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THE MAGAZINE FOR FILM & TELEVISION EDITORS, ASSISTANTS & POST-­PRODUCTION PROFESSIONALS

THE SUMMER MOVIE ISSUE

IN THIS ISSUE Once Upon a Time in

PLUS : Chapter 3 – Parabellum Rocketman 4 AND MUCH MORE!

US $8.95 / Canada $8.95 QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION

OUTSTANDING SINGLE-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES - STEVE SINGLETON

FYC..COM

CINEMA EDITOR MAGAZINE COVER 2 ISSUE: SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS EMMY NOMINATION ISSUE NETFLIX: BODYGUARD PUB DATE: 06/03/19 TRIM: 8.5” X 11” BLEED: 8.75” X 11.25” PETITION FOR EDITORS RECOGNITION

he Board of Directors • Sundance Film Festival T has been actively pursuing film festivals and • Shanghai International Film Festival, China awards presentations, domestic and international, • San Sebastian Film Festival, 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 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 • 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 QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69

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04 36 CinemaEditor's Invisible Art/ Interview with Departing Visible Artists Editor in Chief BY NANCY JUNDI Edgar Burcksen, ACE BY BONNIE KOEHLER, ACE 40 Meet 2019 Karen 08 Schmeer Film Editing What’s New! Fellow: Victoria Chalk News & Announcements BY NANCY JUNDI Short Cut Comic BY JOHN VAN VLIET 42 34 NAB 2019 18 Aspects of Editing 46 Navigating the Remembering “Family Business” Norman Hollyn, ACE BY ANITA BRANDT BURGOYNE, ACE BY BOBBIE O'STEEN 24 48 Tech Corner Paper Cuts Security The Making of a BY HARRY B. MILLER III, ACE Motion Picture Editor REVIEWED BY 26 EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE Global Editing Perspectives 50 BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE Paper Cuts Twilight for the Gods: The Art 52 and History of Film Editing Cuts We Love (Second Edition) 28 REVIEWED BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

features

28 30 32 34 John Wick: Rocketman Once Upon a Time Editor Axel Geddes Chapter 3 – Parabellum , ACE, in Hollywood brings the toys back to Evan Schiff reteams balances music with drama , ACE, town with with and in the biopic gets back in character for BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON BY SCOTT LEHANE BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

02 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Cover image: and Leonardo DiCaprio. Photo by Andrew Cooper. ©2018 CTMG, Inc. All rights reserved. FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION OUTSTANDING SINGLE-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES VIKASH PATEL CINDY MOLLO, ACE HEATHER GOODWIN FLOYD

“ EPIC. THE PACE IS ADDICTIVE.” – THE GLOBE AND MAIL “ BEAUTIFULLY M AD E.” – WHAT SHE SAID

FYC.NETFLIX.COM

CINEMA EDITOR MAGAZINE REVISION 1 ISSUE: SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS EMMY NOMINATION ISSUE NETFLIX: OZARK PUB DATE: 06/03/19 TRIM: 8.5” X 11” BLEED: 8.75” X 11.25” CinemaEditor’s world is all about post-production and it’s enthusiasms.” Edgar’s still working full- a supportive, knowable community. A good time cutting feature documentaries so, as Interview with Departing transition from Europe. Then on to L.A. all film editors know, the hours have to be Editor in Chief It was by then the early 1990s.” budgeted carefully. Edgar Burcksen, ACE “What brought you to American Cinema “Growing up in Holland I speak four Editors and our magazine?” languages and love to travel, so the inter- “In Holland, I was part of a group of national outreach is a natural fit for .” experimental filmmakers who had an avant- Edgar plans to continue to contribute to garde magazine, SKRIEN. We learned that the magazine and encourage film editors we make different kinds of aesthetic con- from around the world to do so as well. nections in the cutting room and in print. “Our magazine’s in great hands. The I value exploring aesthetics and storytelling team includes the Zakharys – Luci as our through the written word as well as with art director and inspired graphics designer images on the screen in the camara- and her husband, Peter, as our magazine derie of a like-minded group of artists. and events photographer are amazing. That’s ACE for me. I was invited to join And Peter has raised the bar involving ACE in 1998 and became Editor in Chief advertisers, allowing the magazine to keep of CinemaEditor in 2001 after an article I growing. Adrian Pennington in wrote on the psychology of working in the is our international editor, a beat that’s cutting room garnered some attention.” also blossoming. Carolyn Giardina is a Edgar took over from Chris Cooke, top-notch journalist in the media industry ACE, who had worked with the magazine in and we’re lucky to have her expertise as transition after Jack Tucker, ACE, had spent our editorial consultant.” years nurturing it from a small mimeo- Harry B. Miller III, ACE, and Andrew graphed member newsletter, getting it on its Seklir, ACE, continue to provide support on feet as a full-color glossy periodical. our Advisory Board and our membership “Our magazine gives film editors a voice. and Board of Directors are very engaged. It advances every aspect of our mission Currently, CinemaEditor publishes statement at ACE. And now CinemaEditor four issues a year – our annual Eddie has a global reach. It’s on newsstands around Awards issue, the Television issue focused the world – the only periodical where post on the Emmys®, our Oscar® issue and our advertisers can connect directly with an Summer Movie issue. international audience,” emphasizes Edgar. “There’s an appetite for more. With It’s the global reach of film editing the inspired guidance of our ACE Exec- that has brought us together this morning. utive Director, Jenni McCormick, and After almost 20 years with CinemaEditor the excitement of EditFest, Invisible Art/ magazine, Edgar is stepping down from Visible Artists, the Eddie Awards – the con- BY BONNIE KOEHLER, ACE his role at the helm to focus more fully versation around film editing is booming. as an ACE ambassador to film editors and The industry and the viewing public are here’s a cool, early-morning breeze their organizations around the globe. In seeing filmmaking from the point of view off the ocean carrying with it the 2003, with permission from the Board of of the cutting room, where it all comes T aroma of woodsmoke and orange Directors, he co-founded the ACE Interna- together. Film editing is the only art form blossoms. I’m with CinemaEditor magazine tional Relations Committee with Michael unique to motion pictures. Without it, Editor in Chief Edgar Burcksen, ACE, Ornstein, ACE. They are now in conversa- there is no movie. The young innovators who has just finished a 25-mile ride down tion with editors in over 15 countries in- want to ‘disrupt’ but they can only do the coast on his Cannondale Supersix bike cluding: the U.K., Argentina, Ireland, The it effectively after they have mastered with Velo Club LaGrange. We’re sitting , Germany, , , all the building blocks, all the beats. outside Peet’s Coffee on 14th and Montana , , , , Israel, As more and more people get their hands in Santa Monica. South Africa, Canada and Australia. on tools and learn to communicate with “I love . When I left Am- “It’s taking more and more time, pictures in motion, there’s an insatiable sterdam, I came first to Marin County and but I’m delighted at the network we’re hunger to learn how we, the professionals, worked with on the EditDroid building. Editors in every time zone do it. We are the tastemakers. Storytelling. for a couple of years. The Bay Area film share the same obstacles, aspirations and It’s the master craft.”

04 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Photo by Peter Zakhary. Shown with the DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel

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Cinema Editor_DaVinci Resolve Panels_US.indd 1 2/5/19 2:04 pm Official Periodical of the American Cinema Editors, 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 Luci Zakhary Peter Zakhary

BUSINESS AFFAIRS

PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION COORDINATOR PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ADVERTISING & DISTRIBUTION PRESIDENT Jenni McCormick Marika Ellis Gemmalyn Brunson Peter Zakhary Stephen Rivkin, ACE

ADVISORY BOARD VICE PRESIDENT , ACE Edgar Burcksen, ACE Harry B. Miller III, ACE Andrew Seklir, ACE SECRETARY

CONTRIBUTORS Lillian Benson, ACE

Edgar Burcksen, ACE, is an award-winning, veteran, acclaimed books about editing. Cut to the Chase is based TREASURER working editor. He is the Editor in Chief of and regular on interviews with her late husband and colleague, leg- Stephen Lovejoy, ACE contributor to CinemaEditor magazine. endary editor Sam O’Steen; and her second book, The Invisible Cut, deconstructs classic movie scenes through a Anita Brandt Burgoyne, ACE, served eight years cut-by-cut analysis. on the ACE Board of Directors and continues to head up the She has taught graduate school workshops at NYU Blue Ribbon Committee. Her recent editing credits include and contributes commentary and interviews about the art Falling Inn Love, A Netflix romantic comedy, and two indie of editing for The Criterion Collection releases. She has BOARD OF DIRECTORS films, Saint Judy and the soon to be released Wish Man. moderated numerous panels honoring master editors at EditFest as well as NYU, Emerson College, UCLA and Jacqueline Cambas, ACE Carolyn Giardina is an award-winning journalist and 92Y Tribeca. She is now partnered with Manhattan Edit Dorian Harris, ACE author who serves as tech editor at The Hollywood Workshop to regularly host her evening event series in NYC Reporter, for which she writes its Behind the Screen called “Inside the Cutting Room.” She has also written for Tina Hirsch, ACE blog. She is also co-author of Exploring 3D: The New such publications as ACE’s CinemaEditor magazine, which Grammar of Stereoscopic Filmmaking (Focal Press, named her “Film Editing’s Greatest Champion.” Maysie Hoy, ACE 2012). One of her first assignments at the start of her O’Steen’s next project is an authoritative, media-rich Bonnie Koehler, ACE career was a feature story about editing – and she has eBook called Making the Cut at Pixar about the editor’s enjoyed covering editors ever since. pioneering role in computer animation. For more info visit , ACE bobbieosteen.com. Nancy Jundi has been a contributing writer to Cinema- , ACE Editor since 2006. She is a technical consultant and Adrian Pennington is a journalist, editor and mar- Michael Ornstein, ACE communications strategist in the Los Angeles area for keting copywriter whose articles have appeared in the Sabrina Plisco, ACE post-production facilities, non-profit organizations and Financial Times, British Cinematographer, Screen Inter- tech start ups. national, , Premiere, Broadcast, , ACE RTS Television and The Guardian. He is co-author Bonnie Koehler, ACE, has been a film editor for five of Exploring 3D: The New Grammar of Stereoscopic decades, from Moviola to digital, from to Law & Filmmaking (Focal Press, 2012) and his favorite film of Order: SVU. She is currently at work on an essay collection all time is Gilda. about her experiences on the cutting room floor: Nobody Dies Tonight. Jack Tucker, ACE, Emmy®-nominated editor and first- ASSOCIATE BOARD Scott Lehane is a freelance journalist who has ever recipient of the ACE Award, was Kate Amend, ACE covered the film and TV industry for over 20 years. at the helm of CinemaEditor magazine at the close of the 20th century. He has recently produced the docu- Mark Helfrich, ACE Harry B. Miller III, ACE, serves as an associate mentary feature, American Empire, with his partner, on the ACE Board of Directors. His recent credits include director Patrea Patrick. Eric Sears, ACE Turn: Washington’s Spies and The . Andrew Seklir, ACE John Van Vliet has worked in animation and visual Bobbie O’Steen is a New York-based writer and film effects for more than 32 years. Although his involvement historian, dedicated to sharing the editor’s invisible art with on bad pictures far outnumbers the good ones, all have film students, professionals and the movie-going public. provided raw material for his drawings – for which he’s She is an Emmy®-nominated editor and author of two grateful. Visit MigrantFilmWorker.com for more.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SUBSCRIPTION, ADVERTISING & CONTACT INFO Jenni McCormick

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

STAY CONNECTED to bring into close alliance those film editors who desire to advance Like us on Facebook Follow us on the prestige and dignity American Cinema Editors (ACE) @acefilmeditors of the film editing profession.

