The Editor’s Cut – Episode 069 – “Editors Across Canada”

Sarah Taylor:
This episode was generously sponsored by IATSE 891.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Saying no sometimes can be a good… and it’s taken me a long time to learn that. And I think if more of us do that, I think it might be a better working conditions for everybody. So, does this really have to go out tonight? Does it really? Or can this wait till tomorrow?

Sarah Taylor:
Hello, and welcome to the Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast, and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honor, respect, and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions, and the concerns that impact indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.
Today I bring to you the virtual event that took place on November 2nd, 2021, a conversation with editors across Canada. We’re joined by Annie Ilkow, CCE from Quebec, Jeremy Harty, CCE from Nova Scotia, Lisa Binkley, CCE from British Columbia, Roderick Deogrades, CCE from Ontario, and myself, Sarah Taylor from Alberta. We talk about our process and how things are different and the same, based on where we live.

[show open]

Sarah Taylor:
Today, we are going to be talking about editing across Canada. So, I’m pleased to be joined with Lisa, Annie, Jeremy, and Roderick. So to start, I just wanted to go through the group and kind of give a brief history of our careers and, where we’re from, where we started, and how we got to the location we’re at now. I figured just to get the ball rolling, I’ll start. I’m Sarah Taylor and I’m based in Edmonton. And I’m wearing my, still in Edmonton shirt because I’m still in Edmonton. I went to Grant MacEwen, which was a local college, now university. Took a digital arts and media program, which was kind of a generalist program. We learned graphic design, photography, shooting, editing. And then I fell in love with editing, realized that I could sit in a dark room for hours and hours on end by myself, and I really liked it, so I pursued it.
I had the privilege of working at a local TV station for about four years where I got to work with seasoned editors, which I think is kind of a novelty now. I feel like that’s not happening as often. So, I was lucky to learn from some pros, which really gave me a good learning ground. And then I dabbled in some corporate video production houses for a while, and then I broke it into the freelance world in 2012. And that’s where I’ve been ever since. And my main focus has been documentary, because documentary’s quite strong in Edmonton, but I have been lucky enough to do a bit of everything. So, I’ve done some scripted comedy, I’ve done some feature films, I’ve done a lot of short films. And I love living where I’m living, and I have a family and it’s great for me. So, that’s my start and where I am now. So, I’m going to pass it on to Lisa.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
My name’s Lisa Binkley, and I’m based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. I went to UBC for two years, and I took theater. And as part of the theater program, I took a film history course. And it was by a woman who was an incredible teacher of film history, and she totally opened up my eyes to the fact that, oh my God, you can actually earn a living and work in this industry in Vancouver. And it was back in the early days. I’m embarrassed to say it’s quite a few years ago when the film industry was just sort of starting here. So, I went to school for two years at UBC, and then I went to two years to a media resources program at CAP College in North Van. And that was great because it was everything. It was photography, audio, video, film, editing, everything, and graduated from that. And a couple of people from that program had gone on into editing. And through the film history course that I took, I realized the people who I most admired and the films that really impacted me as a young person, I studied who those filmmakers were, and they were at one point editors. So I thought, I’m going to go into editing. That’s what I’m going to do. And I did. And so I harassed every editor in town after I got out of school until one assistant finally called me back and asked me to come down. And I worked as a PA at first. And since then, worked my way up. I went from production assistant running around getting lunches for everybody on a show called MacGyver. And I just worked my way up as a second assistant, first assistant, and then begged and begged and begged to get episodes to cut, and got an episode, got a couple more episodes, and then finally made the jump, which is very difficult from assisting to editing. And I’ve done editing full-time since ’95.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s awesome. Jeremy!

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
My name is Jeremy Harty. I started out in radio and television broadcasting, of course, in Nova Scotia, and that’s where I am right now, in Halifax. And that was in ’98. I got lucky with an internship at a small post-production company in the city, and that turned into a full-time job. And from that, I met some people. I got connected with Mike Clattenburg, the creator of Trailer Park Boys, and that pretty much started my career and doing short films with some of the cast from the show over the years, like Cory Bowles. And then he did a feature film. And I’ve done all sorts of weird stuff like that. But I’ve been mostly Trailer Park and comedy, and that’s my bread and butter. Not too exciting, but…and I own a small post production facility out here just to try to keep myself busy on different facets besides just editing.

Sarah Taylor:
I think it’s pretty exciting. I’m just going to say, comedy in the edit suite’s the best.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Oh yeah, there’s lots of good pranks.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, I bet. Annie.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Well, I grew up in Montreal. I’m one of those Anglo-Montrealers, that small slice of the population. And I went to Concordia University. I did two degrees. Actually, I have third degree burn… I did a BA in English and a BA in film production, and then I did an MFA in England in film. I was lucky enough to come into the NFB in Montreal at the tail end of some of the careers of some of the pioneers of the sixties, so Wolf Koenig and those crew who gave me my start as an editor. So, I started cutting documentaries, and then I have moved on to doing… Well, one of the nice things about Montreal is that it’s a very small pond, and so we’re lucky enough that we get to do a lot of different things. Not a lot of editors in the industry get to do doc and fiction and comedy and move between those throughout our career, so I’ve been lucky enough to do that. My husband’s also an editor, and we’ve been working consistently for the last 25 years, and that’s where I’m at.

Sarah Taylor:
It’s really cool to hear that in Quebec that I wouldn’t think that you would have the luxury to jump between genres cuz that’s what it’s like for me in Alberta. And I am surprised to hear that. That’s really great!

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah, I think it’s because it’s a small community of Anglo editors. That, we…you know, there is not that many of us. So we get to move between the genres. And it’s a real privilege for sure. I know how lucky I am.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, awesome. And last but not least, Roderick.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
So, I’m based out of Toronto, Ontario. Roderick Deogrades. Hello everybody. Welcome. I guess ever since high school, I knew I wanted to be in film. I just didn’t know how or what I was going to do. So, I pursued that. I tried to get into Ryerson. I didn’t make it into Ryerson’s cut. It was funny because they asked for like… an eight by ten envelope of submitting anything that you have. So, I came with my little envelope, and everybody came with boxes and reels and stuff, so I knew I didn’t have a chance. (deleted) So another university I applied for, I got in was University of Windsor. I thought I’ll go there for a year, and then go back to Ryerson. But I discovered fairly quickly that Windsor’s program was quite great. It was a communications studies program. And you start off by doing everything from film, TV, radio, advertising. And then your second year, you can focus on whatever you wanted to.
So, that’s what I did, and I focused on film and television production. And at the same time, I found a little bit of a loophole where instead of taking my electives, I can do another double major. So, I double majored in dramatic arts. So while I was doing film and TV, I was doing directing, acting, improv, costume design, stage lighting. It was a blast. I had such a great time at university. Got out of there, and I knew that I loved editing and I loved camera, so I didn’t know which way I was going to go. So, I kind of said to myself, the first one that hires me, that’s the road I’m going to go down. And I got a trainee assistant position at a low budget feature film, and it just snowballed from there for me. I took a little bit of a side tandem, almost like with the film and TV and dramatic arts. As I was trying to pursue picture editing through assisting and everything, I got connected with Jane Tattersall here in Toronto and I started assisting her in sound, ’cause I figured, oh… half of picture editing is sound editing, so I’ll learn that too. But fairly quickly, I became one of her sound editors doing features and TV shows while I was, at the same time, trying to work up my ranks as an editor. And so for a while, it was a bit like a lot of sound, hardly a lot of picture. And then all of a sudden, this kind of came up. And then, so now I’ve mostly been focusing on picture editing for a few years now. And I’ve done everything from features to series to shorts to a lot of documentaries, different genres too as well. And I have a blast doing it.

Sarah Taylor:
Working with Jane Tattersall, that must have been so much amazing knowledge to gain. And like bringing that into the picture editing world, that’s amazing.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
It was great. When I started with her, it was just her and David McCallum and me.

