Categories
Mentorship Past Events

CCE Mentorship Trivia Night

CCE Mentorship Trivia Night
February 8, 2024

This event took place on February 8, 2024

Presented in English / Atelier en anglais

Join us online, Thursday February 8th, for a special CCE Trivia Night that will kick start our EditCon festivities!

Get ready to have your editing shortcuts, movie, and insider knowledge challenged, as you and your teammates compete against other CCE members for the coveted Timeline Trophy. There is no ‘undo’ option in this game, so your answers better be exactly to spec! Questions will range from general film and editing knowledge to more specific questions about our 2024 EditCon guests and their body of work. 

You will be assigned to a team of 5-6 people, led by a mentor, and participants will have the opportunity to have career-related discussions in between trivia questions. The event will be held within a virtual space, so members in all regions of Canada can take part. News of the winning team is sure to make .wav’s across the country!  

About the Event

January 2024

8pm EST

Virtual

Categories
Mentorship Past Events

Mentorship: One-on-Ones with Documentary & Unscripted Editors

Mentorship: One-on-Ones with Documentary & Unscripted Editors
April 15, 2023

This event took place on April 15, 2023.

Presented in English / Atelier en anglais

Join the CCE for a unique mentorship event centered around one-on-one conversations with documentary & unscripted picture editors from across the country. From feature documentaries to reality television and unscripted series, you’ll get twelve uninterrupted minutes to chat with each of our participating mentors – any and all editing topics are on the table. This is your time to gain the specific insights you’ve been looking for. Stick around after the allotted time for virtual networking with all in attendance.

Participating Mentors:

Peter Denes is a Toronto-based Picture Editor with twenty years of experience cutting both documentary and scripted projects. His work has premiered at SXSW and Hot Docs, streamed on Amazon, Hulu, and Showtime, and aired on PBS, Vice, A&E, BBC, Nat Geo, History, Bravo and more. When not editing, he can be spotted on his bike, snacking on French pastries, and consuming all things Larry David and Daniel Johnston.

Jonathan has been in the industry since 2001, both in Australia and Canada. He has cut everything from documentaries, animation, sports news, but his extensive experience has been in cutting reality TV. He has worked on many of the large format shows such as BIG BROTHER, DRAG RACE CANADA, MASTERCHEF, THE AMAZING RACE CANADA and LOVE ISLAND He is a 17 time CSA and 16 time CCE nominated editor and has won five consecutive CSA’s and four CCE Awards.

Xi Feng is a Chinese-Canadian film editor based in Montreal. Having lived in China, Canada and France, she has cultivated a unique blend of cultural and artistic sensitivity. Feng has worked as an assistant editor and editor on several award winning documentaries, including CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; and the CRYSTAL BEAR winning short film CLEBS, premiered at the 2020 Berlinale Generation 14 plus section. She’s also an editor alumna of CFC 2019 and Berlinale Talents 2020.

Through hard work and determination, Editor Jenypher Fisher has developed a unique style, rivalled only by a keen sense of story and humour. Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the past 20 years Jenypher has been responsible for crafting a wide assortment of Canada’s unscripted series. Projects include PAMELA’S GARDEN OF EDEN, THE NATURE OF THINGS, RUST VALLEY RESTORERS, ICE PILOTS, THE BACHELOR CANADA, ER: LIFE & DEATH AT VGH, PARAMEDICS: LIFE ON THE LINE, JADE FEVER, WILD BEAR RESCUE, THIS IS HIGH SCHOOL, QUEEN OF THE OIL PATCH, YUKON GOLD & EXPECTING!

Carole Larsen is an award-winning documentary editor based in Toronto. Her work has a focus on our relationship with animals and the environment, from intimate portraits to broad-ranging discussions of our impact on the planet. Carole’s film and television work has been featured across Canada and around the world.

Mike has edited several award-winning feature documentaries, including STORIES WE TELL, for director Sarah Polley and THIS IS NOT A MOVIE for director Yung Chang. Most recently he completed TO KILL A TIGER for Nisha Pahuja, winner of the TIFF 2022 best Canadian feature award. Films that he has edited have played at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Telluride and Sundance, among other festivals, with 13 features accepted into TIFF. Sarah Polley’s STORIES WE TELL was short listed for the documentary Oscar as well as being voted in a TIFF poll as one of the 10 best Canadian films of all time.

Lindsay Ragone is a Toronto-based editor with over 20 years of experience. She’s been nominated twice at the Canadian Screen Awards for her work on CANADA’S DRAG RACE and was an Emmy-nominee for the Scripted/Reality hybrid series THE QUEST on Disney Plus. Other recent credits include BLOWN AWAY for Netflix and ALL-ROUND CHAMPION for BYU.