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CANYON DESIGN GROUP CLIENT: HBO ISSUE/POST: 06/03/2019 2ND QUARTER ISSUE PRINTED: 04/25/19 Mechanical: 2019 HBO EMMy FyC CAMPAIGN PHASE 1 Bleed: 8.75 x 11.25” JOB NO: J4468_45383 POSITION: PAGE ONE SCALE: 100% Trim: 8.5 x 11” 1F FILENAME: Live: 8 x 10.5” CINEMA EDITOR MEDIA: FULL PAGE DENSITy: 300DMAX J4468_45383_HBOEMMyFyC_PAGE_ONE_CINEMAEDITOR_FP_1F 68-60-60-70 18-28-75-3 CANyON DESIGN GROUP • 4929 WILSHIRE BLVD., SUITE 500 LOS ANGELES, CA 90010 (P) 323 933 2203 • CONTACT: JUDy KEMPER • EMAIL: [email protected] WELCOME CONGRATULATIONS Advertiser Index American Cinema Editors would like IFC Bodyguard to welcome new ACE members: The Newport Beach Film Festival, which 01 Petition for took place April 24-27, honored Maryann Editors Recognition Jennifer Barbot, ACE Brandon, ACE, and Mary Jo Markey, ACE, 03 Ozark Barry Alexander Brown, ACE with the Icon Award. They were on hand 05 Blackmagic Design Patrick J. Don Vito, ACE 07 FYC/HBO to accept their awards along with fellow Peter B. Ellis, ACE 09 Blackmagic Design Jeff Gilbert, ACE honorees Gavin Hood (Artist of Distinction); 10 ACE EditFest 2019 Isaac Hagy, ACE Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Rising Star Award); and 11 FYC/HBO Michael Harte, ACE Moe Dunford (Breakthrough Award). Mark Hartzell, ACE 12 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Mako Kamitsuna, ACE 13 Homecoming 14 Good Omens Myron Kerstein, ACE Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts, a documentary Ben Lester, ACE 15 Hanna Jeff Malmberg, ACE by Jeffrey Wolf, ACE, and Jeany Wolf was 16 Lorena Chris McCaleb, ACE an official selection in the Venice Fine Arts 17 Jack Ryan Sandra Montiel, ACE Film Festival (May 24-26). The film also 19 Adobe Vashi Nedomansky, ACE recently returned from Detroit and the Freep 21 Adobe Kyle Reiter, ACE Film Festival where it screened followed by 23 Avid Technology, Inc. Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, ACE a Q&A. It will also be in San Francisco in 25 The Looping Group James Ryan, ACE June for the San Francisco DocFest. 27 NBCUniversal StudioPost Steve Singleton, ACE 38 Invisible Art/Visible Artists Matthew Philip Smith, ACE Wolf’s documentary illuminates the re- 39 Free Solo Sandy Solowitz, ACE markable life of self-taught artist Bill Traylor 41 Cutting It in Hollywood Rosanne Tan, ACE – which spanned slavery, Reconstruction, 43 HPA Michelle Tesoro, ACE Jim Crow segregation and the Great Migra- Daniel Valverde, ACE 45 Going Postal tion and a short spell in Detroit – and Luyen Vu, ACE 49 Master the Workflow Dirk Westervelt, ACE examines the significant legacy of his work, 51 Motion Picture Editors Guild James D. Wilcox, ACE the largest known body of drawn and painted BC Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland, ACE images by an artist born into slavery. TO ADVERTISE OR FOR ADVERTISING RATES Peter Zakhary / 626.695.7493 [email protected]

BY JOHN VAN VLIET BY JOHN VAN In The Next Issue Of CINEMAEDITOR

SHORT CUT COMIC The Television Issue

TO ADVERTISE OR FOR ADVERTISING RATES Peter Zakhary / 626.695.7493 [email protected]

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CANYON DESIGN GROUP CLIENT: HBO ISSUE/POST: 06/03/2019 2ND QUARTER ISSUE PRINTED: 04/26/19 Mechanical: 2019 HBO EMMY FYC CAMPAIGN PHASE 1 Bleed: 8.75 x 11.25” JOB NO: J4468_45384 POSITION: PAGE TWO SCALE: 100% Trim: 8.5 x 11” 1F FILENAME: Live: 8 x 10.5” CINEMA EDITOR MEDIA: FULL PAGE DENSITY: 300DMAX J4468_45384_HBOEMMYFYC_PAGE_TWO_CINEMAEDITOR_FP_1F 68-60-60-70 18-28-75-3 CANYON DESIGN GROUP • 4929 WILSHIRE BLVD., SUITE 500 LOS ANGELES, CA 90010 (P) 323 933 2203 • CONTACT: JUDY KEMPER • EMAIL: [email protected] JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: MRSM Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 2 Trim: 8.5”x11” M510 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 00928 JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: MRSM Show: HOCO Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 2 Season: 1 Trim: 8.5”x11” Trim: 8.5”x11” M510 Asset: ACE M505 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 00928 Casa Number: 00042 JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: GDOM Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 1 Trim: 8.5”x11” M506 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 00912 JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: HNNA Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 1 Trim: 8.5”x11” M501 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 01030 JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: LRNA Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 1 Trim: 8.5”x11” M501 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 01031 JOB INFORMATION MECH SPECS PRODUCTION

Show: JKRYN Safety: .25” Date: 05.03.19 Season: 1 Trim: 8.5”x11” M501 Asset: ACE Bleed: .125” Contact: dan leonardo LAX Desc: 2019FOYC Res: 300dpi Scale: 100% [email protected] Casa Number: 01029 NAVIGATING THE “FAMILY BUSINESS”

BY ANITA BRANDT BURGOYNE, ACE

suspect most editors came to the craft in a roundabout way. Jr., ACE, on the other hand, preferred rolling the cores down They discovered it in film school, perhaps, when it became the hallway when he visited his dad, Edward M. Abroms, ACE, I necessary to edit their own films, or maybe stumbled onto it editor of such films as and The Osterman when they found a basic editing program built into their computer. Weekend, in the Building at Universal. And Darren But for a handful of us, becoming an editor was more like going Holmes, ACE, son of Christopher Holmes, who edited such films into the family business. Some of us grew up around editing rooms, as Car Wash, Drive, He Said and Five Easy Pieces, well – Darren watching parents, or even some grandparents do their job. preferred kicking the cores, to rolling them. Clearly, film cores Of course, editing looked very different then than it does today. provided endless hours of entertainment. Back then, we walked into rooms with odd, loud machines and Then there were parents who figured if their kid was there, they racks of neat, white, labeled boxes, situated around the perimeter might as well be useful. Bill Steinkamp, ACE, son of Fredric (Fritz) of the room, or lined up like library stacks. Editor Artie Schmidt, Steinkamp, editor of such films as , The Firm and Out of whose father Arthur P. Schmidt, cut such classics as Sunset Africa, recalls, “There were so many pieces of film in bins that Boulevard, Sabrina and Some Like It Hot, recalls visiting his dad needed to be put away.” Fritz instructed Bill, who was eight or nine only a couple of times. His father paper clipped the cuts together, at the time, to sort the trims hanging on the hooks correctly, so the always with a cigarette dangling from his lips, despite the numerous trims would be returned to their proper trim boxes. ‘No Smoking’ signs posted, because the editing was done on highly- Emma Hickox, ACE, the daughter of Anne V. Coates, ACE, editor flammable nitrate film. Editing assistants would then hot glue of such films as Lawrence of Arabia, Chaplin and , had the clipped film pieces together, so that Arthur could take his a somewhat unique experience, since it was her mother who was the scene to a projection room and review his work. editor and not her father. Not surprisingly, being a female editor in As children, many of us spent a fair amount of time at parents’ that era added an extra level of complexity in the juggling of family workplaces and found ways to keep ourselves entertained. My dad, and career. Emma recalls that, for her mother, Anne, it was “better Byron “Buzz” Brandt, ACE, who edited such films as Breakheart to kind of pretend the kids didn’t exist while she was at work.” Pass, Across 110th Street, and the mini-series, QB VII, was divorced Hickox remembers, “My mother had to deal with men who told her from my mom and saw my brother and me on weekends. Like all they wouldn’t hire her if she was married or had kids,” and adds, editors, sometimes he had to work, so inevitably I found myself “I am sure she lost jobs because of that.” spending hours, winding film from one reel, back to the other, Eventually, some of us to learn what actually happened having synchronizer races with my brother, or stacking the plastic in those rooms and we began to pay attention to the editing process. yellow film cores into towers until they toppled. Ed Abroms Ed Abroms Jr. watched his father run film, back and forth over and

18 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above: Christopher Holmes and Darren Holmes, ACE. Photo courtesy of the Holmes family. Bringing Wu-Tang history to the masses.

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© 2019 Adobe. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, and Adobe Premiere are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. over, until he found the right cut point. Ed Jr. explains, “Two out of five was the rule,” which meant his father would run a piece of film in the Moviola five times, hitting the hand brake each time, where he felt it was time to cut. He’d mark the frame he stopped on with a grease pencil. If he hit the brake on a grease pencil mark twice out of the five times, it meant that was the place to cut. Ed Abroms Sr. actually saw all three of his children follow him into the film business and then, years later, Ed Jr. would solicit his own son, James – the third generation of Abroms – for James’ opinion on scenes. He’d include his son in his work, regardless of whether directors and producers were present. James also remembers listening to frequent discussion between his father and grandfather about story, character development and how to build suspense. When James began to edit his own film in school, he recalls, “My grandfather always looked at my final cuts and scenes and gave me feedback.” Max Goldblatt remembers when he was still pretty young, his father, , ACE (The , Terminator 2: Judgment Day), began to bounce ideas off him and ask his opinion. They’d discuss performance, continuity and why a certain take worked better than another. This kind of discussion and dissection taught the younger Goldblatt to start thinking critically about how films were constructed. By contrast, as a kid, Artie Schmidt preferred the sound stages – where the films were being shot – to the editing room, but he still observed enough to wonder how his father, Arthur, “knew when to cut and when not to cut; what angle to use and when; and which performance to use.” His father had a mantra, which he passed along to his son: “Keep it simple.” And when Artie thinks backs to the beginning of his own editing career, he admits, “that it was the hardest thing to do. Keep it simple, honest, find the story.” Bill Steinkamp remembers thousands of pieces of advice he received from his dad: Always have a good reason why but loving mentor.” There was a time when Ed Abroms Sr. thought you cut … nothing arbitrary; The best cuts can be felt and not his son should consider cinematography, since Ed Jr. went to school seen; Be careful not to cut your way into a dead end; Have a clear to study photography, but according to Ed Jr., “My dad really always sight of where you’re headed. wanted me to follow in his footsteps.” Not in every case, but often, parents and grandparents become There were, of course, some less enthusiastic parents. Artie teachers and mentors. Most editing parents are completely supportive Schmidt recalls, “My father always advised me not to go into the of their children following in their editorial footsteps. Sidney Katz, movie business. ‘Go into insurance,’ he said. ‘Something secure.’” ACE, father of Ginny (Virginia) Katz, ACE, and editor of such films Emma Hickox said she was strongly discouraged from going into as Paper Lion and Lovers and Other Strangers, once asked her, editing. And my own father, Buzz, wasn’t all that keen about me “Are you sure you want to do this?” When Ginny assured him she living a freelance life. did, he was fully on board. She feels blessed to have had “a tough There is no denying that being the child or grandchild of an editor provided opportunities other aspiring editors didn’t have. Almost everyone I spoke with benefited, either directly or indirectly, from having editor parents or grandparents, even if some offspring initially eschewed the help. Ed Abroms Sr. introduced his son to the head of Universal Studios Facility Operations, who eventually started Ed Jr. off in the Universal Film Library. Bill Steinkamp’s first job was as an apprentice on the film, Three Days of the Condor that his dad, Fritz, was editing. Ginny Katz got her first job as an apprentice in her father’s editing room on the film, Diary of a Mad Housewife. My first job was as the apprentice on my father’s film, It’s My Turn. I hung around the editing room so much my senior year of college, when the film’s apprentice left the show, a few months after I graduated, the director, Claudia Weill, suggested I take the spot. On my very first day, my dad had to come in early to show

20 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Left: Artie Schmidt. Right top: Anita Brandt Burgoyne, ACE, and Byron “Buzz” Brandt, ACE. Right bottom (L-R): James Hickox, Anne V. Coates, ACE, Anthony Hickox and Emma Hickox, ACE. Photos courtesy of their respective families. How Hollywood makes a hit.

