman Buckley, ACE Mary Jo Markey, ACE Betsy Comstock Tyler Nelson Todd Desrosiers Tony Nigro Nena Erb, ACE Jim Page, ACE Billy Fox, ACE Chris Peppe Barbara Gerard Julius Ramsay Joseph M. Gonzalez David Rogers, ACE Lise Johnson Ron Rosen Mark Jones

INTRODUCTION BY THREE-TIME ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER MICHAEL KAHN, ACE

MD-CE-ad0717.indd 1 6/16/17 1:45 PM GERMANY BY CLAUS WEHLISCH, BFS AND ALEX BERNER, BFS

Since “Die Wende” in 1990 when East and West Germany were reunited, the German language motion picture industry and especially the TV branch grew enormously with an expanded market that already included not only Austria but also sizeable German-speaking parts of Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and France. So it is not a big surprise that this also meant a significant growth in the number of editors that became employed in the industry. The equivalent of ACE in Germany, BFS, grew to among the largest honorary film organizations in Europe taking the lead in a lot of matters like copyrights and other important issues. Even though language barriers still exist, the borders of the countries that are part of the European Union almost vanished and that created new challenges that BFS and sister organizations in the other European countries needed to address. When streaming distribution and production companies like Netflix and Amazon start to produce and include foreign-language content in their line-up (like German sci-fi thrillers Berlin Babylon and Dark now available in the U.S. on Netflix) it becomes necessary to gauge the consequences this might have. Their resolve to find common ground is an example of how editors around the globe need to join forces to deal with all the aspects an internationalized film industry puts in front of them.

he Bundesverband Filmschnitt (federal association of Our main task is to represent editors’ professional interests editors / BFS) is an association that represents editors in vis-a-vis film and television companies, trade unions and political T Germany. Whilst not a trade union, the BFS still engages institutions. To achieve our goals, we are active in all areas of extensively in economic, legal and political matters. It was founded television and film policy. We are working hard to ensure editors in 1984 and used to mainly represent cinema editors but this has the due recognition and credit, economically as well as artistically gradually changed over the years. We now represent editors across for their complex work. all divisions of our profession. As a founding member of the Copyright Initiative, our Editors can join at any point in their career, including at the association represents the demands of editors in German and start as junior editors, after graduating from film school, and of European law, and argues together with other associations of the course as assistant editors. German film and television landscape for fair copyright laws.

28 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Berlin skyline, Germany. We proudly congratulate our ACE Eddie Award nominees Claire Dodgson for 3

and Gregory Plotkin for Get Out A significant result of that work has been securing editors’ rights BFS members can also manage an online resume displayed on as film co-authors in the copyright collecting agency, ‘VG Bild- our website and advertise that they are available for work. Kunst’ (the Association for the Administration of Copyright Last year, we learned that Europe’s Film + Music Festival, and Neighboring Rights in Germany). Both members and non- which is focused solely on editing, was being terminated. members can benefit financially from this. The festival features different European countries each year The BFS also negotiates remuneration rules for editors with and offers a great international platform for editors to meet broadcasters and producers, concludes collective agreements in and exchange experiences. We had numerous discussions on cooperation with the local trade union “ver.di” (the second largest the board as how to save it but felt with our involvement as trade union in Germany) and strengthens the role and appreciation BFS it might lose its independence and integrity. Time ran out, of the art of film editing. since financing, organization and structuring needed to be taken Our association is headed by seven honorary board members care of. Dietmar Kraus, one of our board members then took and, since 2016, there is a full-time managing director. There are on this huge challenge and beside his routine workload as an currently 442 members and the numbers are going up every year. editor and his commitments to the BFS decided to head the Our three-person office is responsible for all organizational matters festival himself. Not only has it been a very successful event, and we also employ an accountant as well as an IT specialist who but the continuity of the festival is secured and we are all very sends out circulars and looks after our website. proud of his achievement. Another primary focus is set on the cooperation with other German associations, in order to strengthen the rights of all creative professionals in Germany’s film and television market. Thanks to years of national and international work experience, the seven members of the BFS’ board of directors are part of an extensive network that each of them mobilizes with great commitment for our members. The board members act throughout Germany and, with the help of additional regional contacts, take care of the needs of BFS members and regularly organize gatherings in the individual cities. We come together, retired and active members and discuss current industry issues and requirements, boost self esteem, dig up grievances, exchange plenty of information and of course also socialize. We organize workshops and master classes where editors (and sometimes guests from other areas of filmmaking) talk about one of their projects – and make these talks available afterwards as audio streams. We also offer training on creative, technical and personal economic aspects of the daily work of editors across Germany. In addition, we try to invigorate an awareness for the historical significance of our profession for the film industry. Beyond these direct exchanges, members also communicate via an internal mailing list and our Facebook page, where members quickly get answers and help to urgent questions. Visitors to our website can find information about current political activities, negotiations by our association and also news about prizes and awards won by individual editors.

30 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Top: BFS board members. Right top: Masterclass on Toni Erdmann with editor Heike Parplies, BFS. Right bottom: Demonstration for fair copyright organized by BFS. Photos courtesy of BFS.

ACE HOLIDAY PARTY

undreds gathered for the sold-out ACE Holiday Party, Dec. 2 at the Skirball Cultural Center’s H Ahmanson Hall. ACE president Stephen Rivkin, ACE, welcomed the guests, including this year’s Career Achievement Award honorees, Mark Goldblatt, ACE, and Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, both of whom were in attendance. Rivkin also presented new member plaques to Joi McMillon, ACE; Sheri Bylander, ACE; Joe Leonard, ACE; Phillip Schopper, ACE; Jake Pushinsky, ACE; Zack Arnold, ACE; David Helfand, ACE; Arthur Tarnowski, ACE; Avril Beukes, ACE; Philip Harrison, ACE; Jeremy Milton, ACE; Fabienne Rawley, ACE; Mustafa Bhagat, ACE; Omega Hsu, ACE; and Paul Crowder, ACE. McMillon (Moonlight) was all smiles, saying, “I’m so excited. I thought this would take a lifetime to achieve.” She added that the holiday party was “like a reunion” with so many mentors and fellow editors in attendance. Rawley () was also thrilled to join this “club of brilliant editors.” Holiday party guests included ACE Vice President and Past President Alan Heim, ACE; Secretary Lillian Benson, ACE; and board members such as Tina Hirsch, ACE, and Maysie Hoy, ACE. Attendees also included the editors of some of the season’s talked-about movies. Among them were , ACE (The Shape of Water); Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE (I, Tonya); , ACE (Hostiles); John Venzon, ACE (); and board member Kevin Tent, ACE (Downsizing). As part of the evening, ACE hosted a raffle benefit- ing the ACE Educational Center and a new toy collection for Spark of Love. Prizes included a one-year subscription to , an Avid Media Composer, two Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio licenses, and an Apple Watch. ACE thanks the individuals and organizations that donated the prizes.

32 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Photos by Peter Zakhary. Photos by Peter Zakhary. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 33 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

n Jan. 13, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association held its 43rd annual awards, marking the sixth time film editing was recognized. The addition of this category Oin 2012 was a direct result of the work of the Com- mittee for Creative Recognition, created by ACE and Motion Picture Editors Guild and chaired by Stephen Rivkin, ACE. Held at the InterContinental hotel in Century City, this year the LAFCA honored Dunkirk editor Lee Smith, ACE, in film editing. Tatiana S. Riegel’s, ACE, work on I, Tonya was the runner-up. In the evening’s program book, critic Robert Koehler wrote that “for most viewers – if they are honest – most critics, film editing is that most mysterious thing, cinema’s magic act hiding in plain sight. It supplies a movie’s subconscious music, the essential tempo that makes cinema what it is. No movie in 2017 expressed this fundamental truth more radically than Dunkirk.” Presenting the award, Koehler called Dunkirk – a heart-pounding look at the evacuation of Allied forces from France’s Dunkirk beach during WWII – “one of those rare sculptural works in cinema” and a “radical work of art. This sculpture is a giant coil formed by editor Lee Smith and director with three strands of film representing the movie’s three locations” – the mole, the sea and the air. “The coil is at first invisible. Then it emerges, it rises, it tightens, and it grips. Finally, it releases in an extraordinary sequence. This is suspense at its most profound – as an actual physical thing that you can feel.” Accepting the award, Smith said, “This film was one of those films that comes along once in your life. I feel very privileged that Chris Nolan has let me work with him.” He got a laugh as he added, “Because, quite frankly, he’s going to find me out one of these years. “He’s an amazing director,” Smith continued. “The script of Dunkirk was so tight. Even though there’s not much that is conveyed in dialogue. It’s a story that’s so complex in the construction of timelines. I’d like to say it came together really easily, but it didn’t.” He thanked his entire editorial team during his remarks, and added that “it was a thrill to work on something a lot of people have seen and experienced. It was an experience, that film.”