Sarah Taylor:
Wow.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
So, it was like very early days when she left Casablanca, and it was great. What a great mentor to have in terms of the sound and of things. And everything that I’ve learned in sound, I just use every day in picture.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh…That’s awesome. That’s a great… I feel like all editors should have at least like…I don’t know…. a couple weeks working with the sound, like somebody like Jane Tattersall that would bring a lots back into the edit suites. Well, my next question is how do we find work in our area? Like…what are the ways of getting your next job? For myself, it’s just been word of mouth for me. And I find, like I mentioned earlier, working in the TV station, a lot of young producers and directors started their careers there too. So, I made these connections with all these people just starting their career. And then as I got more seasoned, they were also getting better and doing more, and they would remember me from back in the day. And so I’ve got a lot of work either through the people, directly through them, working with them, or they said, “Oh, you should go talk to Sarah.” And then slowly as I… and then I just built a reputation. I work with the same directors and the same producers often over and over again. I’m guessing similar to Jeremy, I started working on a series called Caution: May Contain Nuts. And we did five seasons, and then we did Tiny Plastic Men, so we did four seasons of that. And then we did another show called Delmer. And so I just kept working with that production company on all of their shows, and that’s kind of how it’s been going. And then it’s helped being part of the CCE and getting nominated for awards and for people to put their name out there because I’ve been also lucky enough to get jobs by not even winning the awards necessarily, but my name being on an awards nominee list. Then somebody’s looking for an editor, they wanted somebody new to work with, and I’ve gotten contacts that way too. So yeah, it didn’t really matter that I was in Edmonton for some of those jobs. They just found me through an award list. And then I got to work on a cool show that wasn’t based out of Alberta. So, that was a neat turn of events for me. Let’s go backwards. We’ll start with Roderick in this one.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Well, I was the same as you kind of starting off. It was always word of mouth. It was always through like people that I’ve worked with before that would then seek me out under next projects. Lots of things like, “Hey, do you know an editor?” “Yeah. Oh yeah. Actually, I just worked with somebody.” So, it was a lot of that. And that’s how I relied on getting my next gig for the longest time. And I kept consistently busy. Now lately, I’m in that kind of world of being represented by agents, and so my agent now plays a bigger part in terms of getting me into doors, where I normally… before I got an agent, I normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to, because either it’d be too late because I didn’t know about them or the particular job. So, I get that. I still get my regular sort of people I collaborated with in the past. And you make a really great point, Sarah, about the whole kind of awards and nomination thing, because it is another way to get your name out there and doing things like this and just being visible and being upfront as somebody that people can recognize and look at and seek out.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, I totally want to touch on the agent stuff.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
So, we’ll talk about that again later, but I think-

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Sorry. Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
I would just be curious to know your experience and if anybody else has got experience with that. How about Jeremy?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Basically, it’s word of mouth for me. And like I said, I got partnered up with Clattenburg early on. We were doing a beer commercial. And then one day, the editor at the post house said, “Yeah, Clattenburg has some short film or feature length film. I don’t know. I don’t have the time for it.” And so for 13 hour days for five days straight, we cut the first black and white feature. And then it got sold as a series, and that just was along that path. And everything else in my career has basically been with people that were brought on as producers on that or actors from the show that have done other things, and just that kind of word of mouth. Unlike some people, I haven’t been too blessed with nominations or anything. Trailer Park’s not really one of those things that people go to and say, “Oh, the editing is so amazing on that show.” So, that doesn’t get me any gigs. It’s just working with the small people in this community that are tight-knit and having that word of mouth is a godsend really.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Sorry Jeremy, but the editing in Trailer Park Boys is pretty damn good.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Sometimes. Sometimes.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, it’s very important.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yes, an iconic television. It’s like it doesn’t get much bigger than that in Canada. It’s amazing.

Sarah Taylor:
Come on!

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Well, we are blessed with our fans that are still following us, even though we’re not so active. We did the animated series, which is… that was so different, cutting animated from the stuff that I was used to. It was a big learning curve, but I was-

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
No kidding.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
… blessed with some good people that help me along on that path.

Sarah Taylor:
I didn’t even think about… I noticed that that was on your resume, and I didn’t even realize, well yeah, that’s a whole different world, doing animation editing versus normal picture editing.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah, you’re just cutting sound and hoping that the picture won’t suck later.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, I love it. That’s awesome. Okay, how about Annie.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
The situation in Montreal is, as you can imagine, a little bit unique in that we’re dealing with the two solitudes. And I always get my jobs through producers and directors that I’ve worked with before, but there’s the added difficulty of crossing over between the languages sometimes. And usually what ends up happening is a francophone director will get a gig in English, and then they will meet me and they will bring me over to the French side, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be asked to do those jobs. There’s many, many great francophone editors in this town. So, that’s the way I’ve managed to cross over to do work in French, but it hasn’t happened as much as I would like. So generally, I work for two or three production companies in our town. And some of them are service jobs, and some of them are homegrown productions. And there’s a few shows like Transplant that I’ve been cutting for the last two seasons that are shot in Montreal, so I got the gig. But generally, it’s those relationships with the production companies that are doing big budget stuff, and I’ve been lucky enough to get those gigs, but it is tricky. And in terms of agents and stuff, I know a lot of other editors who have ditched their agents because all of the jobs come through word of mouth, and they just don’t feel like they want to cough up the 10% or 15% to the agent because it’s not really bringing them anything, because it is such a sort of a word of mouth kind of community here. So in Montreal, it doesn’t really work. But definitely, I think we are all looking at how things are changing in terms of tax credits and jobs being kind of done remotely. And I got a job in LA and I got a job out of BC. And so because there’s such a demand for labor, sometimes people are willing to take the hit in terms of the tax credit and hire you out of province to work somewhere else. So, that’s starting to happen I think more and more.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s really great to hear. I think Roderick, you have a similar story where you’re working in BC on a show. And I think even for myself, over COVID was working with a company in Italy. So, there’s like a weird random things that can happen. I don’t know how tax credits work there, but typically, it was always like, “Oh no, sorry, you need to be an Ontario resident or you need to be an Alberta resident because we need this tax credit.” So, it’s really great to hear that that’s shifting. I think through COVID, we’ve realized we can do work anywhere. It’s possible.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Exactly.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
A lots great to hear.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Lisa.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yeah, it’s the same thing. I find out from word of mouth from producers and directors I’ve worked with in the past. I’ve never had an agent. I think I looked into doing that at one point because I was hoping that it would bring a variety of other projects or higher profile projects. But I found from talking to other people, at least in Vancouver, that it is pretty much word of mouth and your reputation. So, I just haven’t thought that it would be something that… because I kind of feel like I’ve got a name for myself here, so I think people will call upon me. I have to admit though, some of the bigger projects that have come to town you’d miss out on, and I kind of wonder what was that because either you didn’t get the connection of the person that was involved or agents got there beforehand. And people, sometimes they’ve gotten interviews, and you didn’t even get a chance to interview and they’ve already got the job. So, it depends. I can see a benefit to agents, but for me personally, I’ve been, I guess, fortunate to have not to had to rely on one. In Vancouver, the climate’s a little different in that it’s a heavy service industry here, and they do a lot of shooting on bigger shows, but they don’t necessarily hire editing here. So, it’s tough because we primarily… most of the shows that work here that hire editors traditionally have been Hallmark and Lifetime. And right now, it has sucked up quite a few of our talent so that people aren’t available for the bigger shows that do come to town that would maybe hire local editors. So, it’s tough because you do want to get better shows to work on, more creatively interesting shows to work on, but for a lot of us it’s really difficult because those opportunities are pretty slim. So, there’s so many of us, and then we’re all vying for the same kind of jobs. And we really don’t have a lot of local independent Canadian production happening here as well. We lost our Western drama division years ago, so everything sort of is being developed out east, and it’s not really happening out here. I’m very fortunate to be starting on a show that is a local show, and I have been very fortunate to work on local shows in the past, but we really don’t have as much as, say Toronto does with their co-productions. It’s very competitive here.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s kind of that idea of… same with like in Alberta. Maybe it’s similar in Nova Scotia where there’s shows that got shot in Alberta in the Mountains in Calgary all the time, major, huge shows. And the thought of post is like meh…not even a…yeah…which is unfortunate.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
I just wanted to ask… like I said, I’ve been really lucky to be working consistently and on good budget shows and interesting shows, but I got to admit that it’s usually like there’s one or two. And are you actually in a position to pick and choose between two, or God knows, three projects? Does that exist in the rest of Canada? Is that something that happens. Because I’m like, woo, okay, I got that show for the next three months, woo-hoo. And I’m not complaining. They’re great shows, but there is one, and I know there’s six of us in town that… and so it’s kind of like that here. I don’t know. What is it like for you guys? Do the people living in bigger cities or with agents, does that make a difference? Are you picking and choosing or-

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I think to a certain degree, they’re like in Toronto anyway, there is a lot more productions going through here and looking for editors. And I mean, once a while…we started up after the lockdown and production started going back, and everybody was clambering to get crewed. And so there was so much to choose from. During that time, there was actually a lot to choose from in terms of where you wanted to end up first. And even now, I find that there is… my agent, I’ll call and kind of coming up to the end of a show that I’m on, it’s like, “Okay, so what’s coming up?” And she’ll usually say, “Okay, well, there’s this show, there’s this show, and there’s that show. Which one are you interested in? Which one should we pursue?” Right? But that doesn’t mean that I’m like, all three shows want me. It’s like what do I want to go for?