Eui Yong Zong is a Toronto-based editor whose credits include: OVER TIME, HACK YOUR AGE, I HOLD THE DECHO IN MY HEART, PROMISE ME, MERB’YS, SPIRIT TO SOAR, LIDO TV, and ONE OF OURS which won a Jury Prize for Best Canadian Feature at Hotdocs Film Festival in 2021 and a Canadian Cinema Editor Award (CCE) for Best Editing in a Feature Documentary. He’s recently completed a feature documentary CHOSEN, which premiered in JeonJu Intl Film Festival in South Korea. Yong holds a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from University of Toronto, and a MFA in Film Production at York University.

About the Event

April 2023

1:00pm -3:30pm ET

Virtual

Categories
Mentorship Past Events

Mentorship: One-on-Ones with Scripted Editors

Mentorship: One-on-Ones with Scripted Editors
November 19, 2022

This event took place on November 19, 2022.

Presented in English / Présenté en anglais

Presented in English.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. Time never seems to stop when you’re on the job. It can be tough to bring your head up to find the time to ask your burning questions, let alone find someone who may hold the answers. That all stops here. Join the CCE for a unique mentorship event centered around one-on-one conversations with working picture editors from across the country. You’ll get eight uninterrupted minutes to chat with each of our participating mentors – any and all editing topics are on the table. This is your time to gain the specific insights you’ve been looking for. Stick around after the allotted time for virtual networking with all in attendance.

The following bios are only written in the presenting language.

Participating Mentors:

Lindsay Allikas PhotoLindsay Allikas is an editor working in film, television and documentary. She has worked on the feature films CONCRETE VALLEY (Antoine Bourges), THE SWEARING JAR, AMERICAN WOMAN and THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, all of which premiered at TIFF. Her most recent collaboration with director Chelsea McMullam, CRYSTAL PITE: ANGELS’ ATLAS premiered at VIFF, before screening on the documentary channel in the fall. Her television work includes WORKIN’ MOMS, RUN THE BURBS, TALL BOYZ, IN THE MAKING, ANNE WITH AN E, and MICHAEL: EVERY DAY. Allikas hails from Montreal and received a BFA in Film Production from UBC. She lives in Toronto with her dog Whiskey.

Courtney Goldman PhotoCourtney Goldman is a Senior Editor with over 10 years’ experience, 3 Emmy nominations, a Canadian Screen Award nom, a Director’s Guild of Canada Award win, a Canadian Cinema Editor’s Award win and several more nominations. She’s cut over 100 episodes of TV, plus was the Supervising Editor on dozens more. Courtney specializes in family, kids and tween, live action, scripted series (WAFFLES & MOCHI’S RESTAURANT, ODD SQUAD, GHOSTWRITER, ENDLINGS, etc) and long-form (DINO DANA: THE MOVIE, ODD SQUAD: WORLD TURNED ODD). Her jam is creative problem-solving edits and she adores helping bring stories to life.

Aren grew up in Vancouver in the 80s, making music and movies with his friends. He moved to Toronto to attend the CFC and went on to edit many features and series, including the recent KIDS IN THE HALL reboot, KIM’S CONVENIENCE and the new ORPHAN BLACK: EXHOES. Aren is driven to continually learn and push himself as an editor, and to share his knowledge with anyone who wants it.

Christopher Minns PhotoChristopher Minns is two time CSA nominee, CCE Awards winner. Christopher attended the Humber College Post Production Program in 2010. Since then, he’s been working in film and television for over 10 years, with credits including THE LAKE, GINNY AND GEORGIA, SURREALESTATE, CAVENDISH, LETTERKENNY and many more.

Stephen Philipson Photo Philipson CCE is an award-winning editor whose credits include the TV series RAISED BY WOLVES, AMERICAN GODS and HANNIBAL, and Canadian film favourites such as THE WILD HUNT, voted Best Canadian First Feature and one of Canada’s Top Ten by the Toronto International Film Festival, and GROWN UP MOVIE STAR, a prize-winner at Sundance. Never one to turn down an adventure, he once traveled to Sri Lanka to edit an epic Action/Romance about the Sri Lankan civil war (in Tamil and Singhalese) for a director who contacted him randomly over the internet. Stephen is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

DG Truster PhotoGillian is a Toronto-based editor with a diverse career editing drama series, feature films, and MOWs in a variety of genres. She has had the good fortune of working with many prominent and celebrated producers, directors, and screenwriters.
Gillian is best known for her work on ORPHAN BLACK, ANNE WITH AN E, and THE EXPANSE. She has won two CSA awards, a DGC award, and has earned twelve award nominations.