34 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Top: Editor Lee Smith, ACE. Bottom: Lee Smith, ACE, with Robert Koehler. Photos by Matt Harbicht. Photos courtesy of LAFCA. Sim congratulates 2018 ACE Golden Eddie Honoree Vince Gilligan and all the ACE Eddie Award Winners

siminternational.com unkirk editor Lee Smith, ACE, and I, Tonya editor “Basically, for the past 30 years I’ve sat on a whole lot of Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE, won the best edited dramatic comfy sofas behind brilliant editors doing their damnedest to D feature film and best edited comedy feature film honors, make me look like some kind of genius,” he added. “I honestly respectively, at the 68th Annual ACE Eddie Awards, Jan. 26 at believe I would have a better shot at landing the space shuttle The Beverly Hilton hotel. than I would at operating an Avid.” Before a sold-out crowd of more than 1,000 guests, a total As he thanked ACE, he said he shared his award with his of 10 awards were handed out in feature, TV and documentary and editors, , work. Additionally, Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, and Mark Goldblatt, ACE, who presented the trophy; Kelley Dixon, ACE; Lynne ACE, received Career Achievement Awards and Vince Gilligan Willingham, ACE; Chris McCaleb and “all the wonderful was awarded the Golden Eddie. editors and editing assistants I have worked with and learned “Editors are so important to dramatic storytelling in TV from over the past decade.” and cinema and ACE has the cream of the crop,” said Gilligan, Goldblatt – whose award was presented by director Joe the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. “We live in Dante – was Oscar® nominated for 2: Judgment Day a golden age of television and editors are the final folks who and his credits also include the original Terminator and other get their hands on the material to shape it before it reaches the blockbusters such as X-Men: The Last Stand, Pearl Harbor and audience. They are the ones who can make it better. Starship Troopers.

36 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Above: ACE President Stephen Rivkin, ACE. Photo by Peter Zakhary. “I’d like to thank ACE and the board of directors for this award; Chris Jenkyns, my stepfather, for giving me my first job in the film business; Chuck Silvers for hiring me at Universal and Dick Elliott for teaching me the art of editing. And the industry minority program for opening the door to me to be- come an editor.” The competitive categories again showcased excellence in editing. “I am looking around at editors who have had very long careers. It is wonderful to be nominated, especially by your peers,” said Smith, accepting the Eddie for his work on Christopher Nolan’s epic, Dunkirk. “The person I must thank the most is the genius who wrote, directed and produced this film, with his wife Emma, Chris Nolan who I have had the pleasure to have had a long relationship with,” he said. “We’ve been through many war-like battles to get the films finished on time and I have to say Chris’ sense of editing is second to none and I share this award with him and thank God he doesn’t know how to use an Avid. I certainly will never show him – I mean to be fair he can push the space bar.” As she received the Eddie for I, Tonya, Riegel said, “There are times in your career where lightning is trapped in a bottle and the stars align and everything comes together. This is amazing.

“As cinema editors we have the privilege to work in the greatest art form I know,” said Goldblatt, also an ACE past president, who rallied the more than 1,000 guests. “At their best, movies are about mass collaboration with a higher goal than simply to make the best entertainment possible, and that’s to have a shared experience that rises from our shared creativity. Team efforts are all about our emotional investment. If you’re passionate about your work, you will make a better picture. If you really feel it, the audience will too. So to that end I say be bold in your editing, be fierce and never be afraid to go to places the director may never have even thought to go, because it might be exactly where they need to go.” Ortiz-Gil – a three-time ACE Eddie Award nominee with credits including Law & Order, 24 and Dragnet – was presented his Career Achievement Award by actress Mariska Hargitay. “I feel euphoric,” he said. “I can’t really wrap my mind around that I’m here. I would rather have this award than an Oscar because I am immortal now. “I joined ACE in 1978. ACE is the spokesperson for editors on a very high level,” he continued. “ACE does so much good. They mentor up-and-coming editors and their diversity pro- gram is wonderful.

Left top: Lee Smith, ACE. Left bottom: Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE. Right Skip Macdonald, ACE and Golden Eddie Honoree Vince Gilligan. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 37 Photos by Peter Zakhary. “I’ve worked with director Craig Gillespie on five features over 10 years and it’s phenomenal,” she said. “We have a shorthand and an ease and honesty where we can battle things out or everything goes very smoothly. “ACE is important because editing is something a lot of people don’t know about,” she added. “We are supposed to be behind the scenes, invisible and it’s nice to be acknowledged. It’s nice for me to meet my peers and to congratulate them. It’s good too for the public to see this and to learn more of what the art of editing entails.” ACE President Stephen Rivkin, ACE, presided over the evening’s ceremony, during which Disney/’s Coco, edited by Steve Bloom, won best edited animated feature film; and best edited documentary feature was awarded to Jane and its editors, Joe Beshenkovsky, ACE, Will Znidaric and Brett Morgen. It was an especially big night for Znidaric, who received a second Eddie for Five Came Back: The Price of Victory in the category of best edited non-theatrical documentary. Television winners included Black-ish episode “Lemons,” edited by John Peter Bernardo and Jamie Pedroza, for best edited comedy series for commercial television; and episode “The Shucker,” edited by Jonathan Corn,

ACE, for best edited comedy series for non-commercial television. The episode “Who Rules the Land of Denial?” deliv- ered Andrew Seklir, ACE, the Eddie for best edited drama series for commercial television. The Handmaid’s Tale’s first episode, “Offred,” edited by , ACE, and Wendy Hallam Martin, claimed the trophy for best edited drama series for non-commercial television. Genius: Einstein episode “Chapter One,” edited by James D. Wilcox, collected the award for best edited miniseries or motion picture for television; and the Eddie for best edited non-scripted series was awarded for ’s “Charlottesville: Race & Terror,” edited by Tim Clancy, Cameron Dennis, John Chimples and Denny Thomas. During the evening, producer presented the Student Editing Competition award honor to Mariah Zenk of Missouri State University, who beat out hundreds of students from film schools and universities around the country. Presenters included director and the film’s editor, Joe Walker, ACE; helmer Edgar Wright; and actors Parminder Nagra, Sam Lerner, Betty Gabriel, Brett Gelman, Jordan Rodrigues and Marielle Scott. Tichina Arnold served as the evening’s host.

38 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Left: Career Achievement Honoree Mark Goldblatt, ACE, with director . Right: Career Achievement Honoree Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, with Mariska Hargitay. Photos by Peter Zakhary. THE 2018 ACE EDDIE AWARD WINNERS

(L-R): Student Competition winner Mariah Zenk (L-R): Presenter Denis Villeneuve, Best Edited Non-Scripted (L-R): Presenter Denis Villeneuve, Best Edited Miniseries or with presenter Gale Anne Hurd Series winners John Chimples, Cameron Dennis, Denny Thomas, Motion Picture winner James D. Wilcox and presenter Joe Walker, ACE Tim Clancy and presenter Joe Walker, ACE

(L-R): Presenter Mariska Hargitay with (L-R): Presenter Edgar Wright with Best Edited Documentary (Feature) (L-R): Best Edited Documentary (Non-Theatrical) winner Career Achievement Honoree Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE winners Brett Morgen, Joe Beshenkovsky, ACE, and Will Znidaric Will Znidaric with presenter Edgar Wright

(L-R): Presenter Joe Dante with (L-R): Presenter Sam Lerner with Best Edited Comedy Series (L-R): Best Edited Comedy Series for Commercial Television winner Career Achievement Honoree Mark Goldblatt, ACE for Non-Commercial Television winner Jonathan Corn, ACE John Peter Bernardo, presenter Sam Lerner and winner Jamie Pedroza

(L-R): Presenter Byron Smith, ACE, Best Edited Drama Series (L-R): Presenters Parminder Nagra, Best Edited Drama Series (L-R): ACE Golden Eddie Honoree Vince Gilligan for Non-Commercial Television winner Wendy Hallam Martin for Commercial Television winner Andrew Seklir, ACE, with presenter Skip Macdonald, ACE and presenter Parminder Nagra and presenter Byron Smith, ACE