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Right. Right. That’s great.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
And also is it like, do you want to get into features on your next round? Do you want to go into series? Right?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
So, there is… and then plus, and that’s what the agent is sort of presenting to me. But sometimes, at the same time, I’ll have producers and directors I’ve worked with before also emailing and calling and saying, “Hey, somebody’s coming up, what’s your availability?” So, I got to weigh all that together.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Right.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
So I mean, it’s Toronto, right? Because I could imagine that it’s not like that countrywide, but that’s what I’ve experienced. And not just me, but also other editors that I talked to as well.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I have to say that out east out here… it was funny, when Lisa was referring to out east, I was thinking-

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
How far east?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah. This far east, we maybe have three or four shows, tops. I have to say that there’s a lot of resentment in my heart sometimes when I hear of a show shooting here, and then I hear that, Toronto. That’s where all the post is going back. And I’ve started a post house here in hopes of keeping some stuff here, but it’s hard. Even with a post house, we were the lab on The Sinner, and they didn’t even want to talk to any of us about editing that. So, it’s… shows come in, and they’ve already planned they’re going out. They’re not going to even sit here. And sometimes, they don’t even process their footage here when they’re done shooting. They just ship it all out to Toronto or New York or LA.

Sarah Taylor:
Or they bring their own crew. I know that happened… I was talking with the editors of Ghostbusters, and they went to Calgary and were doing cutting in Calgary. I was like, oh, I’m glad that you cut it, but I was like, oh-

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
There’s been some editors that have cut shows that have been shot here, and that we were hoping crews would be working here. But yeah, they went back, one editor there and one editor here.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Split.

Sarah Taylor:
For me in Alberta, I just say yes to everything. Now, I’m trying to say no more, but I often find that I’ll be like, oh God, every… and especially after COVID, and we paused and then everything started again, I was like, this hasn’t worked well for me. I have too many things to do. It’s all doc, mostly doc for me. And so the only scripted show that’s been happening as of late has been Heartland, and that’s done now in Calgary, so it’s not even on my radar. So yeah, there’s definitely not any vying for options really.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Here in Vancouver, I think there’s a lot more opportunity to work on bigger projects if you’re an assistant.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:25:04]

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
They tend to get better opportunities in terms of the big features and working with editors that are iconic people. That’s cool for assistance in Vancouver. I just wish on some of the shows that were up here that are the bigger ones that they would at least interview. If we could just get an interview just to meet people. I find that the local producers here barely know what we do. It’s really… it’s sort of hard… you can’t even get yourself at the table, which is too bad, because we have so many talented editors and assistants here who are incredible. As I’m sure that we are across the country. It’s, again, trying to get the opportunity to get your foot in the door is a real challenge.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I got to figure too, that we’d be cost effective.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I know. I know.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Why aren’t they even considering that. I’ve cut shows that I know if it was cut in Toronto or somewhere else it’d cost even more than me cutting it. I’m pretty cheap.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Right now I’m cutting a show for CBS, which is normally would’ve been cut in LA, but it’s being cut in Montreal and there is an LA editor and then two Montreal editors. It’s a bit of a learning curve for the Americans, because they’re used to… they’re a bit chauvinistic when it comes to talent. It usually… It takes two or three weeks before they’re like, “Oh, you guys get it?”

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yes.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
It’s all like… I’ve seen it. I did a show for MGM. I did another show for CBS. Then the same thing happens every time. They’re like, “Yeah, I don’t think you guys… do we really… have you seen Seinfeld? Do you understand?” They really don’t think that we share any cultural touchstones at all.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh dear.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
They think we’re like Finland? Then they see your work and they’re like, “Oh, oh, okay!” They’ve sort of accepted it from the crew for a long time, but from… in post it’s kind of new. The show I’m doing now is a comedy and they’re like, “Oh, but you’ve done drama, but comedy that’s way different. You can’t possibly know what that is.” They get it and then they’re like, “Okay.” It’s really… it’s top heavy. It’s hard for them to get it at the beginning, but eventually they do. They have to… it’s, obviously, the bottom line. We’re so much cheaper, and the tax credits, and everything make it just much more attractive. CBS has a relationship now with the company I work with in Montreal a lot. It’s really a tough slog to get them to see the post as good as the crews are now. I think the crews are seen as top-notch, but at post they’re still not getting that.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
We’ve been saying this, I remember when I started out, it’s been that way since the beginning. It’s almost… When I started out I was on a big MGM series, the first, I think, it was the first visual effects series done in Canada called the Outer Limits. It was an amazing project and it trained a whole ton of people that have since gone on to do really incredible things, but the opportunities for that talent, the types of shows, levels of shows that we could be working on it hasn’t gone like we were all hoping it would. Do you know what I mean? It’s sort of stagnated.

Sarah Taylor:
And in BC, you have damn good editors. Is that what this is called?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yes, with IATSE.

Sarah Taylor:
And we have a post production allian… or association in Alberta, that’s talking to government and trying to like, promote Alberta editors and I know that Ontario has Ontario Creates so maybe and like there’s all these, I think people are trying to start. They are starting, but it’s still getting the message out there that giving us a chance or at least looking at the options. The more we talk about it maybe the more it’ll get better? I wanted to ask Rodrick, what made you decide to get an agent and how have you noticed the shift? Because I think people are curious about that.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I was very late and I was very hesitant in the whole agent thing, because for years and years, I’m cutting docs, I’m cutting features, I’m doing all this stuff, and I’m not having to look. I didn’t… as Lisa was saying, I didn’t want to give up 10%, right? But slowly but surely what I started discovering was the shows that I did want to get onto every time I contacted the producers or the production they’d already crewed, right? Way ahead of me even knowing that they were going to be in town. I was like, “Hmm, okay. Great.” Or I would get calls from those big shows saying, “Hey, we need another editor. We lost an editor. Are you available?” But, I’m already committed to something else that I’d gotten on my own, so I couldn’t really leave. And then the clincher for me was early in my career I would have up-and-coming creatives and professionals, “Hey, can we go for coffee? I just want to pick your brain about getting into the industry.” I’m like…

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
“…yeah, absolutely.” Right? Then slowly but surely those people a few years later are the ones that are getting the gigs that I wanted. I was like, “What? What’s going on here?” It was because they were repped. Pretty quickly I was like, “Okay, I got to change my tune about this whole agent thing.” I did my due diligence and I got signed up with Vanguard. What that has afforded me is having a line into these productions that are thinking about coming to Toronto. The first thing those productions do in the States and everywhere else is they call the agencies in Toronto saying give us a list of your editors, right? Already they’re looking at my resume or they’re putting my name forward before they even set foot in here. Sometimes before they’re even green lit to come here. So by the time they do come here I’ve already been tossed around in their head. That’s the biggest advantage for me in terms of… that and not having to talk money with the producers.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. That would be the thing I would want.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Going, oh yeah, you got to talk to my agent.

Sarah Taylor:
Talk to my agent!

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Sorry.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, I would love that. Sometimes I joke that I’m like, I’m just going to pretend my husband’s my business manager. He’s got a different last name. Speak to my manager.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah, that’s the plus, right?

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I still get my roster of people I collaborate with and producers. I’m more than happy to do that, but it feels like now I’ve got, as sort of being in Toronto, I have more choice in terms of what I want to do next, where I want to take my career. And my agent is also very keen, tuned into what I want to do or where I want to be in five years, in ten years.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
They’re strategic about where to put me. They’re not going to just put my name out anywhere. They’ll go, “Oh, no. That’s not for you. This one. I want you to work with this filmmaker, because I think this is a good investment in that.” Right.

Sarah Taylor:
You saying that makes me think it almost forces you to have like… a plan, right?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
A plan.

Sarah Taylor:
To think where do I want to go? Where do I want to be? Maybe other people do this, but I’m not the best at it. Where it’s like, “I’m busy. I’m working. I’m just going to keep working. I’m going to keep doing the thing I do, because I’m making money. Everything’s great.” But you need to sometimes pause or have an external person be like, “Well, what do you really want to work on?”

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
That was the first question they asked me. Where do you see yourself in five years? What kind of shows do you want to cut in five years, right? Within the year they got me that kind of show.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, that’s awesome.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Right. I was just like, “Okay.”

Sarah Taylor:
What’s happening?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
This is great, right? Yeah. After a year we had a meeting, I was like, “Now what?”

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. Like you… That’s great. Oh!

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Right.

Sarah Taylor:
Well, that’s a success story. An agent success story. Okay.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah. It is.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s great.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Look, I have to say that it’s not just get an agent and everything will work out great, because it really is a relationship that you have to… as much as they’re interviewing you to sign you up to their agency you’re interviewing them. Is this the kind of person that has your best interest at heart? Are they going to work with you in terms of where you want to go? That’s something to really consider when you are talking to agents. A little bit about what the roster is like. Do you feel a niche in their group of editors that they might have that doesn’t match somebody else? Therefore, now you’re unique within their roster of editors. That’s something else to look into as well.