Jorge Weisz PhotoJorge Weisz, CCE was born and raised in Mexico City and is currently based in Toronto. He has worked on award-winning films such as Peter Stebbings’ EMPIRE OF DIRT, which premiered at TIFF 2013, Michel Franco’s LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL, which won the Un Certain Regard’s Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and Danis Goulet’s NIGHT RAIDERS, which premiered at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival under the Panorama section and had its North American premiere as a Gala at TIFF. Recently, he teamed up again with Christian Sparkes for the film Sweetland.

Currently, Jorge is working on the series THE HORROR OF DOLORES ROACH for Blumhouse/Amazon.

Nicholas Wong PhotoNicholas Wong is an award-winning editor, who continues to deliver high quality work and collaboration that is sought after in the film and television industry. Since graduating from Ryerson University with a B.F.A. in film studies, Nicholas has applied his extensive knowledge of filmmaking and storytelling to a successful career in editing. Working in a variety of formats, including half hour and hour long episodic television, features, music videos, and web series, Nicholas’ credits include THE EXPANSE, CODE 8, UTOPIA FALLS, KILLJOYS and BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOW, for which he received the CSA Award for Best Picture Editing, Comedy in 2020.

Nicholas is currently working on the fourth and final season of SNOWPIERCER for TNT.

Photo of November 22 mentorship event in Gather

About the Event

November 19, 2022

1-3pm EST

Online

Categories
Mentorship Past Events

Mentorship – The Long and Winding Road: Career Development & Planning

Mentorship - The Long and Winding Road: Career Development & Planning
April 30, 2022

This event took place on April 30, 2022.

Presented in English / Présenté en anglais

Whether you’re just starting out or have been working for years there are always questions when planning your career path. Join the CCE for a special mentorship-driven online event focused on early and mid-career development and planning. Mentee participants will cycle between four virtual breakout rooms hosted by some of the CCE’s best. Editor mentors will lead discussions and answer questions on a variety of career development topics. After the sessions are complete, join us for some virtual socializing.

Breakout Rooms:

Getting on top of your career aspirations is all about assessing potential opportunities. For many, taking assistant editing jobs is an integral stage in development; for others, diving straight into editing is the way to go. You might want to work with an agent, or go it on your own. Either way, you’ll need to network and interview successfully to advance your career. It’s a lot to navigate and we’re here to help. ​​Learn about strategies for short and long-term planning and tips for selling yourself and your skillset to others.

Negotiating for yourself can be tough, especially when you’re eager to jump into a new project. Standard contracts rarely provide all the details and protections you need, and even with the help of an agent, it can be hard to know what to ask for. Union projects can provide certain benefits, but many types of work are not covered by this umbrella. We’ll talk rates, kit fees, schedules, edit suite setups, use of home offices, credits and more in this all- encompassing discussion.

We all know how difficult working remotely can be. Managing communication is often difficult, notes can be delayed, streaming cuts can be a pain, constant messages can be distracting and “real time” editing is hardly a replacement for having multiple minds in a room. And where do you turn when you’re stuck or need advice?
Rest assured everything is overcomable. We’ll discuss some of the tools and strategies to keep the collaborative spirit going while working remotely and hear about how to engage peers and mentors to help you along your journey.

There’s a lot more to being “in the chair” than just operating the software. The cutting room can be rife with emotion, internal politics, high stakes, and lots of stress. Despite tight deadlines and high expectations, the editor is often expected to sit calmly at the center of it all. Learn some tips and techniques for navigating collaboration and conflict in the edit suite.

About the Event

April 2022

1-3pm EST

Online

Categories
Articles Members Mentorship

My Mentorship Experience

My Mentorship Experience
by Brina Romanek

Brina Romanek (Mentee) Mentorship program 2020 CCEIf someone had told me two years ago, when I got accepted into the CCE Mentorship program, that I would gain a mentor who wholeheartedly believed in me, who encouraged me often, and who was completely dedicated to my success, I would have said, “I’m not sure that kind of mentorship exists.” At the time, the most I was hoping for was someone who would let me sneak into their edit booth and watch them cut for a couple days or who might be willing to review my work and give me a few pointers. I figured if I received even that much guidance, I would be lucky and grateful for it. Never in a million years would I have expected a relationship that would dramatically impact my career. That is, until I met Michèle Hozer.