(L-R): Best Edited Feature Film (Animated) winner Steve Bloom (L-R): Presenter , ACE, Best Edited Feature Film (L-R): Presenter Jordan Rodrigues, Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) with presenter Betty Gabriel (Comedy) winner Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE, presenter Joi McMillon, ACE, winner Lee Smith, ACE, and presenter Marielle Scott and presenter Brett Gelman

*Best Edited Drama Series for Non-Commercial Television winner Julian Clarke, ACE, not present at ceremony. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 39 Photos by Linda Treydte/Tilt Photography. VINCE GILLIGAN 2018 ACE Golden Eddie Award Honoree

BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

rowing up in the ‘70s, Vince Gilligan’s first thought when Gilligan spent his childhood in Farmville, a small town in it came to the movies was to build robots and spaceships Virginia where his mother taught in the local elementary school that films like 2001: A Space and Star Wars and his father worked as an insurance claims adjustor. Hollywood had popularized. His full contribution to the craft of was 2000 miles away but storytelling and a love of the movies was Gvisual effects may never be known but in diverting his attention to always close to home. screenwriting and production we are surely all the richer. He recalls his mother building a tree out of cardboard and crepe If Gilligan had written and produced nothing more than paper in a corner of her classroom for children to sit under and read Breaking Bad his name would already be legend. The AMC or be read to. He vividly remembers being introduced to Hollywood show with its maverick central character and twisted story arc movie classics by his father who used to wake him and his brother, captivated global audiences during what some see as another Patrick, up in the small hours of the morning to watch a transmission golden age of television. of films like Angels with Dirty Faces and Bad Day at Black Rock. Yet before then, Gilligan had proved integral to worldwide TV “They both loved stories and inspired in me a love for Hollywood phenomenon The X-Files and the fourth season of Breaking Bad movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s,” says Gilligan. “I grew up knowing spinoff Better Call Saul is on the way. about Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy and Breaking Bad won Gilligan two Emmys®, five Writers Guild Jimmy Stewart long before I knew anything academic.” of America Awards, two Critics’ Choice Television Awards, and At age 11, Gilligan and childhood friend – Producers Guild of America Awards and a BAFTA®. He won who would grow up to be an ACE member editor and is a two- another WGA honor for Better Call Saul, as well as two Peabody time Oscar® winner – began to turn excitement about movies into Awards. He is particularly proud that Breaking Bad and Better a hobby. Wall’s mother, one of Gilligan’s school teachers, loaned Call Saul were nominated as part of AFI’s TV Programs of the the pair a Super 8 camera for three months during successive Year seven times. summer vacation periods. Gilligan saved up to buy film cartridges Along the way, he has credited all the editors he has worked to make “mini sci-fi extravaganzas.” with for helping shape his stories into gold. “It is often said that “Jackie Wall was an incredible person who inspired and editing is the third telling of the story,” Gilligan says. “You tell supported both of us to make the most of our creativity,” says the story to yourself alone at a desk first. If you’re lucky enough Gilligan. “Perhaps it’s amazing that from a tiny little town of 4000 for it to go into production, then there’s 150 people including the people, two friends grew up to work in Hollywood as we have done.” actors giving it a second retelling. But it is only in the edit where Gilligan’s own breakthrough came after completing a film the story truly becomes what it is meant to be.” production course at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He’d won

40 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Above: ACE 2018 Golden Eddie Honoree Vince Gilligan. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez. ©2012 Getty Images. a scholarship to attend the Interlochen Center for the Arts in him an idea almost off the cuff about how a guy’s shadow comes Michigan and graduated from the Lloyd C. Bird High School in to life and eats people.” 1985 to attend Tisch, also on a scholarship. The episode, “Soft Light,” was the first of two episodes he would It was during his time at Interlochen and then at NYU where write as a freelancer, after which he joined the series full time his writing talent began to blossom, first under the tutelage and rose up the ranks over seven seasons to become an executive of teacher Jack Driscoll and then professors David Hicks and producer on the show. He also co-created and became executive Jesse Kornbluth. producer of The X-Files spin-off series The Lone Gunmen. “It’s hard to teach writing. It requires a discipline and it’s an “I enjoyed writing the first episode and I never looked back,” art form, yet these folks nonetheless were inspirational with their he says. “Movies were less and less interesting to me and I became ideas and generous with their advice,” he says. “Jesse Kornbluth more and more interested in TV. Writing TV, for me, has been was writing for Vanity Fair at the time and I loved to hear his stories infinitely more rewarding than the movie business.” about the intersection between journalism and screenwriting.” Part of that he attributes to the camaraderie of TV production It was for Kornbluth’s scriptwriting class that Gilligan penned in which everyone is expected to get involved, to chip in and help his first feature-length screenplay,Home Fries, “an oddball story meet tightening deadlines. of two socially-stunted brothers in their late 20s whose mother Carter, in particular, threw the X-Files writers in at the deep end tasks them with killing her husband – by frightening him to and in the process opened Gilligan’s eyes to the editing process. death.” A year after leaving college he entered the piece into a “I had spent time in the edit room on my own back in NYU scriptwriting competition inaugurated in his home state and won cutting on 16mm film and 35mm splicers but to me it was a bit the $1000 first prize. of a chore. Left to my own devices I’d never have realized how “Man, I could sure use the thousand bucks when I’m fresh out fundamental editing is to a show.” of college but I had lottery level winning luck since one of the Before exec producing, Gilligan was sent by Carter to the show’s judges of the contest was Mark Johnson,” Gilligan says. An alum editorial hub in Vancouver. “The idea was to oversee production of the University of Virginia, Johnson had produced the Oscar- and be as helpful as we could to the director on individual episodes,” winning Best Picture a year previously. says Gilligan. “He did this with all the writers and I loved that. “He called me up a short while afterwards as I was sitting in I learned so much about all aspects of production, including my mom’s house, said he liked the script and asked ‘did I have directing, and began to realize just how much of the final story any more?’ Well, I had been plugging away so I put a copy of stems from the edit room.” everything I had into the mail to him and thus began a professional Years later, on Breaking Bad, he recalls writer and co-executive relationship that is still going strong three decades on.” producer Peter Gould coming to see him straight from the edit Johnson eventually got Home Fries made into a feature starring suite grinning from ear to ear. Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson, released in 1998. Prior to that “Peter explained that they’d just figured out how to cut an he produced another Gilligan script, romantic comedy Wilder entire 3-4 pages of dialogue out of the episode. We’d slaved over Napalm (1993), and subsequently executive produced Breaking the dialogue but we suddenly realized we didn’t need any of this Bad and Better Call Saul. because Bryan Cranston had given a look to Aaron Paul which It was Johnson’s belief in him, says Gilligan, that convinced said all you needed to know. That feeling stuck with me – that it is him he could pursue a writing career. “I loved and still enjoy remarkable how little dialogue is actually needed to tell the story drawing, painting and sculpture but with very much amateur-level combined with the sheer joy of something working to tell the story ability and I realized before the end of college that while I lacked that can only come from the edit.” those skills I perhaps possessed an ability to spin a good yarn.” His natural inclination was to write for the movies. “I wasn’t a snob about TV but what little I knew about TV production was that as a writer you had to be in . However, I’d just bought a house in Virginia, my girlfriend was there and I didn’t want to move to L.A. where the cost of living would be ten times higher.” In 1994, on a trip to L.A. to pitch ideas and meet with executives, a chance introduction to The X-Files creator Chris Carter changed the course of Gilligan’s career. It helped that he was a fan of the show, already steeped in its characters and history, when he met Carter. “It was on the cusp of becoming a smash hit and Fox had just ordered another two episodes for the second season. Chris and his writing team were hurting – they had crunching deadlines and with more episodes to fit in they were looking for any warm body who could put it on paper. He was expecting me to pitch to him and if I’d been expecting that I would probably have seized up, but I just gave