Adobe video tools play a major role in groundbreaking work coming out of Hollywood. See why editors like are turning to Adobe Premiere Pro, A E ects, and more to bring these stories to life.

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© 2019 Adobe. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Adobe Premiere, and A er E ects are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. me how to reconstitute KEM rolls – the task which constituted 95 percent of my duties on the film. It was often left to the parents’ assistants to teach their scions the job of the AE. Back then, the union required everyone to spend a total of eight years as an apprentice and assistant before they were allowed to move up to editor. Bill Steinkamp remembers his father’s assistant, Don Guidice, as “the most giving and knowledgeable assistant I ever met.” By the time Bill began working with them, Don was also editing. Fritz and Don were nominated for an Oscar® for Three Days of the Condor, so it turned out to be a pretty first job for Bill. And Christopher Holmes’ assistant, Todd Ramsay, taught Darren Holmes every facet of assisting. Later, Darren spent years assisting his father and remembers, “Even though he was one of the most demanding editors I’ve worked for, Todd had taught me how to do the job the point that he is very aware he is currently the age that his father perfectly.” Chris Holmes eventually told his son he was the best Mark was when he cut , the film that catapulted his assistant he ever had work for him, thanks to Todd’s fine training. career. Bill Steinkamp feels that early in his career, it was hard to Conversely, sometimes it can be difficult to try to make one’s live up to his dad’s reputation. But Fritz reassured his son, that, way in a field where a parent made a significant mark. Reputations “Your work will speak for itself. Just wait and be patient.” of elders precede the younger. As Ed Abroms Jr. admits, it is hard Overall, it seems a positive thing to be a second generation to live up to his father’s accomplishments. His father won two editor. Sidney Katz’s reputation helped Ginny get into the union Emmys® for editing and was Emmy-nominated twice for directing when she moved from New York to Los Angeles. Darren Holmes episodes of the hit TV series, Columbo. That was before he was 38. claims having an editor father is sometimes an icebreaker with older Later his father was nominated for an Oscar for editing the film, co-workers, who will often share stories about working with his dad. Blue Thunder. But Ed Jr. adds, “All my dad wanted was for me to I often have people approach specifically to tell me they thought be happy and enjoy what I was working on.” Max Goldblatt made my dad was one of the nicest men they knew in this business. When Max Goldblatt tells a director or producer, “I showed my dad a rough cut and he had some great ideas,” it might initially be met with some confusion. But if there’s any resistance, I can always pull out, “Well, he did edit The Terminator.” Of course, when it’s all said and done, those of us who chose to follow parents or grandparents into the craft of editing, must do what every editor strives to do: the best job we can. James Abroms watched two generations before him. “It made me realize how hard you have to work. It wasn’t an easy task, although it seemed more than worth it.” Artie Schmidt adds, “The only pressure was to be as good as I could be, to help make the best movie possible out of the film available. To ‘tell the story.’ And Ed Abroms Jr. asserts, “Becoming an editor had nothing to do with my dad’s connections. I did that all on my own. Just look at my credits and it’s obvious.” In addition to the editors quoted for this story, the list of multigenerational editors continues. Morgan Halsey, daughter of , ACE, Oscar winner for the film, , and Colleen Halsey, ACE, editor of Edward Scissorhands and (with Richard), followed both her parents into editing, as did Kaja Fehr, who’s dad, Rudy, edited such classics as Key Largo and Dial M for Murder. Don Zimmerman, ACE, editor of such films as Being There and Coming Home, for which he was Oscar nominated, has three sons – twins Daniel and Dean, and youngest son David. All three have chosen editing careers. As Emma Hickox eloquently states, “Maybe someone can get you in the door, but you’re not going to get hired if you do not work hard and commit 110 percent, whomever your father/ mother may be. This is the movie industry and it’s the work that counts – always.”

22 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Left top (L-R): Ed Abroms Jr., ACE, Ed Abroms Sr., ACE, and James Abroms. Left bottom: Mark Goldblatt, ACE and Max Goldblatt. Right: Ginny (Virigina) Katz, ACE and Sidney Katz, ACE. Photos courtesy of their respective families. FOR THE MAKERS

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Avid_MC_Ad_8-5x11 in.indd 1 4/30/19 10:33 AM Security BY HARRY B. MILLER III, ACE

pulled up to the gas station pump, got out my debit card, swiped with all my software add-ons. The post supervisor told the studio and entered my PIN on the keypad. Ooops. Absentmindedly, (thanks, jerk). And I got the following restrictions from the studio. I had typed the PIN for the other card I commonly use. I My computer had to have: No worries: I’ll just type the correct one. Erp. No go. The pump showed the message: “Pay at the cashier.” I tried another pump. • Minimum of 16-character passphrase is utilized for login Same message. • Full disk encryption (fileVault2) is enabled on his machine Now I’m mad. And not willing to give in to a cashier. I drive • Endpoint protection must be installed to another station. Same message. This card has been completely • The Avid will not have any internet connection (we DO NOT disabled. Then, my cell phone pings with a text message: allow internet connection on Avids) “Did you use card **** at a gas station on 01-09-2019?” Um, yes. How did you know? After confirming the failed transaction, a new I nearly walked away from this job. I couldn’t imagine being able message said: “You can attempt again after five minutes.” to work with these restrictions. The killer restriction is what’s The speed in which this transaction error was caught and called ‘endpoint protection,’ which means no USB device can be my card disabled was a stunner. How many millions of credit/ attached. That would mean I couldn’t access my library of sound debit card transactions are there every hour, around the world, effects, music and visual effects videos. and my error was instantly caught? Actually, I looked it up. But after talking to the editing facility that was providing According to the National Association for Convenience Stores, the rooms and Avids, it became clear that these restrictions were 29 million Americans use a credit or debit card for gas every unlikely to be imposed. And, it turns out, none were. day. It’s more understandable when you realize that what’s What was imposed was the producers were not allowed to called skimming to get debit card information at gas stations is view the show online at any time. Even though the secure video a big problem. sharing service was DAX, a competitor to PIX. And the director I’m happy the banks are keeping such a watch on card trans- was limited to short, one-time windows to view cuts. actions. But security gets dumb when the wrong people make I never knew who at the studio imposed the security the decisions. restrictions, and who nearly caused me to quit. But they couldn’t On a recent television pilot, I was planning on bringing in be more harmful to getting work done. And I don’t expect security my own Avid CPU, which I’ve customized to be extremely fast, restrictions to get any easier.

24 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Avid Technology Has Been Very Busy • Sixty-four tracks of video. (Hmm. Not sure this is a good thing…) • Adding a video effect (like 3D Warp) between a Mark In/Out, If you haven’t kept up with the latest versions of Avid’s Media without having to Add Edit to constrain the effect. Composer, you’re missing out on a lot of great features. The trend of software companies is to label their software by the • One of the longest-standing feature requests is now implement- year and month. It sort of helps to justify them charging monthly ed: Live Timeline. While the timeline plays you can zoom in subscription fees, rather than selling the software outright. or out, add and edit markers, move Avid windows, open some tools, work in other applications, all without the timeline Avid’s 2018 feature additions include: stopping play. Also added are the abilities to activate solo and • New button commands including ones to move clips up or down mute buttons and adjust clip audio levels. one track, and to change timeline views. • Background bin auto save: It doesn’t work quite as I had • Timeline clip notes: You can add a note to individual clips in the always hoped, but it does save the ‘dirtiest’ bin according to the timeline, which can be edited in a notes window. These notes can Auto-Save setting. be displayed on the clip and output in an edit. • In addition, Avid has redesigned the terrible Application • Spanned Markers: Marking an in/out then clicking Alt/Option Manager, replacing it with Avid Link. It is still something Add Marker places a line on the timecode track. I’m currently I avoid unless necessary. However, there is a section called using this to show another editor what section in each reel I’m Lounges. It has numerous discussion forums. More impor- working on. tantly, it has a Feature Requests section. Hopefully, someone is • Move a marker to a different track in the Edit Marker window. reading those. • Monitor resizing: The Composer window has fewer size re- The downside of this new software is that when you turn off strictions than before, and a single monitor can be much larger Wi-Fi, you get a message: “Account Offline. Currently working than ever before. in offline mode.” • Title+: A redesigned title tool has been added. It is intended to That is creepy. It shows how much of our online activity is be faster and more versatile. It is, however, having substantial being tracked. growing pains. Um, security! ACE Introduces International Affiliate Member Category

BY EDGAR BURCKSEN, ACE

ollowing the ACE Board’s unanimous decision to adopt Israeli series are already available on Netflix in the U.S. new membership category of ACE International Affiliate and although Netflix is very secretive about viewership numbers, the F Member, the hard work for the International Relations fact that they put it up on their roster indicates that there is interest. Committee began. We realized that you can’t just apply the same Itzik feels that these developments make it especially important to rules for prospective international members as we use for the join hands with ACE so we can work together to keep the editors’ general category of affiliate membership. creative integrity in the spotlight. An alliance with ACE also is Like the ACE membership committee that interviews and important for him to improve the standing of editors in Israel as an recommends new members to the ACE Board of Directors, important creative force in the production process. a similar procedure needs to be established for international Too often directors and producers think that editors are merely members. In order to do this the International Relations Committee operators of the editing computers. He pointed out that there’s now needs to recruit active ACE members who also believe in the the credit, ‘director of editing,’ like there’s the director of photog- global expansion of ACE. (Hint, hint!) raphy and camera operator on the set. When we unite globally and Since Hollywood and Los Angeles are still the central hub for exchange our experiences we can work together toward elevating the motion picture industry a lot of members and leaders of our how editors are looked upon as an important creative force in the international sister organizations have professional links here. motion picture production and post-production process. We’ve met many of them to discuss our plans and their thoughts We also need to find out what the special needs are for our new about how we could and should work together. We’ve met with international members and how we can explore, accommodate the principals of our Australian, Canadian and Dutch sister and create new venues here and maybe abroad that can cater to organizations. And recently, Isaac Itzik, president of the Israeli these needs. We’ve got a very exciting time ahead of us and we’ll Editors Guild, visited Los Angeles. We discussed many things dur- work hard to make this global expansion a successful one with the ing our 90-minute meeting but the main topic was how the ascent help of our foreign sisters and brothers. The respect that editors of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Apple would impact deserve for their creative endeavors is a global issue that we need our work and the industry as a whole. Streaming shows in particular to face together. seem to vigorously transcend the traditional boundaries of national film industry standards, not only with international distribution but also investment in productions in motion picture markets like Israel. They seem to recognize that national content is not limited to the borders of a particular country. The international success of Bollywood productions is also made possible because there are large expat Indian communities in countries all around the world. The Nigerian Nollywood productions serve a large swath of the African continent and you can imagine the revenue from untapped markets of the Mandarin language and culture will expand. Itzik says that with the interest of Netflix in the small Israeli market, its industry has started to realize that there might be additional markets for Israeli motion pictures for the small and big screen if you consider the Jewish diaspora around the world.

26 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Top: Hollywood. Bottom: Isaac Itzik and Edgar Burcksen, ACE.