Sarah Taylor:
Awesome. That’s great. We have a couple of questions that actually go into our next topics. First, Alex wants to know, Annie, what Montreal post houses do you work with?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Well, it’s…become heavily consolidated lately. So there is MELS and there is Difuze, those are the two main places that are still hosting out edit facilities. Of course, there are lots of tiny ones, but those are the two main labs down. And they are both owned by…well one is owned by Quebecor, and that’s probably follows the move in most of the industry, just that consolidation. That’s like all the small places that used to be the little boutique places that are really fun to work at, kind of gotten eaten up. So that’s the situation in Montreal now.

Sarah Taylor:
Similar to Toronto, I feel like, too, right? There’s been a bunch of places merged. And then, Alex’s another question which is one of my questions is unions. So are you part of the union? What union are you part of? I’m a DGC Alberta person, but I haven’t had a DGC Alberta show in like five years, so it’s because it’s not happening. Yeah, where is everybody at with union?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I mostly focus on that. Occasionally, I’ll get a doc that might not be DGC and then I get dispensation, but I’m mostly doing DGC Ontario shows.

Sarah Taylor:
I’m IATSE and we have a Quebec Union also called Actis. They recently merged, because it was for a long time it was just the Quebec Union and then some of the cinematographers called on IATSE and said, “Hey, we would kind of like representation.” Then it was like the monster came in. In a way it’s been awesome. So now that the two unions have merged, and it depends on the budget level of the show, but IATSE is. Yeah, that’s our main union here.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Same with us. We have IATSE 891 here, which I’m a member and we also have ACFC West, which is an affiliate union. Then we have a ton of non-union work, as I said, with the Hallmark and Lifetime. So-
Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Right.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Because we don’t get a lot of work, a lot of people are a part of everything, because it’s just the nature of the beast is that we have to earn a living, so-

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Right.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Lisa, what’s the difference between the IATSE and the ACFC unions out there?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
It’s basically their contracts that they negotiate. Usually the IATSE shows are bigger budget-
Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I see.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
The ACFC shows are lower budget. The ACFC shows tend to support more local, locally independent Canadian or BC based productions, whereas, IATSE is this machine juggernaut for the service industry for all of the American TV shows that are coming here.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah, same here.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I’m in the DGC and at the same time I am also in IATSE 667 as a DIT.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Okay.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Digital imaging tech. That actually has got me way more phone calls than DGC. I’ve been offered gigs in Manitoba and elsewhere, just because there’s a shortage there. So it’s funny, because I hope that there’d be more shortage of editors, so I could get more editing gigs, but there’s not.

Sarah Taylor:
The next thing I was curious about is what is your work environment like? We can talk about, what was it like pre-COVID and post-COVID. For me personally, it didn’t really change. I work from home. This is my edit suite where we are right now. There was one… I had one client director that liked me to work out of her home studio, so I would go there a few weeks out of every couple months, but then that stopped. That was basically it for me. Work from home kind of creates my own schedule. That’s what it’s been like since I started freelancing in 2012. I sometimes miss the potlucks that we used to have in offices and getting to have an editor come and look at a cut if I needed to get a fresh set of eyes, I miss that sort of thing, but I like that I can export something at six o’clock and then upload it and I don’t have to run around. Yeah, I can be at home still. Then it was an easy transition during COVID, because I was already used to being by myself.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yeah, that’s great.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
That’s great.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I was working at…it was strange before COVID I was at Finale this facility working on a show, a Netflix show, and there was three editors working, and, I think, we had four assistants. Then COVID hit, and we went home, and finished the shows, and we were like within two days up and going at home to continue. And then everything stopped after that show. Thank God we had that show. That was good, because it gave us some work into the time when everything shut down and then there was nothing for months. Then I worked on an independent feature that was shot in Taiwan…shot in Taiwan, Beijing, Detroit, and in Vancouver. I worked out of my living room, if you will, on a system. That was great. My assistant was in… two assistants were in Taiwan. It was fascinating, because we were thrown into that remote workflow and it worked really well. Then started on this project that I’m on right now at home. It was shot in Toronto and I was working at home and then the director, who’s from Los Angeles, wanted to work in person. I came back to Finale and he was here and this is why we have a little plexiglass. He sits over behind me with his N95 mask on and all the safety protocols are in place here. We did his cut and then it went to testing. We’re dealing with our testing notes now. It’s been a bit of both worlds. I loved working from home. I really did, because I found I was more focused. I was able to… I don’t know. I was able to concentrate better, but what I missed dearly was, as you said, bringing people into the room to get their feedback and to brainstorm. It’s harder to do that on Zoom. You can still do it, but it’s something about bringing somebody physically into the room that I really missed.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
When COVID hit I was working on a show called Blood and Treasure for CBS and my husband was on the show also. We worked out of our home studio, which is this three of us here, my teenage son and the two of us editors working with headphones for three months. I could not wait to get back to the lab. They were on hiatus for a while, because it was all being shot in Thailand in Italy. They had to wait till the restrictions lifted and they were finally able to finish the shoot. We had 20 days left of shooting out of 170 days for the series. They finished the shoot and I went back to the lab. My husband kept cutting here and we’ve been cobbling it all together. Now, my husband cuts a show that shot mostly here, but during the director’s cuts he goes to the lab and they cut together in the studio.
I was very happy to go back to the cutting room where I had my assistant who I’ve worked with for 25 years and that whole… all the support that was wonderful. I really like my little room there where I can get out of the house and that suits me very well. A bike ride, and 10 hours, and then home.
It’s been… I work in different places in Montreal, but the main one has been, because the companies that I work with tend to use the same labs all the time. That’s where I’ve been at for the last two years and it’s very comfy, and I have my workout equipment, and my humidifier, so it’s very homey.

Sarah Taylor:
I was just curious about the… because you mentioned that your husband’s still doing some stuff at home, but then does his director’s cuts in the studio. Is it because that post house or that lab is connected already with the production that there’s a space for him to do that?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yes.

Sarah Taylor:
How is…?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Okay, that’s how it’s set up.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
They’re processing the rushes and they’re doing everything. When he was just assembling he was working at home and then when they had to come together it was considered sort of like A) safer and B) that was just a protocol, because they were having producers, and directors, and sometimes six people in the room. They needed a really big suite to accommodate all those people for screenings and stuff.

Sarah Taylor:
I feel like for me in Alberta, that’s the one thing that I kinda miss… I wish there was… I think there are some… I can probably find out if there is something that I can do but where I could, just for those moments, sort of like fine cut sessions, or getting to picture locked, not always have somebody come to my house, like, it’s okay, but during COVID that’s where it kinda became this kind of weird like “I don’t know if I really want you in my house, so to have that opportunity to be able to…”. And then I was like I have a server here, I can’t really take my server with me, too. Yeah, that’s like to have that option is pretty awesome.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I was in this odd, I only say odd because mostly everybody I knew once Toronto production started up again or post production they all started from home. I was kind of… me and a couple of other editors were actually went into a facility to start working in August, which in the beginning was very scary. Right? What I discovered was it was fairly safe, because everybody followed protocol. Everybody was followed the rules and the facility itself was great. One way into the building, one way out, that kind of stuff. What I discovered was it was really great for my mental health. Is what I found, because rather than being cooped up at home, which I could work from home easily and be productive and all that stuff. I do know of a lot of editors that have been working from home since August 2020 that are now just clamoring for anything social or interactive with another body. For the same reason, because I thrive on collaborating. I thrive on pulling other editors and assistants and saying, “What do you think of this?” Going for a walk to go get coffee, and talking story, and talking characters. The funny thing is on that first show, the first director came in for their director’s cut, and then the producer came in for their producer’s cut. After that it was all remote. All the creatives, directors, and show runners, and producers from that point on since then on three show shows, I guess, I’ve been on since last August have all been remote through like ClearView or Whatnot. That’s been odd, but being able to separate home life and work life has been really, I find, in terms of my mental health and dealing with the pandemic and being affected by it kept me sane. I was really thankful for that.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. Totally. That totally makes sense.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
How about you, Jeremy?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Well, I own my own post house. So-

Sarah Taylor:
That’s good. That helped.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
It’s very small. We are also a lab that do our own processing and I’m in the same building as the Trailer Park Boys. When COVID hit we were actually working on an animated series and a lot of the team were outside of the province already. We were using Frame.io and that’s how most of our workflow was going. When we kinda had to shut down I was still able to come to the building, because we had very few people in the building and all the protocols were fine. Then when we had to record some sessions and stuff, we’d Zoom in, but I was literally in the same building as they were in a back room hiding, and recording their lines, and stuff. It never really changed for me. It’s been pretty much the same. I guess, I’m the most lucky, because I have my own office. I control everything. If there was a moment where shut down had to happen and stuff I said to my staff, “None of you guys come in. You’re fine. You’ll get paid.” Or whatever. “Work from home, but I’m definitely not going to be trying to work from home.” I tried, I really did. I was in a basement in, basically, a closet and my kids were upstairs running around all the time. Not too productive.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Not nearly as productive as being here.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. I have to say, during COVID when my daughter had to stay at home, it was a bit of challenging. That’s for sure. Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I end up doing a lot of tech support for their calls at schools than doing the editing I was supposed to be doing.