Above: Behind the scenes of Better Call Saul with Bob Odenkirk and Vince Gilligan. Photo by Michele K. Short. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 41 ©2016 AMC Network Entertainment LLC. and Sony Pictures Television Inc. All rights reserved. from the logic of that. They were wonderful partners who would keep the writers honest by making sure we obeyed the internal rules of the narrative and of the characters we had set in motion. That approach was very important to try not to cheat the audience. “In later seasons we also had some fantastic editing assistants step up and edit or co-edit episodes including Chris McCaleb [now editor on Better Call Saul] and Curtis Thurber [who assisted on Better Call Saul and went on to edit episodes of Fargo].” When Gilligan first pitched Breaking Bad – about a middle- aged teacher with cancer who cooks crystal meth – he was told by the CEO of Sony Pictures Television, Michael Lynton, that it was “the single worst idea for a television show that I have heard in my whole life.” Lynton said that after he’d taken a gamble and greenlit a deal to distribute the show which aired in the U.S. on AMC. Going into Breaking Bad, Gilligan and his creative team had looked around at what else was going on in TV and deliberately set out to do what other shows did not. For example, they found that TV had become very tightly framed. A lot of drama was filmed in close-up and The X-Files was no exception. “It was extremely successful for The X-Files stories but a typical scene might include a close-up of Scully, screaming, then a close-up of Mulder, also screaming, then back to Scully still screaming. I’d been cutting and shooting that for seven years and I was looking for something new. It was at a point where TV displays were getting bigger in the home and it dawned on me to shoot wider and make more of landscapes and the wider aspect He continues, “I learned from each and every editor I worked ratio. And, instead of the frenetic pace of a lot of action films with but in particular I learned every day from my brilliant and we chose to slow it down and build suspense and character over regular collaborators, Skip Macdonald, ACE; Kelley Dixon, ACE; sequences that lasted six, nine, 12 minutes. and Lynne Willingham, ACE. Every day I learned something “I cannot claim credit for these ideas because Breaking Bad about the story that I thought I knew all about since I’d written it. was a group effort and much of the inspiration for the look, the I learned what a story could become in the hands of their creative pace, the storytelling was from our editors. It really is a group brilliance and how incredibly nuanced it can be when an editor effort. There’s no one person doing it all in television or in the manages to convey the story or an emotion with a look, a gesture or movies. It’s always a collaborative effort and anyone who tells a juxtaposition that you didn’t expect or even see first time around.” you otherwise is awfully pumped about their own contributions to Willingham had worked with Gilligan for five years as an the endeavor. But it’s a great feeling, a great collaborative feeling, editor and producer on The X-Files during which she was Emmy and it’s wonderful.” nominated for her editing. Gilligan chose her to edit the pilot of More success followed with Better Call Saul which reunited Breaking Bad, for which she won the first of her two Emmys for Gilligan with Macdonald and Dixon (who have each earned the series and Eddies for the series. additional Emmy and Eddie nominations for Saul). This prequel Macdonald worked on 27 episodes spanning all five seasons, to Breaking Bad explores how the show’s bent lawyer, Saul winning ACE Eddie awards for the “” and “Face Goodman, started out as a good guy, Jimmy McGill. Off ” episodes as well as series finale “.” He was also Emmy “I couldn’t be more proud,” says Gilligan of the AMC series, nominated four times for his work on Breaking Bad, winning starring Bob Odenkirk. “After Breaking Bad I thought this is where for the series finale. we’re going to get our asses handed to us – but so far so good. It Dixon joined the show in 2007 as assistant to Willingham on may be all downhill from here, but I will always have had these two. the pilot, then was promoted to editor when the show was picked “Receiving the ACE Golden Eddie is a wonderful honor for up to series. She won an Emmy for the “Gliding Over All” episode me. Some of my favorite time spent making TV has been in the and was nominated for three additional episodes of Breaking Bad dark of the edit room where you can think with just one other as well as garnering four ACE Award nominations for the show. person and not have 150 others calling on your attention. It will Gilligan says this editorial trio was crucial to the global always amaze me what you can do in the edit, this magic theater, success of the show. “The pilot tells you the ground rules: Your where the story comes to life and problems that you think can’t hero is going to die. He’s given a death sentence and armed be fixed, are solved. Mostly, I find that I enjoy myself there with this knowledge he decides to do things he would never immensely. That’s how I feel, a fan watching you guys at work have done otherwise. Lynne, Skip and Kelley didn’t let me stray on the sofa behind you.”

42 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Top: Behind the scenes of Better Call Saul. Bottom: Behind the scenes of Better Call Saul with Vince Gilligan and Jonathan Banks. Photos by Michele K. Short. ©2016 AMC Network Entertainment LLC. and Sony Pictures Television Inc. All rights reserved.

MARK GOLDBLATT, ACE 2018 ACE Career Achievement Award Honoree

BY WALTER FERNANDEZ JR.

ew of us know what we want to do in life before we hit By the end of his education in London, Goldblatt was begin- puberty. Even fewer of us actually accomplish it. Editor ning to realize he was gravitating toward editing with an eye Mark Goldblatt, ACE, is one of those rare individuals toward directing. The tougher choice would be where to set whose objectives were defined since childhood. While up shop. If he was going to leave and go to Hollywood, he had Fhis target may have been somewhat clear, his path to Hollywood to leave now or get his papers together to be able to continue was not a straight line. working in the U.K. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Goldblatt developed a love for His first night in Los Angeles was spent at the Holiday Inn cinema from the moment he saw his first film, Pinocchio. in Santa Monica, and he couch surfed for a while thereafter. He loved all kinds of film but had a penchant for sci-fi, horror While he was getting situated, he sent out numerous letters and and fantasy that stays with him to this day. “I watched a lot of hunted the studios hoping to get a foot in the door somewhere. movies on TV,” he reminisces. “I had a cheap 8mm projector. Goldblatt found a small gig at the Sherwood Oaks Film You could buy 8mm versions of Abbott and Costello, Nosferatu, Academy which also allowed him to sit in on any classes for free. Battleship Potemkin and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I had a Coincidentally enough, he sat in on a class taught by ACE’s other battery-operated 8mm camera too. I would make these little weird 2018 Career Achievement honoree, Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE. Ortiz- movies with cheap special effects. I used a simple editing viewer Gil had been working on the Universal lot at the time and was able and splicer to cement splices together that didn’t stay on very well to get Goldblatt access to observe direct what or for very long. Later on, Kodak came out with little Mylar press would be his last film, Family Plot. tapes for 8mm. I was teaching myself how to edit by hand.” Around this time, Goldblatt went to see the grindhouse flick, The film buff decided to study philosophy at the University Death Race 2000, directed by and briskly edited by of Wisconsin, where he would write film reviews for the college Tina Hirsch, ACE, which turned out to be a catalyst for his career. newspaper and program 35mm films for the Wisconsin Student The dystopian action-adventure about a cross-country car race Union. After graduation, London came calling. Goldblatt shares, with fatal consequences for the losers starred “I saved up some money and moved to London, and then applied and . The visceral experience inspired Goldblatt to the London Film School. Fortunately, I was accepted. There to walk into , ’s production were a lot of professional DPs, editors and directors who were company that produced and distributed the movie, to inquire teaching because the MGM-Borehamwood Studio had just about work. He was referred to Jon Davison, the head of shut down. My course director was . Clive Donner advertising at New World, who was about to produce his first was one of my instructors. My editing instructor and mentor movie. Davison offered Goldblatt a job as a PA without pay. was Frank Clarke. He had been a contract editor for MGM and He leapt at the opportunity. He and Davison immediately took to edited Blow-Up. It was amazing. I thank my parents so much for each other, as they were East Coast boys, film nerds and eclectic supporting me through my journey.” horror movie lovers.