Toy Story 4

Editor Axel Geddes brings the toys back to town with Pixar

BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

or a long time even Pixar Animation Studios’ ‘Brain Trust’ “We always wanted to stay true to the Toy Story universe and felt 2010’s ended Woody and Buzz’s story with at the same time to widen the perspective slightly,” he continues. F Andy so perfectly that they never even talked about doing a “The cinematic grammar of our approach doesn’t change but we follow-up. But the demand to continue one of the most successful do have our first Toy Story told in CinemaScope which meant some animation franchises in movie history was just too great to ignore. adjustments to how we use close-ups, for example, but hopefully The last installment ended with the toys’ longtime owner, not so that the audience will notice.” Andy, passing his beloved friends to young Bonnie before head- Josh Cooley – story supervisor on Inside Out, storyboard artist ing off to college. Toy Story 4 picks this up and has Woody (Tom for Brave and additional story supervisor on 2 – directed. Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) meet Forky (Tony Hale), a spork One scene, which begins in act two, proves critical for setting that has been made into a toy by Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw). the tone of the film. Forky suffers from an existential crisis about being a toy, while “Woody becomes separated from the group near a small town Woody and friends try to help him understand how to be a toy. and he goes into the town's antique shop to see who he can find As Bonnie and her family go on a road trip, Forky escapes and in there,” Geddes says. “It’s a little creepy and dusty, a forgotten Woody goes to save him. land, and there’s this almost Norma Desmond-like quality to this Editor Axel Geddes joined the project in 2016. “When they new character we meet in this scene. When we first screened this introduced new character Forky was about the time I started work- in December, 2016, I remember Andrew saying that this is the ing on it and this new character dynamic was the catalyst for the moment that captures what Toy Story 4 is about. story,” he explains. “Pretty soon I’d brought a rough assembly to “The new character, Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), has the brain trust and by spring 2018 we had a version that, outside spent most of her life never being played with but we knew that we of the third act which we continued to rewrite and tweak until the had the four main protagonists for our story. [In addition to Woody, end of the year, stayed pretty true to the final version.” they are] Gabby Gabby, who wants what Woody has; Forky, who Geddes was not unfamiliar with the core characters, having doesn’t want what Woody has; and Bo Peep, who shows Woody worked with on Toy Story 2 as additional assistant, a new perspective.” and edited several Toy Story shorts including Toy Story of Terror! He continues, “We knew the introductory scene with Gabby (2013). He was also second film editor on WALL•E and sole film Gabby was important but we didn’t fix on its place in the story editor on Finding Dory. timeline or on Woody’s motivation for going into the antique “There’s no way we could top Toy Story 3,” Geddes says. “There store for some time. In many ways, this was the most challenging is no way we could top the intensity of that ending. So we went for single sequence editorially. It was one of those where we kept a more personal and introspective approach. trying different things. Should the store interior resemble a little

28 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above (L-R): Bullseye, Rex, Buttercup, Trixie, Slinky Dog, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Mrs. Potato Head, Jessie, Dolly. ©2019 Disney/Pixar. city? Should the toys come out of hiding like Al’s toy barn in Toy Story 2? We felt we kept on breaking the truth of the world. Finally, we realized that the promise of Bo’s lamp in the window was a great impetus for Woody to enter the store and thus be introduced to the antagonist.” Sadly, actor Don Rickles had passed during the making of the film but those who handled his estate were keen for Disney to continue with giving Mr. Potato Head a full role in the film. “I knew where all the archive material was of his previous voice performances from the films and shorts and also video games and theme parks. So, I was able to use a lot of that in the final film to honor his legacy.” Keanu Reeves also lent his vocal talent to the show as new character Duke Caboom. “He liked the idea of playing a toy and was really keen to explore what it would be like to see the world from a toy’s perspective. He had this idea that Duke Caboom would be sold in a box with the character depicted in various action poses and that the character would always be doing those poses in an effort to be a desirable play thing. In order to show that, he jumped a table in our atrium to do those poses. He was a lot of fun to work with. He pitched so much material.” In animation production, editorial has a unique role in that prepro, production and post are effectively simultaneous processes. He explains that the Camera and Staging department will be inspired by the storyboards, but won’t always literally put the camera where the storyboards indicated. “With a special emphasis on reinforcing the clarity of the story- telling, Camera will explore alternative ideas. Maybe a different camera move, maybe a combination of shots to simplify the beat. Edit will put together a first cut and then call the DP [Patrick Which is how they ended up with a four-to-one shooting ratio Lin] and camera operator[s] for the scene [Derek Williams, for the scene, “Meet Gabby Gabby.” Jahkeeli Garnett and Andrea Goh] and review the cut together. “Story is where the film exists in theory, editorial is where it Edit will make some requests of shots or a new blocking they exists in reality,” he adds. “I’d always show Josh all the material would like. Camera will make some requests of shots that they I had for a scene. I’d maybe show him the five-minute version would prefer to be in the cut. The two departments will collaborate knowing I’d have to cut it back to three minutes to get to the truth to come up with a version of the scene that they both like and of the scene and I’d also have a three-minute version ready to then play it for the director. When the director sees it, inspired by show him. this new version of the scene, they will then start a new round of “Unlike live action, we are not hidebound by having visual notes. We will do this process three or four times before locking and audio tied to each other. If I like the first and second halves the scene for animation.” of different takes we can do that. Sometimes I will grab a piece of dialogue from a completely different scene if I need it as glue to get from point A to B. “Our voice talent, particularly Jordan Peele and Keegan- Michael Key, gave us many more jokes than we could use so I put together a bin of gags just in case we need to call on one to make a scene complete.” Geddes’ editorial team was made up of second film editors Torbin Bullock and Greg Snyder; his first assistant and ‘right- hand man,’ Noah Newman; second assistants Kendra Juul, Jeff Stone and Chloe Kloezeman; and ‘indispensable’ production staff, coordinator Wendy Sekimura and manager Piper Freeman. “It’s a big team and each one covers different duties,” Geddes says. “From the assistants covering recording sessions to the [production] staff keeping us all on track. We are pre-production, production and post all rolled into one.”

Left: Axel Geddes. Photo by Deborah Coleman. Right top (L-R): Buzz Lightyear, Bunny, Ducky, Woody, Bo Peep. Right bottom: Forky. ©2019 Disney/Pixar. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 29 CE: Where were you based? Were you on set much? JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 – ES: We shot in New York from May to mid-July. I was in New York the whole time for that. I brought my family over and put my kids in PARABELLUM daycare. We had editorial offices in the West Village, and I would try to go to set twice a week. We also shot a third of the movie in Morocco, but the weather was too hot to go there right after we wrapped New York. So we wrapped in mid-July from New York. We came back to L.A. We started editing the part of the movie that we had and then we waited until late October or early November to go back out to Morocco and shoot there for about 10 or 11 days.

CE: So you went to Morocco as well? ES: I went to Morocco for about two weeks leading up to the shoot. I brought a hard drive with me and Chad and I continued to edit the movie. I was able to give the production crew references for what we had shot in New York – for costumes, or makeup, or special effects or wherever we needed to maintain some continuity. But then once they started shooting, I came back to L.A. It was more efficient for me to edit from my office here in L.A. than it would be for me to be on set trying to get dailies which were being processed in London. The logistics of getting dailies delivered back to me in Morocco would have been too challenging. Evan Schiff reteams with Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves CE: And then, how soon after shooting were you able to get to work on the footage? BY SCOTT LEHANE ES: We were cutting as we were going. But then it was sort of tricky to edit two thirds of a movie that we had in between our New York irector Chad Stahelski’s latest installment in the John Wick shoot and our Morocco shoot. We put that together as best we could, saga, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, released May 17, but the Morocco chunk is in the middle of the movie. We could D sees the titular super-assassin played by Keanu Reeves on get the beginning dialed in. We could sort of get the ending dialed the run with a $14-million bounty on his head after killing a member in. But you couldn't really watch the movie as a whole and get the of the international assassin’s guild. Suddenly, he finds himself the whole thing dialed in. target of professional hit men and women everywhere. So there was sort of a lull in between the New York and the Stahelski, who is also a renowned stunt coordinator, reteams Morocco section, but after we got back from Morocco, it was just with editor Evan Schiff, who edited John Wick: Chapter 2, for the crazy from that moment until the end of the movie. latest installment. At crunch time, two additional editors were brought on to help – CE: What system do you edit on? Matthew Evan Walsh and Gina Hirsch. “They’re both friends that I’d ES: We’re on the Avid Media Composer system. I like to stay known since I worked at Bad Robot as an assistant editor. And when current, so I'm always on whatever the latest version is and some- it became obvious that I needed help, especially given our schedule, times on a beta version. I was thrilled to be able to bring them on, and they were a huge asset to me and to the film itself,” says Schiff. CE: Maybe you could describe your workflow for me. CinemaEditor spoke with Schiff just after they had signed off ES: Technically, we cut this in UHD. We got Avid DNX dailies in on their final theatrical deliverables – which included 5.1 and 7.1 UHD 23.98. [Cinematographer Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF] and the mixes as well as Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos versions and an DIT spent a lot of time locking our dailies straight in on set. So by IMAX version. the time that I got footage into the Avid, just our dailies, sort of a one- light grade, already looked phenomenal. In fact, when we previewed CinemaEditor: How did you get involved in this project and how for audiences, we didn't do any additional color correction. We just long did you have to work on it? played it straight out of the Avid with the grade that we had because Evan Schiff: Well, I edited John Wick 2. I got that one through it just looked so good. my agent. The movie turned out great and I had a good experience Sound-wise, we were working with [supervising sound editor] working with Chad and everybody, so he invited me back for this one. Mark Stoeckinger at Formosa Group. We were able to send some I started about a year ago. I think May 1 was my first day of work scenes his way that needed some more intense sound work, on John Wick 3, so it was just a little under a year. whether it was gunshots or we have an underwater section. They

30 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above: Keanu Reeves, Photo by Niko Tavernise. ©2019 Lionsgate Films. All rights reserved. would send us stems, either in the form of several mono tracks or ES: We try to stay wide and long, and only cut when something often a 5.1 track. breaks in the take, or if there’s a need to highlight a particular move. Then as we were cutting and doing previews, we would sit Our paramount goals are to make sure that the audience knows that down and do a real mix on a stage for the preview and then we these are real people doing the martial arts and the action, these are would get the full mix stem back from that. We would replace real actors. You know Keanu, and [], they’re doing all of everything in our sound track with the stem and go forward from the action that you see on screen, so we don’t cut away. We live in an there, repeat that process again for as many previews as we had. angle as long as we can, so that you can see that yes, it’s really them.

CE: What role did your assistant editors play in the process? CE: So overall what was the biggest challenge that you faced? ES: In New York I had John Cook for dailies. He was my first ES: On this movie, we just had so much of a great thing, our biggest assistant editor. And he got the show set up and organized. In challenge was actually just cutting time out. You know, our assembly between John and Nick Ellsberg, who was the second assistant edit was around two hours and 45 minutes, and we were obviously editor both in New York and then also L.A., by the time that we had aiming for lower than that. left New York, they had done such a great job already starting with We had these great fight scenes, these great motorcycle chases, our temp muzzle flashes and temp blood and temp sound effects these great scenes with the dogs. We had a lot of world building for all the action scenes, that they really got us off to a great start. and introducing new characters. And so we knew very early on By the time we started post-production on the director’s cut, a lot of that the movie worked, the movie was good, and so we weren’t that sound and visual effects work had already been started and was really trying to fix anything, but we did need to get it down to a already in pretty good shape. more palatable run time. Nick moved out to L.A. and continued on as the second assistant So, a lot of heartbreak was spent trying to decide what to cut, editor. Halima Gilliam came on as the first assistant editor, and then and that was really most of it. the two of them ran the assistant side of the cutting room, which as we got closer and closer to the finish, got the typical busy level CE: What was it like working with Chad? How hands-on was he? that you usually find on a show like this, where everybody suddenly ES: He’s pretty hands on. We established a good working relationship needs everything all the time. on John Wick 2. He trusts me. He’s definitely the type of director But they were really great at keeping everything running that is interested to see what I come up with and he makes it really smoothly and making sure that everybody had what they needed easy for me to pitch ideas. If I have an idea that’s slightly different and that the departments had what they needed to have in order do from what he’s expecting, he’s completely open to that. their work on the film. He was a stuntman before he was stunt coordinator and executive director and now a director. He owns a stunt company called CE: Overall, how would you describe the editorial style that you 87eleven and he teaches classes at the company every morning. were going for? So he’s got that experience and he knows what he’s looking at from a very specific technical level in terms of the fight choreography. So, whereas I can tell on a broad level if something appears [off], there are other things that Chad is looking for. He goes through all the actions daily and starts looking for the takes where the fight choreography and the execution of the martial arts are really spot on. And then we’ll compare my cuts to his cuts and we will do a mix-and-match edit and then bring that back into my cut. And then generally once we’ve done that once or twice, the action scenes stay pretty locked. You find their rhythm and their flow early on. We don’t tend to go back a lot after that and revisit. They sort of live as they are.