Sarah Taylor:
Totally. I think that’s a common theme. We have a few questions here. Gordon’s asking what we’re charging or if we’re charging for our home suites across Canada. I put mine into my day rate, because I’m always working for home. It’s not like per show. Certain companies, like the… I work with NFB will always pay a day rate plus the kit, which is great, but that doesn’t always happen. Yeah. It’s a bonus when I get it. Anybody else have any kit options?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
No one wants to say.

Sarah Taylor:
Nobody. We don’t want to talk about money. That’s what our agents are for.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
It all depends on the budget too, right?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I think that here in Vancouver, it’s some people don’t pay anything, I’m sure. Some people pay a hundred dollars a week. Then I know that, I think, through the ACE practices and also IATSE, I believe that if you have a machine and you’re working from home, I think, it’s on average, they’re trying to get people to get at least $500 for the office and everything. Which is still a deal.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s for the whole production.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Per week, but I mean that’s on the bigger budget things. I’m not sure about any.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah, that’s in Ontario that’s about the going rate. About 500 for the bigger budget shows. Anything smaller will just incrementally get less than that. Sometimes they go can you throw in your system? Depending on the show. Right? Five is probably the most that you can get. I think I got 550 once, but that was a really big budget show and they were like… That’s what the agent kind of –

Sarah Taylor:
Shout out to the agent.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I didn’t ask for it. I was like, “Oh, really? Okay, sure. You got it. Okay.”

Sarah Taylor:
I sometimes forget about the kit, the rental suite, the suite rental. When this last NFB thing they’re like, “Oh yeah. What’s your suite rate?” I was like, “Oh yeah. I should be charging for that.”

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
They break it down. It’s interesting, because they do break it down to not only your space, but your security, your internet, your utilities, your power, your…

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
If you’re in an office regularly, I don’t know, I should know, but I’m sure they’re paying more. It becomes sort of a fair and equity thing. Everything you don’t realize that you’re utilizing all the time.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. Another question was the process of moving from an assistant editor to an editor.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I was very lucky. Like I said, I started off as an intern. Last three months of the school year they actually wanted to hire me, so I graduated early. And I was assisting with commercials, some comedy shows, and some docs, and stuff like that. Like I said, I got partnered up, because the senior editor didn’t want to work on a show for one week and that just skyrocketed from there.

Sarah Taylor:
You snuck right in.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah, snuck in.

Sarah Taylor:
It’s mine now.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I’ll do it. No sleep. Sure.

Sarah Taylor:
I’m young. I’m eager. That’s awesome.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
I always ask my assistant editors to cut scenes and I’ve got to be honest, I look at them and I have a feeling just the same way I have about what I’m looking at my own cuts. How they’re doing, whether they have an instinct for it. If they’re really good, I’ll just say, “You know what? This is what should be doing.” There are some assistant editors who are super happy doing what they do. They’re organizational geniuses and that they love doing that. But if I see someone who’s got real potential I will push them and say, “You know what?” Often it’s not their personality or some of them are super young. Like, “You have something.” I can see right away that they have an instinct. The way they lay out their tracks, the choices that they make, they do things that I didn’t expect, and I’m like, “You know what? You should do this more.” I will give them more and more scenes to cut and I will talk about them to the producers first. Oftentimes they’re totally surprised. They’re like, “Really, that’s good.” Everyone needs a leg up and everyone needs a little affirmation to know that they have that thing. The judgment or whatever. I try and find ways to give people opportunities, whether it’s cutting a previously on or, like I said, scenes that I haven’t gotten around to. Then we talk about them. That’s the key part is taking the time to talk about them and saying like, “Okay, so why did you choose that? Maybe, you could do this.” I find that so rewarding and they often love it. The post houses hate me, because I try and promote them and everyone needs assistant, good assistant editors. Yeah. If they’re into it, it shows right away.

Sarah Taylor:
Would you suggest an assistant… let the editor know ahead of time, “Hey, I’m really interested in cutting scenes if you have any available” or to put that…?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Totally, absolutely. Yeah. I want to know. I want to know that that’s your interest. Like I said, some assistants, that’s not for them. They just don’t… it used to be when I startet…
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:50:04]
Annie Ilkow, CCE:
… it was like everyone wanted that, but it’s not necessarily the case now.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I have a thing I should interject, if it’s okay. Because I own a post house, I’ve employed some people over the years as assistants for me and for other people too. And one thing I’ve did really early on was a Lego test. I give them a kid Lego and I make them put it together and time them and see how accurate they were, and then I found that some of my interns that did it well were bang on great assistants.

Sarah Taylor:
Would they get Lego with instructions?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yep, with the instructions.

Sarah Taylor:
Because I’m not good at creating my own Lego images, but I could work on the one with instructions. I’m like, I don’t know how my feelings with the test.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
You would think you would, but I’ve given them little spaceships, Star Wars stuff, and the power supplies are backwards, the roof doesn’t close, all sorts of weird stuff and just little details and you start figuring out who’s got attention to detail.

Sarah Taylor:
So everybody who’s an assistant editor on this call, be sure to practice your Lego skills and then Jeremy will give you a job, he’ll know.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I also do the same test, so that sets the bar.

Sarah Taylor:
I love it.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I’ve only had one assistant ever be better than me on one test.

Sarah Taylor:
So next time we have a call, we’ll supply the same Lego kit to all the editors on this call and we’ll just do a Lego test.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
If you could see my room and the amount of Lego in here, I think you guys might all lose.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I love everything that Annie said because I completely follow that kind of train of thought. When I land on a show, I ask and I determine what kind of assistant they are. Are they the kind of assistant that’s a career assistant, love career assistants, or are they the assistant that wants to move up into the chair? As soon as I find out they are, then I’m one of those guys because I had really strong mentors. And so, I only find it fitting that I need to be a strong mentor to anybody that I’m working with. And so, because of that, I seek them out and I go and I encourage them. I do exercises with my assistants where I go, “Okay, I’m about to cut this scene, you cut it too. And then when you’re done let me know and let’s watch both of ours together and talk about.” And we’ll do that and I’ll find things that they’ve done that, “That’s great. I’m stealing that if you don’t mind.” Or sometimes I’ll go, “Okay, see. There’s this look. What do you think about this look that I used?” And they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I never thought of that.” So it makes them think about how to cut, not just cutting and how to look for performances. I look for pacing and all that. And if I work with the same assistant on another show, they maybe move up, then I start giving them scenes. And I say, “This is your scene.” When the director has notes, you are doing these notes and they’re yours. And I don’t hide the fact that they are, I tell the director, I go, “By the way, my assistant cut this,” and they love it. They’re like, “Really? Cool.” And then they take ownership and they go, can you tell them to…” And then all of a sudden, as an assistant, when they watch it on air, they watch it on the screens in the theater, they know that’s their work that’s up there. And to give that encouragement and that support I think is really important. But it is hard to make that transition and you just have to be very, as an assistant, make it known. I don’t think you should ever be scared to tell them what your ambitions and your passions are because if they don’t know, then they won’t be able to help you then.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That’s true.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And then just that question, do you have more than one assistant on each project? Or is it mostly one assistant, in terms of your guys’ teams?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
If it’s a feature, it’s usually one assistant. I’d be lucky. And we’re trying to change things here in Ontario, where we have a more complete roster in terms of the crew, where we have a trainee and all that. If it’s series, especially if it’s a bigger TV series, usually they will have two firsts, a second and a trainee.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Nice.