The first time I met my mentor, Michèle, we went out for lunch. I can still remember the feeling of slowly sweating through my blouse as Michèle quizzed me about what I was hoping to get from the program and how I wanted to grow personally. It had been a while since I had been asked these questions in such a straightforward manner. I was working as an assistant editor for a production company in the city, and I think I had grown somewhat numb to the work. I wanted to move on from assistant editing, but I felt stuck and wasn’t quite sure how to do it. At the end of the lunch, I remember rattling off my list of experiences to Michèle. Swiftly, she jumped in and said, “you should be editing. Why aren’t you editing?” Great question, I thought as I turned bright pink and mumbled a response that equated to, “I’m not sure if I’m good enough.”

Cut to a month later when the pandemic hit, and the world was spinning out of control. Michèle and I had planned a visit to her office. I was going to spend the day seeing how she worked – how she organized bins and sorted footage. Of course, it had to be cancelled, but I don’t think either of us wanted this to mean that the program would be cancelled as well. For the next two months we sent documentary recommendations back and forth. We would watch the films and then chat about them over the phone, what worked, what didn’t work, why a certain method of storytelling was effective, etc. Our lines of communication went relatively quiet for most of the summer, but picked back up again in the fall as I called Michèle every couple of weeks getting her advice on different smaller side projects I was working on. Then, in December, Michèle called me with a proposition – a proposition that would change everything.

The film was a feature length documentary on alternative education. It had gotten to the assembly stage and now the production team was looking for an editor to take it to the final cut. Naturally, they called Michèle. When Michèle called me in December, it was to ask if I wanted to cut the film and she would story edit/mentor me along the way. I’m pretty sure that I said yes before she even finished describing the project. Having the opportunity to work with and learn from my mentor, one on one? There was no question, I was going to cut that film.

So, in February, we got to work. To say the project was smooth sailing would be a bit of an overstatement. I had a steep learning curve ahead of me and, like many editors, difficulty relinquishing control. I remember the frustration on both of our parts during the first few weeks of the edit. I would watch Michèle cut part of a scene after I had assembled it and then she would watch me finish. It was excruciating. During one such occurrence, while I was editing and Michèle was guiding, she suddenly exclaimed, “I feel like I have mittens on and I can’t touch the keys!” We both cracked up. We were still finding our rhythm. It was tough but looking back it was probably some of the most valuable education I’ve ever received. 

As we got into the middle of the edit, Michèle got more and more hands off. In the morning we would review the selects together for a particular scene. We’d move them around until we had settled on a structure that felt right, and then in the afternoon I would cut the whole thing together, complete with music, viz, and sound effects. We had found our rhythm and I was beginning to see myself grow.

For the next two months Michèle challenged me in every way — “why did you decide to use this visual? Are you sure this piece of music works best? Does this exposition actually make sense?” But she supported me as well. In every moment that I was down on myself or felt like I couldn’t do it, she would humanize the feeling, recalling all the times when she had felt the same way, telling me that it was normal, and encouraging me to go for a walk in the sun to get a shift of perspective before returning to the cut. Michèle was always there. Even at 10:30 the night before I delivered my final scene to the director, she took my calls of panic as I stressed about how to perfectly end the story.

When the film was finally complete (the director and producer both pleased with the end result), I did three weeks’ worth of laundry, slept for a solid fourteen hours and called Michèle. I was exhausted, pleased, and ready for a small break. I remember Michèle congratulating me and, despite my best efforts, refusing to take any of the credit for herself. “This was you,” she said. “You did this.”

Now, seven months out, I look back on this project with an immense amount of gratitude. Michèle has given me a foundation as a storyteller that I don’t think I could have found anywhere else. Somedays, working on the film was hard. Michèle would ask things of me that I wasn’t sure I could actually do. And, of anyone I’ve ever worked with, she was the toughest on my edits and my choices. But I see now why she did it. She was helping me to become a more articulate, thoughtful editor. She was equipping me with a toolbox and skills I’d need to succeed in any situation, and I am forever indebted to her for it.

So, two years ago, if you had told me that I would gain a mentor from the CCE mentorship program who believed in me wholeheartedly, who encouraged me often, and who was completely dedicated to my success, I would have said, “I’m not sure that kind of mentorship exists.” But now, I am very happy to report that it does.

Brina Romanek

Brina Romanek is a documentary filmmaker and editor. She has directed work for True Calling Media, RogersTV and CBC Short Docs. As an editor Brina has worked on films that have aired on Zoomer Media, Crave TV, The Travel Channel, TVO and CBC. Most recently, Brina had the honour of working with the team at Cream Productions to create the two part horror doc series BATHSHEBA. Brina is also the resident audio editor for the Indigenous Climate Action Podcast.

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