CE: Finally, what do you expect audiences to take away from the movie? ES: So I think we have something like nine major action sequences and a bunch of smaller ones. That was done intentionally. We set up our world; we set up the stage for John Wick. And this movie is supposed to be about seeing that through to the end, the consequences of the actions from John Wick 1 and John Wick 2. So really, once we jump in, we don’t let up and we’re action, action, action all the way to end. Hopefully, that’s why people are coming to John Wick movies, and what they enjoy and take away from it.

Top: Keanu Reeves. Photo by Niko Tavernise. Bottom left: Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry. Photo by Mark Rogers. ©2019 Lionsgate Films. All rights reserved. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 31 Bottom right: Editor Evan Schiff and director Chad Stahelski. Photo courtesy of Evan Schiff. ROCKETMAN

Chris Dickens, ACE, balances music with drama in the Elton John biopic

BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

oming so soon after the Oscar®-winning success of Dickens explains that the main challenge shaping the story Bohemian Rhapsody, this rock ’n’ roll biopic of Elton was balancing the musical numbers with the drama. C John was always destined to face comparison. Director “The spaces in between the songs become very important. had also completed the Freddie Mercury project Judging the right length for each scene and of each musical for 20th Century Fox after it parted ways with . number was what we worked a lot on in order to find the film “We know it will get compared but there are essential dif- we wanted to tell.” ferences,” says Chris Dickens, ACE, (, Mary Meanwhile, Elton John himself was one of film’s executive Queen of Scots) who edited the film. “It’s not purely a rock biopic producers. “He and (John's husband and a producer – it’s a musical with choreographed dance numbers.” of the film) had always wanted it to be a musical fantasy,” Dickens Penned by Lee Hall and produced by (X-Men: relates. “The story arc is similar to many biopics in that there’s The Last Stand, Kick Ass), Rocketman charts the story of John’s a trajectory from rags to riches, what happens when a person life from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music, has riches and how they overcome that, but the message is very through his influential and enduring musical partnership with different with this film. [Bohemian Rhapsody] had a powerful and songwriter , as well as his struggles with alcohol, well-known tragedy at its heart. We don’t have that but our film substance abuse and his identity. does delve into darker territory.” (: The Secret Service, Robin Hood) The film’s structure contains a series of flashbacks, the first plays John, accompanied by Jamie Bell as Taupin, Bryce Dallas of which is introduced at the film’s beginning as John presents Howard as John’s mother, Sheila, and Richard Madden as man- himself as an addict in rehab, before the story travels back in ager John Reid. time to his youth. “Dexter has a very gregarious personality. He’s very open to “We check in with him at rehab every so often as a mechanism ideas,” Dickens says. “During shooting he wants to see how a to keep you up to date with him and his progress in overcoming scene looks all the time. It’s almost like he wanted to see it cut various issues and how he became the person he is now.” together before he’s shot it – he was that fast. There was a constant Music producer Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles pro- to-and-fro between us with notes on sequences I’d cut. He also ducer George Martin) rearranged all the tracks in the film and they likes a lot of people – including the actors – to come in and were recorded with Egerton’s vocals, although his recording was watch a cut of a scene.” played back for miming during filming.

32 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above: Taron Egerton. Photo by David Appleby. © 2018 . All rights reserved. The film’s soundtrack ranges from John’s first hit single, “,” to lesser-known numbers like “Take Me to the Pilot” and “Rock and Roll ,” used by Dickens as background or to cut a sequence to. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” about wanting to give up a life of opulence for a simpler life away from all the glitz and glamour, is associated with John’s rehab from drinking, drug and personal problems. They also used a track from , a band in which Reginald Dwight, later Elton John, was a member. “In order to tell the story we couldn’t use songs all the time,” Dickens explains. “Sometimes we use lyrics from his songs in dialogue, sometimes the treatment of songs at certain points in his life tell us what we want to convey.” Music and picture editing go hand in hand but Rocketman took this further than on any previous show Dickens had worked on. His partners in arms were Martin and composer who previously scored Eddie the Eagle (produced by Vaughn, directed by Fletcher, starring Egerton) and the Vaughn- directed Kingsman movies. “It was a really free way to work. I’d select some temp tracks and Matt would come in and rework it. We’d often use musical motifs and melodies from Elton’s songs. We could change the treatment of a song and write new themes if it was playing too loud or we felt it needed more orchestral arrangement. So, during the edit we evolved picture and soundtrack in tandem more than on most movies. I hope we made the right choices. Because the film is set up in such a way that the musical numbers need to tell The first song in the film is “,” such a pro- the story the important thing was that we needed to have some vocative title on its release in 1974 that it was promptly banned on storytelling element within every song in the film.” several radio stations in the U.S. and elsewhere even though the lyric parodies John’s celebrity lifestyle. “The song was filmed with a certain choreography including a moment when we see Elton (Egerton) singing to his younger self as a boy. In editorial we found this was very distracting so we had to had to out and we use other elements of choreography from the scene to cut the sequence. Elsewhere we took out an entire dance number [“Honky Cat,” from 1972 which expresses John’s envy of Taupin] purely because we felt it didn’t advance the story. It looked like more a staged musical with Taron and Richard Madden dancing and it didn’t quite get us to where we wanted to be in the story.” The song “Rocket Man” is the film’s centerpiece. The main challenge editorially was that it is staged in several places and charts a moment in the story when John is at a house party, has a breakdown, takes load of pills, tries to commit suicide by jumping into a swimming pool, sings underwater and sees younger self, is fished out, is sent to hospital, and emerges in his stage gear swinging a baseball bat ready to perform at the Dodgers Stadium in L.A. “This sequence was all planned out but the difficulty for me was getting the geography right – traveling from A to B while he’s singing the song, being sensitive to cutting against the song’s rhythm and finding ways to make jump cuts or trimming each element to the right length,” explains Dickens. “I asked the music team to give me a bit more of the music at one point so I could make a piece fit. When we got further down the line in editorial we realized these extra pieces upset the balance of the song, so we readjusted. Essentially, we all had to be flexible to make the cut fit the song physically and work emotionally.”

Left top: Taron Egerton. Left bottom: Taron Egerton. Photos by David Appleby. © 2018 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved; Editor Chris Dickens, ACE. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 33 Photo courtesy of Chris Dickens, ACE. Right top: Jamie Bell and Taron Egerton. Right bottom (L-R): Taron Egerton, Bryce Dallas Howard and Richard Madden. Photos by David Appleby. © 2018 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved. but I sat down to read the script not really knowing anything more Once Upon a Time about the story than that. I’m not the world’s fastest reader, and it took me a full five hours to make it to the end. Quentin popped his head in the door every hour or so to see where I was and where I in Hollywood thought it was heading. As you can imagine, I felt an incredible amount of pressure. And, of course, I felt privileged to be asked to give my feedback.” Raskin says he was “blown away” by what he read. “It’s equal parts funny, scary and emotional. It’s all in there. You get bursts of extreme violence contrasted with comedy – frequently in the same moment. Although I’d say it’s not really like anything he’s done previously, there are elements of Pulp Fiction – with the intersecting Los Angeles-based storylines, and Kill Bill – with the picture journeying through different genres of film. He has an incredible mastery of tone that makes it all come together. It’s always a thrill to get to work on Quentin’s movies, but this one in particular has really been exciting.” The action takes place over the course of three days in 1969 and involves Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), an actor who failed at making the TV-to-movies transition and is now struggling with his fading stardom, and his longtime friend and stunt double, Cliff Booth (Pitt), a man who’s spent the majority of his adult life working in the film industry and has nothing to show for it. Early on in the film Rick learns that his new next-door neighbors are the beautiful, fast- rising star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her husband, director , fresh off the success of Rosemary’s Baby. Also in the ensemble are the late Luke Perry, , Dakota Fanning, Damian Lewis, Emile Hirsch and . Fred Raskin, ACE, gets back “The story is basically showcasing a day in the life of these in character for Quentin Tarantino characters,” explains Raskin. “You see them go about their days but at the back of the audience’s mind there’s this ticking clock hanging BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON over the characters because you know that at some point in the future the Manson family is going to show up at Cielo Drive [the ny new Quentin Tarantino film is an event, but Once Upon fateful Tate/Polanski residence].” a Time in Hollywood has the added spice of touching on In one of the film’s storylines, DiCaprio’s character is playing A the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969. The Sony the villain on the pilot for TV Lancer (which aired on CBS Pictures release is set at the height of the counterculture, a period from 1968-1970). the director has frequently exploited for its music and genre “While you might expect that would be shot in the 4x3 format, references, and with a story further steeped in TV and film-industry Quentin was very clear that Lancer is his third Western [after Django lore. What’s more it features the ‘Butch and Sundance’ pairing of and Hateful Eight], and as a result, it was shot on 35 anamorphic, two of the most charismatic actors of their generation in Brad Pitt like the rest of the film.” and Leonardo DiCaprio, who are just the tip of an all-star cast. During principal photography, which took place at about 80 Having had scripts of previous projects leaked before film- locations across L.A. between June and November 2018, Raskin ing, Tarantino’s script was under lock and key. The director was set up in an office on Sunset Blvd. once used by Saul Bass. For invited trusted collaborators including cinematographer Robert editorial, the production rented a house in Hollywood where he and Richardson, ASC, and editor Fred Raskin, ACE, to his home Tarantino converted the master bedroom into a full editing suite. on separate occasions to read drafts of the script. They weren’t “The way Quentin works is that during principal photography he allowed to take it away with them. focuses all of his energy on shooting and rarely, if ever, enters the “He called me out of the blue while I was in Israel speaking at cutting room. Generally, on his films, for the first half of the shoot a film festival in the summer of 2017,” recalls Raskin, who edited he watches film dailies [printed at FotoKem] every day but that will Tarantino’s previous opuses, and The Hateful gradually fall off as he feels more and more confident about what Eight. “As soon as I got home, I headed over to Quentin’s house to he’s getting. There was one scene in Hollywood he shot early on that read the screenplay. He gave me a lot of backstory about the history needed to play on a TV screen later during the shoot. We needed to of the era in which the film is set and the situation in Hollywood edit that scene up front but that was the only thing he came into the at the time, and he even showed me a TV Guide from the period, cutting room for prior to post.”