44 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Above: 2018 ACE Career Achievement Award Honoree Mark Goldblatt, ACE. Photo by Peter Zakhary. The movie was Hollywood Boulevard and it would prove heavily impactful on the rest of Goldblatt’s career. Joe Dante and were set to direct and edit the picture on a $60,000 budget with a 10-day shooting schedule. Usually, they had full- time jobs in the New World editing room as trailer editors when they weren’t directing. The schedule felt like they were working seven days a week and 18-hour days. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was showbiz. “It was amazing,” Goldblatt gushes. “The passion for filmmaking by these young untested directors was at a high level. Of course, I was walking into lampposts and stuff because you don’t sleep, but I was inspired.” Dante hired Goldblatt as his assistant editor for his next feature editing assignment, Grand Theft Auto, ’s directorial debut. This time the position was paid and Dante gave him an Associate Editor credit. His tenacity paid off. Yet, the ever-ambitious Goldblatt had a major side hurdle: getting into the union. “In those days, you couldn’t get into the union unless you were on the roster, but you couldn’t get on the roster unless you were in the union. It was a catch-22,” he recalls. It was at PBS that Goldblatt came across his own version of “At the same time I was working for New World Pictures, I had insider trading. “I found out that they were going to expand the another life. I worked as an assistant editor on The American Short roster and take video editors into the union. Basically, a lot of Story, [a PBS anthology series]” assisting editors such as Bob people who had been steadily working in the L.A. area were not Estrin and John Link. There he learned how to edit on a KEM and being accepted to the roster because they had only worked on had more formal training. Goldblatt had again merged the passion video. “They didn’t announce it but I heard it through the grapevine project with the practical project. and found out how to get on the roster. This was information that I readily shared with my colleagues. Life was completely different as a union assistant. I was able to work as a staff assistant for Warner Bros. Television and assisted a number of very talented editors, some of whom would let me edit small scenes on my own time.” All of this was happening interspersed with work at New World Pictures where Goldblatt continued his collaboration with Joe Dante and Jon Davison on 1978’s Piranha, which was well received and very successful. During this time he struck up a friendship with Roger Corman’s assistant, Gale Anne Hurd, who noticed all of his hard work being done on the horror picture, . Hurd had met a fellow named in the art department, and was impressed with his creativity and work ethic. “She recommended me to Jim when she was preparing to produce a script that she and Jim had developed called . When I met with Jim, we discussed being enthralled with George Miller and the Mad Max movies. Jim had high hopes to create a world-class movie on a shoestring budget.” When The Terminator premiered in 1984, it was a bona fide blockbuster and everyone’s career got a shot in the arm. Goldblatt followed it with big-budget action flicks like Rambo: First Blood Part II, Commando and 2. He was actually getting to select his projects, but this time his eye toward directing demanded to be satiated, too. Goldblatt directed two features in the late ‘80s: Dead Heat and The Punisher. Just before these, however, he was able to do some second-unit directing for and producer Jon Davision on the sci-fi classic,RoboCop. He was a huge fan of Verhoeven’s work in Europe and jumped at the chance to help with his American debut. Goldblatt’s Verhoeven experience would not end there.

Left top: On the set of Predator 2 with Kevin Peter Hall. Left bottom: With on the set of The Punisher. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 45 Right top: With , ACE, El Centro editing room. Photos courtesy of Mark Goldblatt, ACE. Goldblatt’s professional expansion coincided with his per- sonal life expansion. By the late ‘80s, he was already married with a young son. Balancing life and craft would be a delicate tightrope for the next two decades. This was especially true when James Cameron came calling again for the sequel to the hit that put them both on everyone’s radar in Hollywood. Terminator 2: Judgment Day would not have the tight budget of its predecessor. Instead, it would push the special-effects envelope and be the visionary sci- fi spectacle envisioned in the screenplay. This time, the amount of work called for some additional hands so Goldblatt joined Conrad Buff, ACE, and eventually Richard A. Harris joined them as well to split the duties. “Jim was a great captain at the helm and expertly navigated through cutting-edge technical innovations. He shoots judiciously. The material comes together like butter and he gives you lots of choices. Working with Conrad and Richard was a highlight of my career.” However, it was on where Goldblatt’s commitment to his craft and his future were tested. “Jim called and said, ‘I would love for you to come on board, but we’re gonna cut this on Avids. I already bought the machines and you’d need to learn how to use them.’ My initial reaction was, I can’t be left at the wayside. I’d be crazy not to learn it. A world-class director is asking me to work on a project where they’re willing to let me learn first. All that in my head took about five seconds.” Plus, it was a chance to reunite with Conrad and Richard. The success of True Lies bore new opportunities for Goldblatt now that he was proficient in both modes of editing. He would enter the juggernaut worlds of and with films likeArmageddon , Pearl Harbor, Bad Company and Bad Boys II. Most significantly, it reintroduced him to Paul Verhoeven. Goldblatt would edit three pictures for Verhoeven: , Hollow Man and Starship Troopers – with Troopers being one of his personal favorites. The 21st century maintained Goldblatt’s VFX-heavy action cred with a hint of sci-fi in movies like X-Men: The Last Stand, Along the way, Goldblatt served as ACE president in the late Rise of the and Chappie. ‘90s. “My years on the ACE Board of Directors serving as ACE vice president under past president Tom Rolf [ACE] and even- tually as president were very meaningful to me. They enabled me as a member of ACE to give something back to the editing com- munity and to collectively participate in raising consciousness of our craft amongst ourselves and to motion picture audiences around the world.” He’s currently starting his 11th year on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “It’s been fabulous working alongside some of the most brilliant people in the film business,” effuses Goldblatt. “I love the Academy. It’s humbling. I think we’re making a difference. We are working to get Academy members all over the world to build a great global film community. We are at the forefront of film preservation, restoration, education and cinematic technological research with our vast film archive, library and Science and Technology Council. As our Academy Museum heads toward completion to assume its position as the world’s preeminent museum dedicated to motion picture arts and sciences, I am very proud to have served on the Board during this time of exponential growth.”

46 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Left: With Louis Gossett Jr. on the set of The Punisher. Right top: Working on with Kent Beyda, ACE, and Allan Arkush. Right bottom: With Peter Weller, behind the scenes of Robocop. Photos courtesy of Mark Goldblatt, ACE. In looking back on his career and thinking about the work and all of the time spent, Goldblatt has three major takeaways from it. In his approach to the material, he explains, “I realize editing is such a fluid art form. In collaboration with our directors, we can, if we choose, alter pacing, heighten performances and completely rearrange the structure of the narrative. This really harkens back to the concept that ‘editing is the final rewrite.’ We do whatever it takes to produce a final version of our films that works optimally for the audience. The possibilities are endless. The script is your guide. Let the footage speak to you. The footage represents the intention of the director and the actors. You have to make sure the timing is right and that the overall larger POVs and themes are represented eloquently.” With regard to his role as a leader in the editing bay, Goldblatt feels his first assistant should be his right hand. “I feel it’s incumbent upon us to embrace the first AE on an emotional and creative level with shared ownership of the film because we hired him or her for a reason. I respect them enough as individuals and filmmakers to want to collaborate with them. I’ve been blessed with great assistants. Many are now top editors which makes me feel good. I encourage my assistants to edit. Sometimes someone does so much editing, I’m able to get them a co-editor credit. Joe Dante was a great mentor to me. He didn’t have to be so nice, but he was. I try to follow in that tradition.

Here are some of my past assistant editors, many of whom went on to become successful editors in their own right:

Kent Beyda, ACE* Ron South Mark Helfrich, ACE* David Reale , ACE* Gillian Hutshing Jim Stewart, ACE Jason Hellman* Caroline (Ross) Solberg* Roger Barton* Ian Slater Danny Retz* Todd Miller* Jim May, ACE , ACE Julie Webb Laura Krumholz Steve Ansell* Tony Ciccone Yvonne Valdez* Lorraine Salk (*also co-editor)

My apologies to anyone whom I may have inadvertently omitted.

Goldblatt’s latest is ’s reboot of the Charles Bronson franchise, , starring Bruce Willis and Vincent D’Onofrio, set in . Goldblatt describes the experience as terrific and feels Roth was a lot of fun to work with. After 40 years in the industry, perhaps that is the best indication of a positive work environment. “Every editing situation is a differ- ent situation. Not only is it predicated on the material you’re editing, it’s very much predicated on the players. You’re there to help guide the director. Sometimes that may mean giving input they may not want to hear. Always do what’s best for the movie. It’s tricky to know when to chime in and how much to push, and when to keep your opinion to yourself. Just remember to respect your collaborators. You never know where the best ideas will come from.”