Sarah Taylor:
And they’re working amongst all the editors on the series?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
For the most part. I like all hands on deck. Although I did work on Killjoys where there were two first assistants and they focused on one editor, and the other assistant would work with another editor at the same time. That’s a bit harder because then they’re spread thin, I think, because not only are they doing what you need done, but they’re also doing what the department needs done, so it’s a bit trickier for them to manage. But I like all hands on deck where everybody’s just like, “Can you do this? You pick this up and do script sync on that one, while I do this bin and all that.” That’s great.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Because that’s what I find for us in Vancouver, we’re lucky to get. Usually you’ll have one assistant, if you’re on a series, you’ll have two, hopefully, but we rarely have a second assistant position. And we rarely have a visual effects editor. So the opportunity, when I started, it was back in the day when they were still shooting on film and you would have three first assistants, two seconds, a production assistant, and a whole other visual effects team. And since that time, over the years, it’s becoming less and less and less and less. The coordination side of things has gotten bigger it seems, but the editorial teams are, it’s just you and your assistant. And it is, I find, a lot of times, the assistants are so run ragged doing everything that there’s no time to have them cut. I’ll say, “Do you want to cut?” And they’re like, “When am I going to cut? I can’t.” And it’s a luxury now to have them come in and watch cuts. It’s a real issue here I find, but in my words of wisdom to somebody who’s an assistant that wants to cut as everybody else, let people know, let everybody know, and try to cut as much as you can. And back in the day when I was learning, I wasn’t allowed to touch the machines because it was heavily unionized and I’d had to come in on the weekends or late at night to figure them out and to play with stuff. And now I just find it so tragic because we’re all connected, all the materials there. I would kill to be able to learn that way now because that’s what I would do. I would come in on the weekends and not look at what the editor had done and start cutting my own scene and then I’d get it all done. I think it was really great. And I’d be like, “Oh my God, let’s see what…” And then I’d go into the bin and find out how the editor cut it, and I would look at it and go, “Oh my God.” And I would just do that constantly and it was fascinating because you could compare stuff and it forced you to see things completely differently than… and you were just so… That’s how I learned.
And then, the editors would find out that I was doing that, and then they’d have conversations and certain editors were more giving of their time and discussions, which was fantastic, but I do find now it’s really tough because our assistants have no time. We all don’t have any time. Everything’s just go, go, go, go. And I just thought with COVID, I thought, “Oh great, they’re going to give us more time. The schedules are going to get more relaxed. We’re going to get more help,” because we need more help. Because that hasn’t unfortunately happened in my experience, it’s the same schedules.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Are you guys finding that the lab is doing less of the work and your assists are doing a lot of the syncing and stuff like that? Or is it different for you guys? Because I am the lab and my own team, my team, but doing all that stuff. But I know that some people, they rely on the lab to provide them with all the files on the drive and they just start cutting and labeling and going from there. So your assists might be busy, are they loading footage, raw data, converting it, transcoding, applying LUTs, stuff like that, or are you finding that they’re just busy with keeping up with notes and all the other-

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Here, it depends on the budget of the show. The lower budget Hallmark shows, the assistants, they’ll hire somebody to come in at night to do the syncing. The things that the bigger budget shows, like the one I’m on now, the facility will do that for us. So the assistants are strictly receiving the synced material and are bending them and grouping them and preparing them. So in our experience in Vancouver, it’s totally budget based.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
In Ontario, very much so there’ll be shows where the assistants are managing and transcoding and syncing, but then there’s the bigger shows where the lab does it and then the assistants just gets everything and bins, and then they organize and they prep everything in the avid for the editor.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Generally here, it’s always the lab that preps everything, even on docs and low budget stuff. Yeah, it’s good because there’s plenty, like we were saying, there’s plenty for the assistants to do otherwise already.

Sarah Taylor:
And Edmonton, or for me, some shows will say, “Okay, you can have an assistant.” And then I’ll be like, “Yay.” And then recently I’ve just been like, “Okay, I’m going to just hire you to do this for me because I’m busy on this other project, so can you sync and organize my footage?” And it’s been working great, but I’m just going out and doing that because I want to save my time. And so, assistants are important. Thank you, assistants. Thank you a lot.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Especially nowadays too, for all of us, I find that the expectation with less time to do it, fully temp scored, fully sound designed, fully temp visual effects. It’s like a massive undertaking. And there’s two of us.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That’s right. In Montreal, we don’t really have that American sort of structure of first and second assistants. It’s just like everyone does everything and everyone pitches in. And some people just like, it’s just their… It’s luck of the draw. Someone happens to know After Effects, someone happens to be really great with music or sound effects or whatever. And then so you just go like, “oh, okay, you.” And that’s when division of labor happens kind of that way. It’s just a bit random, but that’s Quebec, it’s very not hierarchical. It’s just all hands on deck. So that’s the way it works here. But it’s not something you want to rely on, but that’s generally the way it works.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I miss the hierarchy, in terms of training opportunities, because it’s a real shame that we… That’s how you learn. You learn by watching, you learn by seeing what other people do and you get that experience that when the assistants were busy, they’d throw the second assistant, “Okay, you do this temp score, can you figure out this visual effect?” And it would be, we’d be so exciting. It’d be like, “Oh my God, I could do something other than paperwork.” And it’s sad because I think a lot of people are being thrown into, especially now, thrown into situations where they’re not prepared and they’re not trained. And it can backfire, obviously, for everybody’s sake. And so, I think it really, and especially now that we are working more remotely, the people are saying it’s even harder to get learning opportunities. And I think that’s something that we really have to be aware of and figure out a way to work, because it’s our future and things seem to get busy, but we need to really look at the…It shouldn’t always and it’s this whole thing we’re all going through right now with this horrible incident that happened in the States on the set of Rust, where there’s a definite hierarchy for a certain reason. And traditionally, that hierarchy has been, sometimes it’s for safety, sometimes it’s for respect, sometimes it’s for communication, sometimes it’s for politics. There’s many, many reasons why this hierarchy, over time, has been the way it’s always been. And to lose that now because of budget, if we aren’t careful, it’s going to really impact our ability to work properly and to serve the client’s needs, which are huge, big studio, sometimes, expensive things if they aren’t getting what they want.
So it really would be my plea somehow to say to producers and people who are in charge of budgets to really not look at being a hero to save money, 5 cents, to look good for the production. When in fact if you spent more and supported your team and trained people so that we can work together towards the future where we all learn and we all… how I was privileged to have come up the ranks of that system, it would just make this world a better place, and it would be less stressed and more happy people.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, totally.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And better creativity, I think too. You got more minds working on it. It’s just going to get better.

Sarah Taylor:
Well, that kind of brings into another question. Our working conditions, our working hours, what is it like? In our different areas of the world… Of course, in light of what happened on the set of Rust and with IATSE and the States wanting to strike, how are things in your world? For me, luckily, because I’m working by myself and my house. I do an eight-hour day. I don’t push myself… sometimes it’s only six hours, depending on where my creativity is that day. But as long as I meet my deadlines and get things done, I’m okay. I had to learn to do that. I had to force myself to be like, these are my working hours, so I need to make sure that I can try to learn how to be creative in these hours and not burn the candle or whatever they say, midnight oil, because I have a young family. So for me, once that happened, I like, “I can’t do this.” I can’t function as a human working 10 to 12-hour days and then trying to be a mom. So I made that choice, but I know that’s not the choice that’s easy, that can be made by many other people. So I’m curious, how does it work in the other parts of Canada?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Work-life balance is so important to me, presently. I used to be one of those guys, years ago, where it was like, I’ll work as long as I can, hours upon hours to get the work done. But then, you slowly realize, or you get better at actually being more productive in the shorter amount of time. And then, once I had a family, I was like, “I can’t do that anymore.” So what I started doing was actually going into work super early, like you know 6, 6:30, so that by the time everybody starts rolling in, I’ve done half the stuff that I needed to do for that day. So I’m less stressed and I can leave when… there’s still going to be late nights, there’s still going to be a cut is due, and I’m a bit behind and that’s still going to happen. But I try to make sure that that’s not every day, and as long as it’s not… and I get to see my family at the end of the day and chill and relax and then go in the next morning, that’s really important. I think that eventually everybody should strive for that ideal.

Sarah Taylor:
I think that those conversations we’re having more, where we’re like, “We need to be human,” and I feel like something I always like to share with younger editors is that you need to bring life to your edit suites too. You’re telling stories about life, but if you’re not living life, then… you need to be part of life too. And so, I think that’s really important. And also the morning times. It’s probably super nice to go into the office, it’s quiet, nobody’s there usually that early. I would get so much work done if-

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I love it. I was always a night owl until I had kids. Then I was like, “Okay. Forget that.” And it’s great leaving early in the morning because the kids aren’t up yet, so you get to sneak out.

Sarah Taylor:
There’s no traffic, probably, that’s pretty sweet.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Exactly.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s awesome.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
My routine is, I get up at seven and get my kids off to school, and then I’m in the office at 9 and I don’t leave until maybe 12 at night. But that’s not because I’m editing the show necessarily, it’s also because I’m trying to run a business and do other things here. And sometimes I’m just in the office taking a few hour breaks, watching movies and TV shows to just be a little bit more aware of what’s going out there and stuff. And because I cut predominantly comedy, I try to watch comedy from all over the world as much as possible just to get a sense of what other people might think is funny. So that keeps me busy. And then the weekends are totally my family time. That’s it. No emails, no phone calls, unless the building’s burning down.

Sarah Taylor:
I just want to quickly, as a sidebar, what’s the most recent thing comedy wise you’ve watched from somewhere else in the world that you were like, “That’s great.”