34 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above: Leonardo Di Caprio. Photo by Andrew Cooper. © 2018 CTMG, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarantino may have auteured the movie but still allows his editor considerable freedom to shape the material from his own instinct. “I’ll take notes about anything he says during the dailies screenings, where he laughs, what he likes or doesn’t and I’ll put locators on the material in the Avid to notate those areas,” Raskin explains. “That information, along with the notes from Quentin’s longtime script supervisor, Marty Kitrosser, guides me as I work my way through the assembly.” One scene within the world of Lancer has actor James Stacy (Olyphant) ride into town, dismount from his horse and approach a gunman whose hand and gunbelt fill the foreground. Tarantino thought it would work best to play out the entire scene as one single shot but he also wanted to see an assembly that incorporated all of the coverage. “To do it exactly as Quentin wanted would have been easy, so he asked me to put together the cutty version so that he could see a different perspective. “I think I have a pretty good understanding of how Quentin intends the material to be put together, but he’ll always want to double-check the performances to make sure the ones I used are his favorites.” A particularly-complex sequence depicts Sharon Tate during an afternoon in which she decides to take in a movie matinee at the Bruin Theatre in Westwood. The film in question is The Wrecking Crew, the 1969 action-comedy made as a vehicle for Dean Martin in which Tate co-starred. “In our film she decides to see the movie with a regular paying audience and we see her watching a scene in which her character has a karate fight with actress Nancy Kwan. So we see Sharon sitting in the theatre watching herself act on screen intercut with flashbacks of her training for the scene with Bruce Lee (who choreographed the fights in the movie). Finding the balance between when we are with Sharon watching from the auditorium, he going to respond if I’m critical of something in the picture? to when we see her on screen in The Wrecking Crew to when we’re On this film, I didn’t hold back. I put pretty much anything and every- seeing her training was very tricky.” thing on the table because, ultimately, we all want to make the film That said, Raskin says his and Tarantino’s biggest challenge on the best it can be.” the film “honestly, was finding the movie and getting it down to a The editorial team included first assistant editor, Chris Tonick, reasonable length.” with whom Raskin had worked on both The shooting draft of the screenplay was “not short,” Raskin jokes, and The House with a Clock in its Walls. In addition to the Avid and Tarantino came up with additional scenes during production assistant duties, Tonick was also tasked with the role of VFX editor. which added to the initial cut length. Film assistants Bill Fletcher and Andrew Blustain took charge of “He always writes and shoots more scenes than he necessarily syncing the 35mm film dailies during production and conforming intends to include in the theatrical release,” explains Raskin. the print in post. Avid second assistant Brit DeLillo, who joined as “He heads into post knowing that certain scenes, certain characters the production was ending, “was a huge help in terms of assisting even, are not going to end up in the final cut. So we put together all Chris with turnovers and temp VFX.” of the material he intends to have in the finished movie, and then we Post-production supervisor Tina Anderson “steered the ship determine what of that material is not actually essential to the story throughout an accelerated post schedule, staying on top of all of and characters and see what we’re left with.” the VFX vendors along with our sound department and DI facility.” Raskin feels that, over the course of three films with the director, And post PA Alana Feldman “made sure we had everything we “Quentin has gained more confidence in my abilities as an editor, needed to get through our day.” The whole crew also had to serve while I have gained more confidence in my willingness to sug- as the first audience whenever Raskin and Tarantino completed a gest things to him. sequence. “Being an engaged viewer and offering your thoughts “On Django, when Quentin asked to see my assembly of a after a screening is a key part of this job.” sequence, I had a sense of trepidation purely because our working At the time of this interview, Raskin has yet to watch a test relationship was just beginning. ‘What if this isn’t what he intended? screening with an audience. “You live in a bit of a vacuum when Is he going to think I don’t understand his movie?’ And how is you edit a movie. I can’t wait to see how an audience responds.”

Top: Brad Pitt. Bottom left: Margot Robbie. Photos by Andrew Cooper. © 2018 CTMG, Inc. All rights reserved. CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 35 Bottom right: Editor Fred Raskin, ACE. Photo by Ryan Jaeger. Invisible Art/Visible Artists

BY NANCY JUNDI

hile the Invisible Art, Visible Artists (IAVA) panel, follow-up to his documentary, The War at Home, for which he held annually at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, received an Oscar nomination, aged just 19 years old. W is always a sell-out, this year it was an especially “We were all young and broke, helping each other on pro- coveted ticket. In an awards season that seemed beleaguered by jects,” said Brown. “My friends, like Spike and Mira Nair (Salaam one surprising headline after another, few scandals drew as much Bombay!), thought I could edit and so they hired me, over and over unified and immediately widespread ire as an announcement from and turned me into an editor. Those first few films I really expected the Academy that they would be presenting four awards, including somebody to walk into the editing room and say, ‘What’s he doing Film Editing, during commercial breaks in favor of an edited- here? You’ve got a real budget, you can’t hire your buddies to cut down version later in the broadcast. The Academy reversed their your movies.’ Right up until about Malcolm X I really expected decision only a week before IAVA, but the large crowd lined up someone to come in and say, ‘Alright, buddy, come on,’ and wave outside the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood continued to debate me out the door. I just didn’t see myself as an editor.” the intention and judgment behind having even suggested it. Ottman, who met director Bryan Singer at USC where they co- “The tremendous outpouring of support on our behalf and the directed a short film, Lion’s Den, served as both editor and composer remarks by prominent filmmakers, industry leaders and directors on the Freddie Mercury biopic, as he has done regularly before. was astounding,” said ACE President, Stephen Rivkin, ACE, as he “Music was a hobby after I graduated from USC, so I started welcomed the audience. “It really did confirm the undeniable truth rescoring some of my friends’ student films,” said Ottman. After he that editing is one of the backbones of the filmmaking process. and Singer had accepted into Sundance, their Ironically, this served our purpose in raising the awareness and composer dropped out at the eleventh hour and Ottman ended perception of the craft. So, we are very thankful that the Academy up scoring it. had the wisdom to reverse their decision and that all awards will “When came together I said I just wanted be aired in their entirety.” to write the score for that and Bryan said, ‘You’re never writing Moderator Alan Heim, ACE, was joined by each of the the score for me unless you’re the editor,’ so that’s how I ended 2019 Oscar®-nominated editors; Barry Alexander Brown, ACE up doing the scoring and the editing together on so many films.” (BlacKkKlansman), , ACE (Bohemian Rhapsody), Ottman had the unique experience of being left to edit Yorgos Mavropsaridis, ACE (), Patrick J. Don Vito, Bohemian Rhapsody largely without a director after Singer’s ACE (Green Book), and , ACE (Vice). Ottman and removal from the film during production. Mavropsaridis had each won Best Edited Feature Eddie Awards “It was different, but not too different,” said Ottman. “Bryan earlier in the month with Bohemian Rhapsody winning for Drama tends to go away for a while in editorial to let me do the cut. and The Favourite for Comedy. He always says that he likes to maintain objectivity over his own Brown met his longtime collaborator, , while Lee material so he would go away for two months or so while I put a cut was still a film student at NYU, and Brown was working on the together and he’d come back saying he’d forgotten what he’d done

36 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above (L-R): Alan Heim, ACE; Barry Alexander Brown, ACE; John Ottman, ACE; Yorgos Mavropsaridis, ACE; Patrick J. Don Vito, ACE; Hank Corwin, ACE. Photo by Peter Zakhary. so he could feel moved in a certain way. He never wanted to taint a discovery that could be made by having his own preconceived idea of what he’d intended in mind. He derives joy from seeing something he didn’t expect.” “He who shall not be named,” joked Brown, in reference to the largely absent use of Singer’s name, which was common throughout the awards season for all of the Bohemian Rhapsody nominations. “There were hard parts, of course,” elaborated Ottman, “when you have to go into your inevitable debates with the studio over test screening results and have creative battles. You can count on a director to wage your wars for you, but I didn’t have that, so I had to be the bad guy. Everyone is a creative partner, of course, but you inevitably have to fight for what you want.” Heim shared his own experience with losing his director on a film and the resulting struggles to bring it to fruition with the studio. “I did a film where the star had someone else come in, with my permission, to make some changes (to the edit) for the star,” said Heim. “There were 10 awful changes made and the director walked off the movie. We had two screenings on the same night and their cut scored a point higher, both of which were lower than my original cut, so I had to decide whether to leave with my director or to try and get back some of the material that had been … just kind of mutilated. I sat down with the head of production and we spent the morning looking at the movie and she gave me five of the 10 changes back. I felt very good about that, but it’s an awkward position to be in. I don’t think the director has ever seen it to this day.” Mavropsaridis and director Yorgos Lanthimos, another collab- orative team that has spanned several years and films, have their own unique workflow. “Yorgos shoots all of his films in linear

order,” said Mavropsaridis. “He respects the continuity of time and space at all times, so when we come to assembly, we first do the rough cut, then we work a lot on the scenes and inside the scenes. Then comes the time when we try this and try that.” However, speaking of the pivotal sequence when the new favorite, played by Emma Stone, is moving into position with the Queen, Mavropsaridis noted, “we created an interplay between the one character, [Lady Sarah, played by ] falling out of grace and the new favorite moving into place with a montage sequence that supported the basic idea of the script, but used cinematic language instead of using the scenes in linear order.” They also stand out in not relying on ADR during post. “Yorgos doesn’t like, I don’t like,” said Mavropsaridis. “It’s the old aesthetic morality that we don’t separate the actor from their voice. We have a very good sound designer, Johnnie Burn, who always succeeds in keeping the original.”

Left top: Stephen Rivkin, ACE. Left bottom: Rivkin with Diane Adler, ACE. Right top: Heim, Alexander and Ottman. Right middle: Mavropsaridis, CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 37 Don Vito and Corwin. Right bottom: IAVA audience. Next page (L-R): Mavropsaridis, Don Vito, Ottman, Corwin and Alexander. Photos by Peter Zakhary. They were also the only team to not use VFX on their nominated film. When Heim inquired about the many rabbits used in the film, Mavropsaridis offered that “there was no CG; they were all around and we just cleaned up the mess they made on the floor!” Don Vito, on the other hand, noted that they had over 400 visual effects in Green Book some of which involved Kris Bowers, the film’s composer, serving as body double for star . “We put Mahershala’s head on Kris Bowers’ body,” said Don Vito. “Mahershala studied for three months to get the right positioning, stance and posture, and then we shot them both, but ultimately we just cut with Bowers and picked pieces where we put Mahershala’s head on there.” Even in the car, where much of the movie takes place, Don Vito noted that almost 80 percent of those shots have VFX. “They got the car last minute, like three days before we began shooting, can get into different layers of the way your main characters are and it had a tear in the material of the roof and one of the hooks thinking. I think this film demonstrates just how quietness and was rusty, but it was supposed to be a brand-new car so the VFX cuts that don’t join together seamlessly actually create tension. [team] was cleaning up tedious stuff like that. Then in the DI we’re Many times, when you have seamless editing, you lose tension.” seeing all the other work we needed to do that we hadn’t seen Speaking directly to the audience, Corwin offered, “Vice, before – like when they’re walking out of the YMCA and we saw emblematically, was just people talking to each other. That’s a handicapped sign – which they didn’t have in 1962.” pretty much what was going on, so I had to create different layers If Don Vito’s challenge was making the edit and VFX as of reality and different layers of how people were thinking. As invisible as possible, Corwin’s editorial challenge was in breaking prospective editors out there, what you have to do is see where up the enormity of Vice’s dialogue. “I was fascinated with the editing should be visible – where you can launch people into silences in the dialogue scenes and the lack of editorial,” said different layers of reality.” Corwin. “If you know anything about the work I’ve done, I’m Our thanks to Blackmagic Design, Adobe, Avid, MPEG and generally associated with frenzy and frenetic scenes. I love the NAB for another year of generous support and sponsorship that fact that in film you can move around time and space, and you allows us to bring such a panel of talent together year after year.