From top: Avid Conference in Rockport, ME; With Vincent Price on the set of Dead Heat; On the set of The Punisher in Sydney, Australia; CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 47 On the set of X-Men: The Last Stand with , ACE, and Mark Helfrich, ACE. Photos courtesy of Mark Goldblatt, ACE. LEON ORTIZ-GIL, ACE 2018 ACE Career Achievement Award Honoree

BY WALTER FERNANDEZ JR.

ooking back on the illustrious career of Leon Ortiz- At 19, he went on to a bigger commercial house, John Gil, ACE, the logline could simply read: ‘Hollywood’s Urie & Associates. “They would let the young guys work on hometown boy makes good in post-production.’ The commercials that were free-form. No script, but a narration track three-time Eddie Award nominee started editing in his and beautiful scenery. They were usually beer commercials and Lteens and knew early on that he wanted to be in the entertainment the like,” he recalls. biz. Over 40 years later, his repertoire includes memorable TV He even encountered his first true celebrity. “I got to meet shows like Kojak, Matlock, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the original Colonel Sanders. He was a southern gentleman. Magnum, P.I., 24, , the original Battlestar Galactica, and There was no Hollywood in him. He came to the studios dressed no less than four shows from the popular Law & Order franchise. as The Colonel in that white suit.” Now, his peers are honoring him not just for his impressive body After serving as an assistant for six months, Ortiz-Gil moved of work and commitment to ACE, but for his charm and attitude up to editor for a year and a half before heading off to a place that that have made him a levelheaded craftsman in the editing bay. would become somewhat of second home for him. Ortiz-Gil started out working for his stepfather, Chris Ortiz-Gil imported his short-form editing game to the world Jenkyns, at his commercial company, JSE. The company mainly of TV trailers at 21, when he began working for Universal under did animated commercials. Ortiz-Gil grew up with the company the aegis of Chuck Silvers who ran the post trailer department. and began working for them as a driver in his teens. Soon after, It wasn’t long before the opportunity arose to enter long-form. he segued to being an apprentice editor. He recalls, “Because it One of the producers of the show, Night Gallery, a Twilight was animation, they had me reading tracks. This meant putting a Zone-esque drama with Rod Serling, wanted him to cut some mag track over a synchronizer with a sound head. You would get episodes of the show. At the time, there was an 8-year rule for these paper sheets and you would write down the letters as people editors: four years as an apprentice, four years as an assistant, spoke. So, you’d get an A, an R and an O, and you would write before you could move up to full-fledged editor. However, it down as to where it was on the tracks. They used these there was a minority program to boost diversity at the studios. sheets to do the animation and animate their mouths so they The government came in and said if there was a minority capable would be in sync. It was a tedious job, but I was a young kid who of moving up, the studio could not hold them back. As a Latino, wanted to learn and I loved it. Ortiz-Gil fit the bill and was allowed to cut his first show. After “In those days, the little film companies had their own director, cutting a couple of episodes, he returned to feature main titles which was my stepfather, and editor, who was Dick Elliott. until Kojak came knocking at the door. From that point on, Ortiz- He taught me how to assist and a little later on how to edit. Gil rarely hungered for work. It was very basic.” One major note about Ortiz-Gil’s career is that he’s had a Ortiz-Gil continues, “I learned everything from the bottom. few blessings in disguise that helped propel him forward. In the I didn’t go to film school. I studied theater arts at Los Angeles late ‘70s, the industry was convulsing with joy over the runaway City College.” success of Star Wars. TV wanted to tap into that wave and one

48 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Above: 2018 ACE Career Achievement Award Honoree Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE. Photo by Peter Zakhary. of those attempts was Battlestar Galactica. “It was a three-hour pilot,” he says. “Nobody wanted to do that show because they knew it would be really tough and it had an aggressive deadline. It went first to their top editors and they all turned it down. It eventually went to Robert Kimble, ACE, who I’d worked with on Kojak, and he came to me after failing to recruit other more seasoned editors. “I was thrilled to do it. It was state of the art. We used ILM [Industrial Light & Magic]. It was a very tough show – seven days a week for nine months. Eventually we had to hire another editor, Larry Strong.” The hard work and long hours didn’t go unnoticed, though. Ortiz-Gil earned his first Eddie nomination for the pilot, which he shared with Kimble and Strong. Perhaps even more significant was his introduction to future frequent collaborator Don Bellisario. Bellisario was a supervising producer and writer on Galactica and he’d also written briefly for Kojak. In addition to working on Buck Rogers and Matlock, Ortiz-Gil spent much of the ‘80s working for Belisarius Productions on shows like Magnum, P.I.; Tales of the Gold Monkey and Airwolf. It was working for Bellisario that Ortiz-Gil had arguably his most diva of moments. He recalls Bellisario saying about a particular scene in Airwolf, “I need to see the scene where the girl dances. I’m a little worried about it and I wanna see it.” Ortiz-Gil continues, “So, I run it for him and there’s this silent pause. He says, ‘Leon, I don’t know how to tell you this but every cut is wrong.’ I look at him and steam must have been coming out of my ears. I said, ‘Okay. I don’t want to hurt your show, Don, so I quit.’ I got up and walked out. As I’m walking out, Don yells, ‘Leon! Leon! No! Come back!’ I said, ‘Look, if every cut’s wrong, you have to get another editor. So, we sat down and ran it again and he made three changes. So sometimes you have to stick up for yourself. Or if you’re way off the page, the best thing to do is quit. He was in a bad mood and wanted to take it out on somebody.” By the time Ortiz-Gil was working on Matlock, he and the field that he loves had evolved. “I had been working long hours prior to Matlock and now I was on a show working a normal schedule, sometimes four or five hours on a given day. It was fantastic. I was married with two kids so it was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. I stayed on Matlock for nine years.” Editing was undergoing a sea change around this time, too. Luckily, Matlock used ILM’s EditDroid. “We were one of the first to use it. I knew it was the future. Matlock was set up like a film on digital. For post, it was like running a new Ferrari. They would shoot the show very simply, a master, a couple of overs and a close-up. It was very easy to edit. To think, I used to have a callus on my thumb from smoothing out tape splices to remove the bubbles.” When the mid ‘90s rolled around, Ortiz-Gil was already a seasoned professional on the hunt for new employment after nearly a decade on Matlock. He had his first experience working for Dick Wolf on The Wright Verdicts. He had an ‘in’ on the show thanks to his friendship with producer Arthur W. Forney whom he’d met when Forney was an assistant editor at Universal. They later worked together on Magnum, P.I. and were notorious for pulling pranks on fellow editors on the lot. They often had

Left: Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, as a kid. Right top: Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, at work. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 49 Right top: Working on a scene from Matlock. Photos courtesy of Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE. lunch together and developed a professional camaraderie that lasts to this day. Ortiz-Gil sees Forney as quite a success story. The one-time assistant editor is now an executive producer on various Wolf Films shows. However, before Ortiz-Gil officially became a part of the Wolf pack, he had two very significant dalliances that added to the depth of his career. Walker, Texas Ranger was an unexpected creative surprise. It had already been on the air two years before Ortiz-Gil came on board. “I was told twice – on Matlock and on Walker – it was going to be the end of my career and both were the exact opposite,” he exclaims. “Usually, when you go on a new show, you’re super careful and you follow all of the instructions, but on Walker I felt differently.” Unsure about his place on the show, he felt that he had nothing to lose with flexing a little creative muscle. “I made some risky moves with effects and editing on my first show that could lift the material up a bit. The stories were visually boring. I knew adding music and some montages to what they had shot, including these long masters, would work really great when you sped them up so you can see everything. It was very rudimentary, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it needed some transitional work. Ortiz-Gil continues, “When I showed my cut to the writers and producers on the show, there was that initial silence, like the one Don gave me back on Airwolf. Then, the writers got up and exclaimed, ‘This is not our show! This doesn’t work!’ Aaron Norris, Chuck’s brother, had come on board and he asked to speak kid about to be scolded. Instead, Aaron says, “We need a new with me privately. We went into another room. I felt like a little look for the show. And what you just showed me is our new look. I want you to be the supervising editor. I’m sending it to Chuck for approval. I want these effects.’ I ran the post department and stayed on for four years.” After Ortiz-Gil confidently weathered the technological storm that revolutionized filmmaking at the end of the 20th century to great success, it felt as if he was only getting started. The series, 24, saw him continue on this action-oriented wave that he started back on Galactica and perfected on Airwolf and Walker. The results earned him two additional Eddie nominations for his efforts. Despite this success, the howl of Wolf Films came calling and Ortiz-Gil returned to Universal. He explains, “[Wolf Films] is a really good place for editors. Arthur has an editing background so he looks out for us. He thinks of things most people don’t think of from ideas on story to processes. I left 24 early just to be on Law & Order. We called it the mothership because it spawned so many others. I edited the very last episode on it. To work with Arthur and Dick Wolf was too great an allure for me not to leave. No ego. No games. No weird politics. It’s just about making the show better and enjoying what you do.” Looking back on it all, he recollects, “When I started, editors wore sport coats or suits and ties. It felt a little industrial. You clocked in and out. The supervising editor would tell you what jobs you would get. The producers didn’t go to the editors; they went to the supervising editor. There was a lot of favoritism. Now, you walk in with jeans and a t-shirt or shorts and there is no supervising editor per se. We have to meet the deadlines and you find your own jobs.