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Oh, okay. It’s going to make me sound like a weirdo, but I do watch a lot of weird shows. There’s this thing called Last One Laughing on Amazon Prime, and it started off in Japan. And then there’s been an Australian, and a German, and Italian, and Spanish, and Mexican one, and Indian one. I’ve watched every different country’s versions. I just finished watching the second season of the German one, and it’s ten comedians locked in a room for six hours, where they try to make each other laugh, but if they laugh, they get voted out and the last one at the end wins all the money.

Sarah Taylor:
I love it.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That’s awesome.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And actually, there’s supposed to be a Canadian one that Jay Baruchel is rumored to be hosting, but I don’t think they’ve shot it yet. And that’s something I’d like to work on, or at least maybe get one of the Trailer Park Boys on, see if they can survive.

Sarah Taylor:
I would not.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I was just going to say that I think, for people to keep in mind is to know your worth and take care of yourself. Because, as a younger person, I didn’t do that. I didn’t know my worth, I didn’t know that somebody asked you to do something you kind of felt was inappropriate, you just did it because it was like, “Oh my God, I’ll never work again.” And I guess now I’m just starting now, as old as I am, to have a confidence to say, “No, this isn’t right. I’m not being treated right.” So saying no sometimes can be a good thing. And it’s taken me a long time to learn that. And I think if more of us do that, I think it might be a better working conditions for everybody. So does this really have to go out tonight?
Does it really? Or can this wait till tomorrow? Because I’m very aware of schedules, I’m very responsible, I work very hard. But I think there’s a certain point where you have to let… and I try to, when I’m working with directors or producers, they say, “We need to get this done.” I have to say to them, “Look, let’s bring the assistant in and let’s find out how long this is going to take, and how late in the night is that assistant going to be here to make sure that this gets out. And are you really wanting this assistant to stay till X amount of time?” And I involve the assistant so that they can say… we block it out. Because I think people don’t real… a lot of people don’t have a clue what we do, and they certainly don’t know what assistants do, and they certainly don’t know how long it takes.
So when they ask for things, and things happen, like they always happen, magically in post. And I find that when I bring people in and have that discussion, that directors and producers will go, “Do the best you can.” There’s leeway, but you can not guilt them into it, but go, “Guys, how important is this?” And I don’t think a lot of people do that. And I do think that I wish that, again, as a collective whole, we start doing that, because it can wait for the most part.

Sarah Taylor:
Well, there’s moments where it’s like, is the broadcaster actually going to watch this on Friday at five in the afternoon?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Exactly.

Sarah Taylor:
They’re not going to watch it till Monday.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
I’m on the wrong show to be asking this question right now.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s reality though, it’s the reality of lives. What’s it like everywhere?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
I really love what everyone’s been saying, but it is the kind of show where none of those things apply. There’s two different situations. One is where you’re like, “I’m not going to let this go out until it’s as good as it can possibly be.” And then there is like, “I am here for 10 extra hours because of someone else not doing their part.” So those are the difficult ones, for sure. But I do try and find, some days I’ll work 16 hours, but some days I’ll work four and I’ll leave. So I find my ways to make it feel equitable, but sometimes you’re working with people who have zero consideration for what happens downstream. And that’s just the way it is.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And that happens a lot. That does happen a lot.

Sarah Taylor:
We touched a little bit on it, both, I believe Annie and Roderick have worked out of their district, you could say. But Lee had asked, how did you manage the tax credit thing? What has everybody’s experience been working in other areas of the world?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Well, I was working on a co-pro, I guess it was co-pro where I was working in LA, but I was being paid by a Canadian company. And that’s how that worked out. And then I was hired by a BC company to do MOW, and then last year I did a co-pro with France. So I spent a month there, but that was it. In terms of the structuring of the finances, it was a little of this, a little of that, but generally still, it’s mostly the Quebec tax credit that determines my gigs for sure.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I’m fairly new to working out of Ontario. I haven’t actually started the BC show yet, that’s in a couple of weeks. But in the end, it’s like if they want to hire somebody outside of their province, then it’s their purview to lose whatever tax credit they want for that talent that they’re trying to get in. So I think that was what happened to me. I’m not sure what the distinction that was. And as everything everybody’s been saying, it’s been easier, or more acceptable, to do that now. I think people are looking outside of their bubble in terms of where they’re at to really try to find the best possible people for the job. To Jeremy’s point, I do support, and wish, that they did actually start for where they are and start looking. And if there’s nobody there, then start looking elsewhere. But I feel like I’m a bit of… I feel guilty because I worked on Chapelwaite, which is shot in Nova Scotia, but then posted in Toronto. I’m working on Billy the Kid, which is shot in Calgary now.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Cool.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s cool though. That’s great.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
The thing is, but it’s not as if they’re like, “We’re going to shoot here, and then we’re going to find somewhere else.” I think it’s different. I think they find the servicing production or where they want to base their post and then they go, “Where do we want to shoot?” I think sometimes it’s the other way. So they’ve settled into where their home base is and then they find the location that fits their genre, their project.

Sarah Taylor:
Or there’s a comfort, they’ve worked in that production house before and so this is where we’re going to go back.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Exactly. And then, from the LA thing to going up to BC and then going, “Well, I want to go home and cut.”

Sarah Taylor:
I want to spend eight months cutting in my home instead of-

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Exactly. So it’s challenging.

Sarah Taylor:
And I think with remote editing, now, we’re figuring out, there’s lots of great software out there that we can do remote sessions with. The opportunities could open up. For me, I’ve worked with a company out in Italy during COVID, but they were specifically like, “We want to do this project that’s kind of COVID related and we want to work with editors from around the world.” So they went out and looked for people from different places. And so they had an editor in Australia, they had me in Canada, they had somebody, I think, somebody from the States.
I think the opportunities can be there. It’s just how we get our names out into the international market. How do we make people know that we exist, and like Annie’s saying, that we actually can edit. We’re not just, “Not at all.” And I don’t know in Canada being… I don’t know what they would think we’re doing like that. We watch Netflix, we watch all the same shows, we understand the pop culture references. I think that’s interesting. And another question I had was… other than the CCE, because this is the best editing organization in Canada, are there any other local organizations that you are part of or have been part of in the past that has helped you in your career or in your creative journeys?
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:15:04]
Sarah Taylor:
… in the past that has helped you in your career or in your creative journeys?

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I’m involved … within the DGC in Ontario, a bunch of us editors have gotten together actually, and formed our own little, not official DGC, but a BIPOC diversity and inclusion committee that we actually have this … we started it back in April when lockdown started, and this all has to do with diversity inclusion training, building crews, building stronger crews within Ontario through either courses and training and mentorship and all that stuff. Organizations like that exist, and I know that the CCE does their own mentorship thing too, as well. And also there’s other organizations like that in Toronto, like the BIPOC Film & TV, where you can join up and be a part of a community that’s all headed towards the same goal of trying to be successful and support each other in doing that. So there are lots of organizations like that, that you can network and meet people and make connections, and then down the line work on stuff together.

Sarah Taylor:
There’s one in Alberta called Creatives Empowered, and it’s another BIPOC organization specifically for creatives in all arts. And they started up probably around right after COVID hit. And they’ve been doing lots of really great things here. And then my last question, what are you working on right now? And what might be coming out soon for us to watch? I have a request for Lisa to tell me when Zombies 3 is going to be released, because my daughter’s very excited and wants to know, will there be Zombies number four?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Well, I guess I’ll go, because I’m currently working on Zombies 3 and we just got our test screening notes back. They don’t have an air date, but it’ll be sometime, I think in the spring of next year. And you know what? I can’t say. But I think it will be hopeful that it will go on-

Sarah Taylor:
Excellent.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
In some way, shape, or form. Yeah, it’s a really fun… I got to say, it’s such an amazing… The cast is incredible. These young people are so talented and they do everything, they sing, they dance, they do their own stunts, they’re funny, they’re dramatic. And they have a really great chemistry. They have a whole new people that have come in and they all click so well. I’m so blown away, because I don’t know what I was doing at their age, but it certainly wasn’t… I’m just blown away by the talent that is there.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s great. Well, we’ve watched Zombies 1 and 2 on repeat for quite some time, well, I quite enjoyed it.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And the music, the music’s incredible.

Sarah Taylor:
I think it’s so fun.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yeah, it is.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. I don’t mind sitting down and watching it with her, so I was like, “Yeah, I’m talking to the Zombies editor today.” She’s like, “What?” So you’re a rockstar in our house.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Wow.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I didn’t realize, it’s very popular. Apparently it’s a huge hit worldwide too, so it’s-

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, that’s great.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And then I’m going to start on hopefully, a series called Reginald the Vampire. So I’m going from zombies to vampires.