when she was struck by a car in a hit-and- Meet 2019 Karen Schmeer Film run accident. This year, the Fellowship launched a new Editing Fellow: Victoria Chalk initiative called the “Diversity in the Edit Room” program with 29 mentees selected in this inaugural year. It’s designed to cultivate the careers of emerging assistant editors and editors from diverse backgrounds and experiences working in the documentary field. Garret Savage, KSFEF founding board member and diversity committee co-chair, says, “We’d like to acknowledge American Cinema Editors’ Diversity Mentorship Pro- gram, headed by Troy Takaki (ACE) and Mark Yoshikawa (ACE), as an inspiration and model for ours and thank Troy and Mark for their guidance.” Of the many benefits the KSFEF be- stows on a Fellow, Chalk is most looking forward to learning from her appointed mentors who include Victor Livingston (The Queen of Versailles, Crumb), Azin Samari (The September Issue, Ethel), and previous KSFEF recipient Lindsay Utz BY (American Factory, Quest). NANCY JUNDI Says Chalk, “The Karen Schmeer Fellowship will allow me to grow in exper- ience, confidence and communication he Karen Schmeer Film Editing Chalk’s latest feature documentary, in profound ways. The mentorship and Fellowship (KSFEF), now in its Call Her Ganda, which tells the story of support it provides is like nothing else. T ninth year, is annually awarded to a a transgender Filipina woman who was The community offered through this new Fellow during the SXSW Film Festival brutally murdered and left in a motel room fellowship is also a way for me to help my Awards ceremony. This year’s Fellow, in the Philippines, premiered at the 2018 own communities thrive.” Chalk hopes to Victoria Chalk, is a British-Chinese film Tribeca Film Festival and was the winner harness what she can from this experience editor whose career in post-production of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film to inspire other emerging editors from has spanned more than a decade, several Festival Grand Jury Award. The film’s diverse and marginalized backgrounds, countries and garnered numerous accolades. director and Chalk’s longtime collaborator, sharing her resources and what she “Growing up British/Malay in rural PJ Raval, who gave a keynote at SXSW learns with them. “I truly believe that the France forced me to see things differently. this year, remarked, “Victoria’s ability organizing I do with the Asian American I have lived a life of constant adaptation, to empathize enables her to view the Documentary Network (A-DOC), shines bridging the gap between cultures and social footage through the subject’s own perspec- a spotlight on the lack of access and norms” says Chalk. “Struggling to learn a tive, avoiding the pitfalls of extractive opportunities we have as a community of new language in my early teens made me filmmaking or reducing our subjects to people of color. If I can add to the resources realize how difficult it is to express oneself victims or ‘others’.” and bring something back to filmmakers in when conscious of translating. As I became Sponsored annually by ACE, the that space, I will,” says Chalk. fluent in French, I would joke about having KSFEF was established to develop an Chalk’s next feature documentary, two different personas, since I wouldn’t emerging documentary film editor by A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader express myself the same way in English offering opportunities for creative growth Problem, directed by Yu Gu, will premiere as in French. I wouldn’t have the same go- and professional community building. at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival where to expressions, the same sense of humor, The Fellowship pays tribute to the legacy half of this year’s competition lineup were the same vocabulary, and this fascinated of Karen Schmeer, ACE, who edited directed or co-directed by women. me. This is what first drew me to editing. projects including the Academy Award®- ACE is a proud sponsor of the KSFEF There are endless possibilities to the winning The Fog of War in addition to and through the program, Chalk receives artistry of expressing emotion, plot, pacing the controversial Mr. Death and the IFC associate membership in ACE as well as and storytelling.” series, First Person. Schmeer died in 2010 admission to EditFest in Los Angeles.

40 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Above: Victoria Chalk. Photo by Hal Horowitz Photography. 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 , 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 All the news from Las Vegas, including ACE’s jam-packed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse session, the latest tools – NAB 2019 and a moving tribute to Norman Hollyn, ACE

n estimated 500 attendees filled the auditorium for a From its launch, the annual ACE-NAB session had been program on the editing of Spider-Man: Into the Spider- moderated by Hollyn and this year’s program had already been A Verse, presented by American Cinema Editors at the NAB prepped by the editor and USC professor. This year’s program Show, which this year took place April 6-11 in Las Vegas. opened with a moving tribute video to Hollyn, produced by Editor Robert Fisher, Jr. and assistant editor Sarah Cole, along his friend and editor, Sharon Smith Holley. Carolyn Giardina with director Peter Ramsey, screened clips from the Oscar®-winning introduced the tribute and stepped in to moderate, guided by animated feature and discussed the two-year collaboration, detailing Hollyn’s preparations. how the editing shaped protagonist Miles Morales’ transition to Spider-Man. Creating multi-dimensional animated characters with New Tools heart was crucial to the success of the story and one of their greatest challenges, explained Fisher, who earlier this year won an ACE Cloud-based production workflows and artificial-intelligence/ Eddie Award for Spider-Verse. machine-learning (AI/ML) tools were widespread on the NAB Of the turning point at which Morales gains his confidence and exhibition floor. Among them were AI/ML applications including becomes Spider-Man, Fisher said, “I wanted to start the sequence facial and object recognition, speech-to-text and enhanced with what Norman [Hollyn, ACE] called ‘the lean-forward metadata tagging, from companies such as Avid, Adobe and moment.’ It’s the moment you make the audience lean forward Blackmagic Design. and say, ‘Whoa, what’s that?’” The Avid Connect customer event – featuring speakers including The discussion of the lean-forward moment – a term created by John Ottman, ACE, who recently won an Oscar and Eddie for Norman Hollyn, ACE, who died just a few short weeks before NAB Bohemian Rhapsody – opened with the unveiling of a ‘redesigned (see obituary, p. 46) – was a poignant one for the panelists and those and reimagined’ Media Composer. Said Avid CEO Jeff Rosica, in the audience who knew Hollyn. “Media Composer 2019 is both evolutionary and revolutionary.

42 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Left: “Editing Inside the Spider-Verse” panel. Right top: Moderator Carolyn Giardina with panelists Peter Ramsey, Sarah Cole and Robert Fisher, Jr. Right bottom: Norman Hollyn, ACE tribute. Photos by Peter Zakhary. HPA19_CineEd_Entries_v4.indd 1 5/1/19 6:11 PM It maintains what longtime users know and love while giving them more of what they need today – and what they will need tomorrow.” According to Avid, the software can handle high resolutions including 4K and 8K, HDR, Interoperable Mastering Format (IMF), and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ACES (Academy Color Encoding System). A new distributed-processing module was introduced to speed up post by sharing media processing. “Tasks that previously took hours can now be done in minutes,” asserted Avid. It also sports a “customizable role-based user interface” in which the bins have been redesigned and the software features task-based workspaces, showing only the things the user might need for that task. Avid also announced Avid NEXIS Cloudspaces which effectively extends local offline storage into the cloud using Microsoft’s Azure platform. Instead of resorting to NAS or external drives when budgets are tight, Avid NEXIS Cloudspaces offers a way to offload projects and media not currently in production. Adobe’s updates are intended to speed up workflow with the power of AI. One of the biggest announcements around Premiere Pro is the support for dual GPUs to further increase performance while rendering high-resolution video. Adobe shared stats claiming a performance increase being up to 13x when handling mask and motion tracking in a 4K timeline based on a test system running dual Nvidia Quadro M4000 cards. Other notable updates for Premiere Pro include “Freeform” organization of the project panel to help arrange assets visually and save layouts for shot selects, production tasks, brainstorming story ideas and assembly edits. It also claimed a more streamlined way of creating motion graphics. In After Effects there’s a content-aware fill option that allows the editor to essentially cut holes in a piece of video to remove items such as boom mics, signs or logos and even people from footage and fills in the pixels with neighboring pixel data to complete the scene – all automatically driven by Adobe’s Sensei AI. Auto ducking of audio tracks in audio production is aimed at reducing the amount of time a mixer/editor spends creating keyframes to properly fade in or fade out audio. This function now also works with tracks designated as ambient audio. In Blackmagic news, the company announced DaVinci Resolve 16, a new version of its software combining tools for editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post. The main focus of version 16 is a cut-page tool aimed at speeding up the cutting of commercials and other fast-turnaround projects. used to automatically sort and organize clips into bins based on For example, instead of searching for the right clip in a bin with people in the shot. hundreds of files, users click on a ‘source tape’ button and all the The regular edit page is still available. You can switch between clips in the bin appear in the viewer as a single long ‘tape.’ edit and cut in the middle of a job. The cut page also features a dual timeline with both in permanent Also in the exhibition hall, AJA had several software updates view to avoid having to zoom in or out. One always shows the whole for post-production including HDR Image Analyzer v1.1 firmware timeline. The other shows a zoomed-in view. Both permit users to (developed with Colorfront) and Desktop Software v15.2 for move and trim clips in whichever timeline is most convenient. AJA’s KONA and Io products. While there’s only a tiny amount The company is also using AI/ML in an aim to boost efficiency. of 8K currently in use, AJA president Nick Rashby noted that The DaVinci Neural Engine uses ‘speed warp motion estimation’ KONA 5 “provides all the necessary performance, functionality for retiming, and has features for upscaling footage, auto color and dependability for demanding workflows including the ability and color matching and facial recognition. The latter can be to support 8K 60p.”

44 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 From top: Avid booth, Adobe booth, Blackmagic Design booth. Photos by Peter Zakhary.

to show two intertwining plotlines, characteristically embracing the storytelling advantages of digital technology. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990 and eight years later his esteemed career as a teacher began at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. He became a tenured associate professor in 2005, a full professor in 2011, and was head of the editing track for over 12 years. He was instrumental in changing the track from film to digital editing, as he continued to help his students hone the art and craft of storytelling. In 2013 Norman was also honored as the first recipient of the Michael Kahn Endowed Chair in Editing. Norman was a gifted communicator with endless energy. He wrote nearly 100 articles in many magazines and peer-reviewed journals and two highly-influential books.The Film Editing Room Handbook: How to Manage the Near Chaos of the Cutting Room – published in 1984 and recently printed in a fourth edition – became pretty much a bible for novice filmmakers who were trying to navigate the world of editing. Both nuts and bolts and conceptual, Norman’s book dealt with the art of collaboration and work politics, as well, and was written with his characteristic clarity, wisdom and humor. His second book, The Lean Forward Moment, published in 2008, which he called “a book about shaping stories across all filmmaking crafts,” was steeped with insights and strategies for recognizing Remembering and crafting compelling cinema and effective stories. Norman did podcasts, online lectures, had his own blog and recently completed Norman Hollyn, ACE an online course at Lynda.com called “The Art of Editing,” which inaugurated their push into aesthetic classes. He had also lectured BY BOBBIE O’STEEN on storytelling in China, Jordan, Finland, Malaysia, Brazil, Israel, Astonia and Mexico and for companies such as DreamWorks, Pixar, orman Hollyn, ACE, was, as his beloved wife Janet Conn ITV, Globo Television, Fortune, The Inquirer as well described him, “a renaissance man with vast intelligence, a as for NATPE, and the Hollywood Black Film Festival. He was N huge heart who gave and received immeasurable pleasure President of the UFVA, the largest association of production-based from his life.” He passed away on March 17, at the age of 66, from cinema university professors, and was a member of ACE, Academy a coronary embolism and subsequent cardiac arrest after doing of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and IATSE. what was truly his calling: sharing his knowledge with students in Norman led many panels for NAB and for EditFest, the latter Yokohama, Japan at Tokyo University of the Arts. His passion for based on his “Lean Forward Moment,” where editors would teaching, editing and filmmaking played out in remarkable ways choose favorite scenes that had inspired them, which engendered and had a seismic impact on many lives. many lively discussions. He had also led panels for numerous He was born in New York on May 11, 1952, and graduated conferences around the issues of emerging media as well as from Stony Brook University with a degree in Theater Arts in AI. Norman had, in fact, described himself as “a media expert,” 1974. That same year, the seeds of his career were planted when in reference to his experience in the old and new media worlds. he landed in the cutting room as apprentice sound editor on Bob In the midst of listing many of these achievements for his bio Fosse’s Lenny. He subsequently worked on many other films that were directed by legends of that era – examples being: apprentice film editor on ’s Network (1976), assistant music editor on Milos Forman’s Hair (1979), and then he hit his stride as a music editor on such films as ’s Fame (1980), Alan Pakula’s Sophie’s Choice (1982), ’s, The Cotton Club (1984) and was the music supervisor on Arthur Penn’s Four Friends (1981). In 1985 he became a film editor on the Emmy® Award-winning television series, The Equalizer, and another Emmy-winning series, American Playhouse (1988), along with other television shows, including ’s miniseries Wild Palms (1993). Norman also edited feature films, among them Heathers (1988), which became a cult classic. On his most recent feature, Shot (2017), he very effectively used split screens