50 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Left: With one of his ACE Eddie nomination statues. Right top: From his time working on Matlock. Right bottom: With Jan-Michael Vincent from Airwolf. Photos courtesy of Leon Ortiz-Gil. “To stay in this business as long as I have, you have to be likable. You have to have people want you in,” he admits. “Equally important is your assistant. I’ve always felt that your best friend in the editing room is your assistant. They’re there to help you. If they want to be proactive, all the better. I’ll give them a couple of scenes to do and if they’re good, I’ll show it to a producer. Sometimes when I leave a show, the producers will pick my assistant to take over, which I encourage. I have the deepest respect for assistants.” It’s true. Ortiz-Gil is well respected in the industry. ACE board member Lillian Benson, ACE, shares, “While I have had the pleasure of knowing Leon over the years, I didn’t really get to know him until we worked together on the hallway at Wolf Films. Leon is a talented artist who shares his editing knowledge with everyone. He is generous with the assistants, allowing them to practice on scenes and giving them feedback on what they’ve done. He also sets a professional example, which they can model. When he asks his editor colleagues like me, ‘How are things going?’ he’s not just paying lip service; he genuinely wants to know. Leon is more than his illustrious resume – he is a great, supportive person.” Two of his former assistants can attest to how much he has meant to them personally and professionally. Ash Steele shares, “I’ve been so lucky to experience 10 years of Leon Ortiz-Gil’s friendship and mentorship. From my start as a wet-eared post PA to sharing co-editing credits on a two-hour Law & Order: Special Victims Unit/Chicago P.D. crossover event, Leon used a chunk of his career to nurture mine. He and I stuffed a ton of laughs into those 3,000 days and l couldn’t be happier for this, Leon’s greatest career honor.” Oscar Rene Lozoya adds, “When I was a PA learning Avid, Leon would stay after work on his own time and show me not only how to use the program, but the artistry of storytelling and pacing that goes along with editing. He is a huge inspiration and is always willing to go out of his way to help others.” In the late ‘70s, Ortiz-Gil taught editing for two years at the Sherwood Oaks Film Academy. Back then, he felt sorry for the students because he felt they wouldn’t have a real chance to get into the business. None of them had any connections and this was before you could really film anything on your own and get it in festivals. To his surprise, at least one did. Editor Mark Goldblatt, ACE, came up to him at an ACE event shortly after it was announced that Ortiz-Gil would be receiving the Career Achievement Award. Goldblatt shared, “I took your class back at Sherwood and it inspired me to go into film editing. I was thinking about going into production but after that class you taught, I wanted to go into editing.” It’s interesting to think that Ortiz-Gil could be inspiring even under circumstances where he felt futile. In essence, that’s certainly why people like having him around. No matter what the show, the time, the technology, the person, it all comes down to how you deal with what you are given. Leon Ortiz-Gil has been giving back a lot to the entertainment industry so it’s befitting that it give him a little something back.

From Top: With some of his fellow ACE editors working with Wolf Films. Photo by Peter Zakhary. On set of Airwolf; On the phone. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 51 Photos courtesy of Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE; Working on Law & Order:SVU. Photo by Peter Zakhary. BLACK PANTHER Editors Michael P. Shawver and Debbie Berman, ACE, give BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON the film a “James Bond-like feel” and a “sense of legacy”

arvel’s latest phenomenon tasked director Ryan “I knew Ryan and the Marvel producers were looking for the Coogler and co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole with movie to have a James Bond-like feel to it but also to have a sense delivering a movie version of Marvel’s Black Panther, of history and legacy like this family and this world have been who first appeared in : Civil War. here for a long time and will continue to be. A lot of the designs MIn that film, Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is intro- in the concept art and previs combined rich African history with duced after the death of his father and this is the catalyst for state-of-the-art technology, creating a beautiful contrast that the events in Black Panther. T’Challa succeeds to the throne of helped tell our story. We had many discussions about themes of the fictional African state of Wakanda, but finds his sovereignty ‘the old way vs. the new’ or ‘tradition vs. innovation’ and when we challenged by adversary Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) and got to cutting, we kept those themes in the back of our minds and threatened by CIA man Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and South let that help guide our editorial choices.” African criminal Klaue (Andy Serkis). Shawver’s co-editor at the start of the project was Claudia Coogler brought in Michael P. Shawver to edit the picture, Castello. But she had to leave the project shortly before delivery having worked together since film school days at USC and on of the director’s cut. Fruitvale Station and Creed. “We definitely felt her absence in the cutting room as we’d been “In September 2016, Ryan asked me to put together a sequence working on Ryan’s movies together since 2010,” says Shawver. of ‘scenes of transit,’ where characters travel from one location “That’s when Debbie came in and joined the team, giving us a jolt to another, from world-building movies like Lord of the Rings of passion and creative energy.” and Star Wars, so he could study what they did that he liked and Debbie Berman, ACE, had already caught the attention of Marvel didn’t like,” explains Shawver. “It was really helpful to see how execs during the edit of 2017 film Spider-Man: Homecoming, so when those filmmakers tell those personal, emotional stories while at Coogler and Shawver needed an expert hand to guide the complex the same time creating massive fictional universes. He had me do storytelling in Black Panther to completion they knew who to call. a similar thing on Creed with fight scenes from movies and real “During production, Claudia and I split up the scenes by boxing matches and it helped both of us immensely. shooting days for the most part; she would take a day, then I would,”

52 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Above: Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). Photo by Film Frame. ©Marvel Studios 2018. says Shawver. “We also worked on the scenes that each of us had been working on with the previs team because we were familiar with them. Some of the bigger sequences were split into sections depending on the workload of the other person. We like to let the process unfold organically and Ryan wants both of his editors to have a chance to inject their voice into the scene. “When Debbie joined the team, we each took ownership over half of the project. That was extremely helpful while getting notes from Ryan and the producers. There were times when we’d work on sections in the other person’s half, but we kept it split for the most part. We’d always be open to each other’s notes and trusted that the other person was taking a ‘movie-first approach.’ Debbie’s drive, creative solutions and perspective were a great and much- needed addition to our team. Her work helped me see the project in a different way which allowed me to grow as an editor.” Joining the film about halfway through the process gifted Berman a ‘clean perspective’ because she’d not seen script nor dailies. “I felt the best use of this perspective was to focus on the into their characters, to ensure you felt an emotional connection parts of the film that were in the most trouble,” she says. “For me, to them, while keeping the narratives that best served the film.” that was the first act as there were so many stories to explore and They are both full of praise for the faith which Coogler put characters to meet, and it was a constant balance of too much or in his editors. “Mike and I would work alone, and then view our too little information. Ryan gave me his blessing to just cut out work together with Ryan as a group, and then discuss next steps,” anything I felt wasn’t needed as my fresh first pass, and I think I says Berman. “Sometimes we would have directorial working took close to 20 minutes out of the first act, and then about five of sessions for more intricate notes. Ryan is the most specific person those snuck back in for the final film. I have ever worked with, and his notes can be exceptionally detail “Most of what I did was trying to streamline the narrative. oriented. But at the same time, he will be wide open to bold and As a rough rule I worked on the first half of the film, and Mike drastic suggestions. If Mike and I felt one way, but he felt the took care of the second half – but that wasn’t set in stone. other, he would usually honor the majority because he trusted us He knew the footage for Warrior Falls more intimately so after I and our instincts. He is an exceptionally talented filmmaker who did an initial cut down of it, he worked on getting it to the next works from his heart and his gut, but also from a deep analytical level emotionally. I initially took over the closing ‘post end battle’ understanding of filmmaking.” scenes of the film, but we ended up passing those back and forth Shawver adds, “Ryan wants his editors to tell the story a lot. Mike did most of the main end battle, but I also worked on their way without influence, to have our voices be part of the certain sections of that. storytelling, so he let us do our thing unless he was concerned he “It could have been so easy for Mike to make me feel excluded didn’t cover a scene properly. It can be difficult at times to decide as he and Ryan were longtime filmmaking partners, but he let me what direction to take a performance or a scene without knowing know right off the bat that I was an equal collaborator in his eyes, what he prefers, but the process has worked over the course of and he truly embraced me and my work,” she adds. “As anyone three features together, and I do always feel a strong sense of working on these huge monsters knows, you really do go to war in ownership on his movies.” some respects. The physical exhaustion and the intense non-stop While keeping the story paramount, the editors had to work pressure can be a lot to deal with. I feel unbelievably lucky and with interactive VFX, where characters would use props or ride grateful to have such a talented and kind partner, who always had armored rhinos that weren’t actually there. “This was a brand new my back, who shared similar instincts, and who loved and cared creative muscle I had to train,” says Shawver. “My imagination about every frame in the film as much as I did.” became an important tool. With footage, I’m used to getting a The movie posed an interesting challenge in that it required the piece of clay to sculpt, here I had to imagine the clay. “ set-up of past events, related to how T’Challa becomes king, then Constant communication with Coogler and the VFX team was about halfway through the film, he discovers things that could crucial. “I would get footage that was just a moving plate of a field cause his world to come crumbling down. The mood and pacing with no actors in it, or another of a stunt when a henchman gets change when these revelations happen. thrown, and that was it,” he relates. “Because of my work with “We don’t give it all away at once, so finding ways to go from previs, most times I knew what they were going for, but Ryan T’Challa’s daily life as a new king to a mystery unravelling in often thinks of newer and better ideas while they’re shooting, so front of him takes a lot of trial and error,” says Shawver. knowing what is intended is important as to not waste time going “There are a lot of characters and a lot of stories,” adds Berman. down the wrong path. “Quite a few of the smaller plot lines and character moments ended “Once we got to post we had VFX review sessions with the up being cut but I feel we still managed to integrate complexity Marvel producers every few days and gave notes on the evolution

Editors Michael P. Shawver and Debbie Berman, ACE. Photo courtesy of Debbie Berman, ACE. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 53 of the shots. These creative discussions talked about everything Later in the film there’s a car chase set in Korea, which Berman from ‘are we using the best take to allow the VFX to help us tell particularly enjoyed working on. “It had a good foundation when the story’ to how the technology should work, to which color the I started on it, but I did quite a bit of work to take it to where it VFX elements should be. Not all ideas work, but as a team, we is now,” she relates. “I just like car chase scenes; I did the one in were able to come up with some really cool and unique things.” Spidey also. There is something so cool and fun about this one, One of the toughest scenes for Berman was the opener set in and every time we have a screening you can feel the energy in Oakland. “It’s the first real scene of the film, so tonally you want the room rise. There’s a misconception that cutting action isn’t it to be on point,” she relates. “I also think it’s important to get an intellectual endeavor. It’s actually pretty complex crafting a a comedic moment in the first few minutes of the film because sequence that tells a story, drives emotion, and looks slick and it gives the audience ‘permission to laugh.’ If you wait too long cool at the same time. I didn’t do too many of the action sequences for that first laugh, all the others are harder won. But more than in this film, but this one I had so much fun with.” that, there was a lot of information in that scene ... almost an The film is intended by Marvel to be the launchpad for overwhelming amount to grasp. The trick was working out how another franchise, but as Shawver explains, “Our main focus much information we needed now to set up things that pay off was to make the best movie – which is just about all the pres- later. What information can we omit? To what extent can we set up sure I can handle. events or character moments without disconnecting the audience “We would talk at times about what the cultural impact could because of information overload?” be but not really about the potential of a new franchise,” he adds. She tried a version of the scene which reduced it to basics. “We come from a school of thought that the more unique you “You almost get no information, but you get a taste of the mystery,” make a story toward a character, the more universal it becomes. she says. “But the team wasn’t feeling that, so I leaned in the It’s a personal story to all of us who were involved and I hope that other direction which was to emphasize the existing information, future Black Panther stories will follow that path with whatever further trying to support it with images. story they want to tell.” “I suspect there’s still some information overload in that scene, Berman agrees that any pressure she felt came from a desire but I think it’s forgivable. There’s something they talk about at to do the film justice. “Most of my internal pressure came Marvel which is ‘giving the audience the medicine early, and then from being a South African and making sure I did this African getting on with the movie.’ Essentially that’s saying, you might story justice, as well as being a woman and making sure these have a rough first few minutes of the film while we feed you the goddesses (including characters played by Danai Gurira, Letitia information you need to know, but then you are armed with the Wright and Lupita Nyong’o) were the most kick-ass, complex required data, and we can get on with the actual adventure.” female representations we’d ever seen on screen.”

54 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Left: Lupita Nyong’o, Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira. Right top: Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). Right bottom (L-R): Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Ayo (Florence Kasumba) with the Dora Milaje. Photos by Film Frame. ©Marvel Studios 2018. PETITION FOR EDITORS RECOGNITION

he American Cinema Editors Board of Directors • T has been actively pursuing film festivals and • Shanghai International Film Festival, China awards presentations, domestic and international, • San Sebastian Film Festival, Spain that do not currently recognize the category of Film • Byron Bay International Film Festival, Australia Editing. The Motion Picture Editors Guild has joined • New York Film Critics Circle with ACE in an unprecedented alliance to reach out • New York Film Critics Online to editors and industry people around the world. • National Society of Film Critics

The organizations listed on the petition already We would like to thank the organizations that have recognize cinematography and/or production design recently added the Film Editing category to their Annual Awards: in their annual awards presentations. Given the essential role film editors play in the creative process • Durban International Film Festival, South Africa of making a film, acknowledging them is long • New Orleans Film Festival overdue. We would like to send that message in • Tribeca Film Festival solidarity. Please join us as we continue the effort to • Washington DC Area Film Critics Association elevate the perception of editors everywhere. • Film Independent – Spirit Awards • Los Angeles Film Critics Association You can help by signing the petition to help get • Chicago Film Critics Association recognition for film editors by asking these • Boston Film Festival organizations to add the Film Editing category to • The International Animated Film Society – their annual awards: Annie Awards • Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror –

Please sign our petition at: www.EditorsPetition.com Now endorsed by the Motion Picture Sound Editors, Art Directors Guild, Cinema Audio Society, American Society of Cinematographers, Canadian Cinema Editors, and Guild of British Film and Television Editors

Committee for Creative Recognition BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

2000 | Director: | Editor: , ACE

Ridley Scott’s Roman-era epic, Gladiator, won five 2001 Oscars® including best picture and earned an additional seven nominations, including one for film editing. Rather than selecting one of the film’s many signature moments, such as a gladiatorial battle in the Colosseum, editor Pietro Scalia, ACE, chooses to focus on the very first shot of the first scene.

Scott’s longtime collaborator explains how the image of Russell Crowe’s hand caressing ears of wheat became the touchstone for the entire picture. “I came upon this image really late,” explains Scalia. “It was shot on the last day of principal photography in Tuscany and was intended by Ridley as material to show the afterlife, when Maximus joins his family after his death.”

To recap: Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe), is forced into becoming a slave after the murder of his family and vows vengeance against Emperor Commodus. “I had been working with [director Bernardo] Bertolucci [on Stealing Beauty] and he impressed upon me the idea of the power of images,” says Scalia. “This chimed with my own feeling that the first image the audience sees when they enter the theater to watch your film should be a strong one. The audience brings with them all their expectation and the power of this interaction should not be ignored.”

The initial cut of the scene opened with a close-up on Crowe’s face. “This is a great way to make your audience identify with your main character. You can see Russell deep in thought and then we pull out and he is revealed as a leader weary with war in the middle of a battlefield. As we expand the shot he is depicted at the center of this world.”

56 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 Gladiator images © Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment. All rights reserved. However, by placing the image of the hand in the wheat field before the close-up “everything you now experience connects you to that character,” Scalia says. “The image could be a memory or a desire or some premonition. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the audience brings their own interpretation of the image to the scene and to the character.”

He continues, “In essence, Gladiator is a story about a man wanting to go back home. But this image also relates to how Romans thought of the afterlife – that life after death was in many ways more important than life itself. It establishes the idea that we are about to embark on a classical hero’s journey which is about the transcendence of that character. Ridley and I both realized that this shot was key to the themes resonant throughout the story.”

Also in the first scene, Scalia retained a shot of Crowe’s character picking up dirt from the ground. “It is a tactile moment and suggests that he is a farmer with a connection to the soil and to land. More than that, earth is symbolic of transformation of change and growth – all this to illustrate the hero’s internal journey.”

Adds Scalia, “This is the strength of the cut. With the simple placement of one image next to another you create something new – in this case the concept that runs throughout the film. It is an example of how, as an editor, we are rewriting the last stage of a film.”

CINEMAEDITOR QTR 1 / 2018 / VOL 68 57 PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE 5555 MELROSE AVENUE PAID MARX BROTHERS BUILDING, ROOM 108 SANTA ANA, CA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90038 PERMIT NO. 1882