46 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Top: Norman Hollyn, ACE. Photo by Elizabeth Conn-Hollyn. Bottom (L-R): Moderating a panel at EditFest LA; With Bobbie O'Steen. Photos by Peter Zakhary. completely, but he meant it. I would witness those same interactions at the Eddie Awards, and when I saw him this year at that ceremony. He was excited, like a big kid, talking about what he was going to do during his sabbatical from USC. He planned on writing two books for Oxford University Press: an updated edition of The Film Editing Room Handbook and a new version of The Lean Forward Moment, focusing on storytelling/filmmaking in other countries. He conducted interviews with filmmakers in South Africa in February and had planned to continue this spring to interviewing filmmakers in the Czech Republic, , Estonia and Bulgaria. As he talked about his upcoming adventures, his wife Janet was, as usual, by his side. He always reintroduced her, acknowl- edging her as his better half. And she always had this serene smile and gave him the space to do his thing. They clearly had a lovely partnership and rich marriage. Janet described their having “endless conversations that naturally evolved about everything.” She spoke of their daughter Elizabeth, as “the light of our life. The depth and breadth of her intelligence, her art, creativity, excellent friends put us in constant awe of her. We loved being together as a family, which also included our dogs Renton and Jasper (RIP). Family dinners at home, in restaurants, with Elizabeth and her friends and our friends. We are fortunate to have a multi-generational life. We love our home so, so much. Brings back memories of – having Aperol spritzers in the garden. Friendship, art, design, technology, travel, in the EditFest program, he inserted the sentence: “He clearly books, politics, great storytelling in film and TV all made the circle specializes in run-on sentences.” How Norman, to show a healthy of our life. Our glasses were filled, as Norman once said, ‘We have sense of pride and then such self-effacing humor. a charmed life.’ We felt very grateful.” The specifics of his accomplishments are impressive, but When Janet wrote this description of their life together, she Norman’s influence is indescribable. It’s impossible to enumerate noted, “The tenses aren’t consistent. I still think of Norman in the and explain the effect he had on virtually everyone he met and present.” I think we all do. Not just because of the disbelief that he knew: how many students he mentored and continued to stay is gone, way too soon, but because we still feel him with us. in touch with years after they graduated, how many careers he Those of us who were fortunate enough to read The Lean helped support and shape, how many people he encouraged when Forward Moment will, when watching movies, think of those key they were discouraged, uncertain or ignored. How many personal moments that pull you into the story and its characters and create lives he enriched. an emotional response. My friendship with Norman hit the ground running – which Those of us who were fortunate enough to know Norman will is not a unique statement in the Norman World – when we met at always think of him as a positive force for others, endlessly giving, EditFest New York 10 years ago, the beginning of our moderating making a difference. Living a life of grace. Leaving a legacy of panels back to back every year at EditFest LA, as well. I immediately talent, camaraderie and joie de vivre. And bear hugs. “You will basked in his warmth and kindness and experienced his sense of never be forgotten” is a cliché but in this case, simply a fact. We will fun, his towering presence, the unruly white hair, the sparkling eyes, always love you, Norman. Thank you for all that you gave us. that infectious laugh. He had this amazing ambidexterity: being totally focused on you and at the same time affectionately greeting and fully engaging with the stream of people who would inevitably flow to him. As the years went by, I experienced what many have described: how he could just pick up on a conversational thread six months later, as if no time had passed. He had an extraordinary memory and follow-through and made everyone feel special. At every EditFest and Eddie Awards, he was like the mayor, the grand greeter, the ultimate mensch, giving everyone a hug. He had unlimited ideas on how to connect people with each other to further their goals. “Good ideas come from everywhere,” he once said. And he always had good ideas. Ones stature was completely irrelevant. He would respond to everyone. In fact, I don’t think he ever said no. “Keep in touch” is an easy phrase that few people mean

Left top: Speaking with attendees after a panel at EditFest LA. Left bottom (L-R): Receiving his ACE membership with CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 47 ACE President Stephen Rivkin, ACE; With ACE Vice President Alan Heim, ACE. Photos by Peter Zakhary. Bottom (L-R): With ACE Managing Director Jenni McCormick (Photo courtesy of Jenni McCormick); With his wife, Janet. Photo by Peter Zakhary. hen I was working on The culture. It is a quick guide for the young Young Chronicles generation that only knows editing as W at , Avid inventors and an art performed on a computer and ambassadors Tom Ohanian and Michael hopefully it instills a kind of awe for the Phillips visited to talk with our editor- timeless cinematic masterpieces that ial team about the EditDroid, especially were composed in editing rooms with the because it was able to deal with 3:2 pull physical and mechanical challenges of down, which at the time was a big barrier countless reels of film. It also clears the between 24fps film and 30fps video. way to talk about what film editing really Ohanian and Phillips were filmmakers is: the art of storytelling with moving trying to make Avid editing software more images and sound. user-friendly for motion picture editors. Ohanian interviewed the late Anne They were crisscrossing the editing rooms Coates, ACE, as well as Thelma Schoon- of the film industry on a listening and maker, ACE, Michael Kahn, ACE, and educating tour to find out how editors , ACE. In all, he interviewed did their jobs, what they were missing 51 editors. and what Avid needed to do to make the An interesting catch is the interview Media Composer perfect. To me, that with the seemingly-enigmatic Marcia ‘perfection’ was reached with Media Lucas, an editor of and Composer 5.8 in the late ‘90s. Avid has, the first and, of course, the The Making of a of course, improved vastly since then, but first spouse of George Lucas. She disap- Motion Picture Editor the basic editing platform never changed peared completely out of the editing room by Thomas A. Ohanian and that’s why veterans like me still use and the film business after her breakup it to this day. with Lucas. In the interview she appears Tablo Publishing / $26.95 The pair had visited and built relation- to be a very astute and open woman who ships with the most heralded, famous and shaped so many famous and influential awarded editors in the business and had a movies in the ‘70s. When she talks about treasure trove of insights into how editors her work and the films she participated looked at their jobs, what their challenges in, it is a genuine who’s who of famous were and how they devised the most- filmmakers of that era like George Lucas, admired sequences in modern filmmaking. Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, More recently, Tom started to contact them and to and the result is an enticing expedition into name a few. The legendary Verna Fields the who’s who of successful Oscar®- and was her educator and mentor in breaking Emmy®-nominated and awarded editors into the editing room. She collaborated from the ‘70s until 2018. with many now-famous editors like Walter The book begins with a short explanation Murch, ACE; , ACE; Paul of the origins and developments of editing Hirsch, ACE; and , ACE. from film through video to digital. As the Apart from all the other fine editors and ultimate expert of the editing software, he really interesting stories, ’ explains the sometimes-confusing nom- interview alone is worth the purchase of enclature of the many terms used in the this important book. editing rooms around the Hollywood film –Edgar Burcksen, ACE

48 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Book cover artwork courtesy of Thomas A. Ohanian and Tablo Pty Ltd. Learn How to Become a Professional Assistant Editor on Feature Films Master The Workflow Feature Film Assistant Editor Immersion 1.0

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Find out more at: mastertheworkflow.com he book with the lyrical title, Twilight for the Gods (meaning the unrecognized deities of the art of film T editing), written by Jack Tucker, ACE, came out in 2015 and was very favorably reviewed by CinemaEditor. Now almost four years later a new edition is available with added chapters about Tucker’s personal experiences with the new digital age of filmmaking. He describes in amusing detail how he convinced a producer and director that he was a skilled Avid editor without actually having edited anything on the Media Composer at all. But the Avid is just a tool for storytellers so he chartered his younger colleague, Heidi Scharfe, ACE, to give him a crash course in how to work on an Avid and with the basic knowledge to operate a Media Composer he started the job. He called Scharfe’s editing room often when he got stuck but the calls became less frequent as he got more comfortable with ‘Emily,’ the term of endearment he gave his first Avid. ‘Joe’ was what he named his Moviola when he was still editing on film. Tucker describes how editing has changed significantly Twilight for the Gods: with the disappearance of dailies when digital became the The Art and History norm. It was the hallowed exercise that the crew went of Film Editing through before or after the daily shooting schedule, with the film of the day projected on a big screen. The director, (Second Edition) cinematographer, production designer and make-up by Jack Tucker, ACE department head could see their work in detail and make Cognella 2019 / $89.95 adjustments as they went along. Tucker was able to edit the shown material in his head so when he came out of the screening room he already knew how to start the day. He states, “Viewing the dailies on the big screen – like God and DeMille intended – was never a waste of time.” If you did not get the first edition of Twilight for the Gods, this extended version is an absolute must. Tucker is a gifted writer who does not want to bore you with theoretical editing dogmas that show he knows how to edit film or whatever format is put in front of him. He teaches at California State University, Long Beach and reading his book is almost like attending his class. –Edgar Burcksen, ACE

50 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Book cover artwork courtesy of Jack Tucker, ACE, and Cognella 2019.

BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON Before Sunrise 1995 | Director: | Editor: , ACE

Edited by Sandra Adair, ACE, the second film with her longtime collaborator, director Richard Linklater, turned out to be the first of a trilogy featuring Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (), two strangers who meet on a train in Europe and decide to explore . “Rick, Ethan and Julie all worked on the script together (Kim Krizan is also credited) and then they rehearsed intensively for weeks before shooting. Once the cameras were rolling, there was a natural tone to their performances,” Adair says of the film, which followed her collaboration with Linklater on Dazed and Confused. “Nothing was improvised at all and that may dispel a myth because the actors seem so natural and spontaneous.”

That lightness of touch is certainly one of the film’s charms and testament to Adair’s skills as much as the performances. It’s a tone established for the trilogy in one of the opening scenes where Jesse invites Celine to get off the train.

“From the moment I read the very heavily-dialogued script for Before Sunrise, I understood how important the chemistry between the two lead actors was going to be,” Adair relates.

“Rick likes to try to capture an entire dialogue scene in one take, either with Steadicam or a two-shot, but he also covers the scenes traditionally with medium shots, over-shoulders and close-ups. I definitely had many options to select from.”

It was important to set the tone of the film from the very beginning. “In this scene, I wanted to develop a ‘love at first sight’ kind of attraction between the two of them. He is courting her, trying to be persuasive, funny, smart, upbeat and there’s a sense of possibility and excitement,” Adair explains.

52 CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 Before Sunrise photos and title © Sony Pictures Entertainment. “The selections I made on Celine’s reactions were to reflect her growing attraction, starting by being a little shy at first and as the scene progresses she starts to play along. She’s skeptical at first but also a little coy. So, it’s like cutting a little cat-and-mouse game.”

She adds, “There is a great deal of power in an expressive and rightly-placed reaction shot. How one character’s words fall on another’s face, seeing how that dialogue is landing on the other person, can have a great impact.”

While the film’s story is minimalist in that it is largely two characters walking and talking, it also takes place over one night. “Knowing the night is going to end, there’s an element of a ticking clock that builds some tension about whether or not they’ll part ways and if they do, if they’ll ever meet again,” says Adair.

“The main challenge in editing this scene was finding a rhythm with the dialogue while simultaneously keeping the characters playful, seductive and building some intimacy, always keeping them connected to one another.”

While Adair finished editorial from Austin, Texas, assistant editor Sheri Galloway got to visit the location shoot. “This was the first Avid show that Sheri and I had ever done. She learned Avid over there and helped me get familiar with it upon her return.

“Before Sunrise has a very natural pace. It’s romantic and if you rushed it you would totally ruin the illusion of being in real-time. Editing it in a way that is non-manipulating and natural feeds into the whole way the Before films are conceived.”

CINEMAEDITOR QTR 2 / 2019 / VOL 69 53 PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE 5555 MELROSE AVENUE PAID MARX BROTHERS BUILDING, ROOM 108 SANTA ANA, CA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90038 PERMIT NO. 1882

“GROUNDBREAKING.” “THE EDITING FROM DECISION TO CONSEQUENCE IS FLAWLESS.

FYC.NETFLIX.COM

CINEMA EDITOR MAGAZINE COVER 4 ISSUE: SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS EMMY NOMINATION ISSUE NETFLIX: BLACK MIRROR BANDERSNATCH PUB DATE 6/3/19 TRIM: 8.5” X 8.25” BLEED: 8.75” X 8.5”