Sarah Taylor:
I love it. That’s great. Jeremy, what’s up for you?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I just finished a show that was based off of a Facebook and YouTube group called Tracy and Martina. They’re two Cape Bretoners that are basically like Jersey Shore Cape Bretoners in a way. And that’s a weird comedy to work on, because I am in Nova Scotia and I do know a lot of Cape Bretoners, but there’s some things that they’re saying that are just, it’s a different language, it’s a different universe. And then of course, I do whatever trailer park stuff the guys do, because they own their own website. So they do podcasts weekly and their own little series and stuff, and yeah, that keeps me busy.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Jeremy, what’s your post-production facility called?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Digiboyz.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, I like it.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Digiboyz.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
All right.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
That makes sense.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s right, it does.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
It was because way back in the day, I started it with Clattenburg.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And we were at a coffee shop and he’s like, “Yeah, let’s start a post house.” And I’m like, “Uhhh.Okay.” I think I was 20 at the time.

Sarah Taylor:
Wow.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
That’s amazing.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah. And that’s the name we came up with because of Trailer Park Boys.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s so good.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I’m just wrapping up Billy the Kid, just waiting for my final notes before I lock. And then I’m starting that BC show, which is a CBC mini-series called Bones of Crows. It’s a five part mini series, it’s about residential schools. And yeah, so I’ll be working remotely for the first time for a while during the winter. And then in January I might see you, Lisa, because I’ll be over there for about two months.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Oh, that’s cool.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah. And then still working out there and then-

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And the best time of year to be in Vancouver.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yes, that’s what everybody says, and they’re all trying to sell me on it, and it’s going to be awesome. And I’m so looking forward to it, because I’ve always wanted to be out west. So yeah, I’m very, very looking forward to it.

Sarah Taylor:
And Annie, I have to say, I watched the first episode of Ghosts. I quite enjoyed it.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
It’s a very cute show. I have to say, it’s really fun and working on comedy as a lot of you know, is just the most demanding and surgical and precise kind of editing that you could do. And it’s wonderful for your chops. It’s been really great working on that show. And the writers are very funny and it’s a sweet show. The cast is… it’s like a big cast, and they’re all at the top of their game, so it’s a very fun show to do. I’ve got a few more episodes on that. And then Transplant just got renewed for season three, so I’ll be doing that sometime in the new year.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Which is a great series.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Really, that’s wonderful to work on. Joseph Kay, the creator is just like a dream to work with. He really appreciates editing. And again, the performances are really great. And there’s a little gap in the middle there, but it seems like there’s a lot of stuff happening in town, so I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. Let’s see.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s great. For myself, I’m working on a lifestyle TV series called Rodeo Nation, and it’s about indigenous rodeo in Alberta.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Oh, cool.

Sarah Taylor:
And that’s been super fun. And I just wrapped on a CBC version of a doc called The Last Baron, which is about a burger joint called the Burger Baron, and it is run by Lebanese immigrants. And so we’re now expanding it into a feature film, which was going to be called the Lebanese Burger Mafia.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Oh, great.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Excellent.

Sarah Taylor:
And yeah, we found that with the 46 or 44, whatever, 30 that we had to tell the story was not enough time. There was so many amazing stories of the journey these people made to come to Canada, and so we’re going to expand on that. And the filmmaker is the son of a Baron, so his dad owned a Burger Baron when he was growing up. So he decided to investigate, “Well, where did this come from? Why are all these Burger Barons owned by Lebanese families? What is happening?” So we unpacked all that. So that’s on CBC Gem if you want to learn about burgers. And then promptly eat a burger, because it’s very tasty looking at all that stuff. So then I’ve eaten a lot of Burger Baron in the last few months.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
For research purposes.

Sarah Taylor:
Yes, totally. And actually, I went to Burger Baron on Saturday, and the owner who’s in the doc was serving me, so I said to my daughter, “Hey, that’s the guy that’s in the documentary I worked on.” And she’s like, “Are you going to tell him that?” I was like, “Yeah, probably.” And so I said, “Hey,” and he’s like, “Oh my goodness.” And then he wanted to buy us something. Anyway, it was so sweet. And I’m like, “I know everything about you and you know nothing about me.”

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
“You have no idea who I am.”

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, “I’m this strange random blonde lady.” So yeah, they were all very sweet people, and yeah, it’s been fun.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Annie, did they improvise quite a bit on Ghosts?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Not at all.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
That’s good. Oh, really? Why?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Well, no, that’s not true. They improvised a lot and we didn’t use any of the ad libs. Yeah, no, there was a writer on set, and so they tried stuff, but generally I would say maybe 5% of the ad libs survived into the cut, yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Is that show based on a UK show?

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That’s right.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah, okay.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
The BBC show is in the second season only, and CBS bought it and remade it with most of the same characters, but a few sort of more American…

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Americanized, yeah.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
They do that with everything.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah, basically. Basically, yeah. But the two creators, very smart guys, very funny guys. They did New Girl and they’re really sharp and they have a good crew. But the actors are really amazing. And the crew in Montreal is spectacular. They rebuilt the whole house that they had made, that was a set in LA and they made it here in Montreal, and it looks amazing, I think, better than the pilot. So yeah, it’s really, really good.

Sarah Taylor:
Farid is asking, “What software did you train on before applying for jobs?” He says, “I heard Premiere for small productions and Avid for big ones. What do you suggest?” I cut Premiere, but I’ve worked on all of them. I think it’s good to know all of them.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah, I think that’s my advice, is know as much as you can. There’s always, “Avid’s the best,” or “Premiere is the best.” But for me, it’s like, no, it’s all going to churn out the same exact product, it’s you, it’s you that’s pressing the buttons, and that’s what creates the magic. But the more you know and feel comfortable about different software and different platforms, the better you’ll be when you do get a job. And you might not know everything about Avid, but at least if you’re familiar with it, then you can learn it. If you’re Premiere Pro proficient and you dive into Avid, you’ll learn what that language is and then you’ll pick it up and then away you go. So just don’t be intimidated by different technologies and things like that.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah, I think Premiere is great for productions that are sort of all in the box, so it’s really good to know that, especially if you’re starting out and you’re trying to build your reel and you’re going to be the whole show. Avid, it’s just for big series and stuff, it’s just a much more solid platform in terms of the file management and everything. It’s just for me, much more reliable.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
When I’m on a scripted, I’m on Avid, when I’m on docs, I’m on Premiere. That’s the way I like to work. Although with Script Sync, I want to try Avid and docs using that…[inaudible 01;30;03;23]

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I’m going to blow all your minds.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Oh yes.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I cut Final Cut Pro.

Sarah Taylor:
No.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Oh, no.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And I have forever.

Sarah Taylor:
Final Cut X or whatever it’s called?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Seven?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Ten?

Sarah Taylor:
Ten?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
X, yeah. Nope.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Seven.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Seven, I started with it-

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, I was a seven before too.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Me too.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I started when it was a Beta, and then I went to all the way up to X. And I do have Avid, I do have Premiere, and I do have DaVinci.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
But I’m way faster in Final Cut.

Sarah Taylor:
Okay. Tell us, why did you stay? Not that it’s bad, I’m just curious.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Why?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Why did I stay in it?

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Annie, why?

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, I know it’s gotten better. Obviously, I haven’t tried it.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Well, there definitely are limitations and stuff, but when they introduced roles in Final Cut, that just sealed it for me, because I could do multiple outputs and just from one timeline turn off the other roles, and they’re just gone, done. And for me, the turnaround is much faster with our workflow and stuff.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That makes sense.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
The Premiere has a lot of things going for it, but I also don’t like paying for software over and over and over. I have one account and everyone’s using that Final Cut, and I haven’t had to pay for Final Cut ever since I bought X way back in the day.

Sarah Taylor:
Right.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
And now it’s like $300 or something. It’s really cheap.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
That’s what it was when I bought it.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Okay. Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And it’s what? I don’t know. I think when-

Sarah Taylor:
That was 10 years ago, I feel like. It was a long time ago.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah, I think so.

Sarah Taylor:
Wow.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
But when I was starting out, I was on Media 100.

Sarah Taylor:
Me too.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Wow. I loved that.

Sarah Taylor:
You had two tracks.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah, the limitation, and then you’d export stuff-

Sarah Taylor:
You had two tracks and-

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And bring it back into the graphics stack to get it burnt…[inaudible 01;31;53;09].

Sarah Taylor:
There was no nesting or… What I remember when I found Final Cut, I think it was on Final Cut 3 and I’m like, “99 tracks of video.” And now I’m like, “Two tracks. I only use two tracks when I clean it up.” But yeah, oh, Media 100.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Amazing.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
So yes, I am using Final Cut, and I do pass it off to people onlining and sometimes I online my own stuff in DaVinci.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, so they worked out those kinks, kind of?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Not all of them.

Sarah Taylor:
Or you figured out the workaround?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah. Which we do, I think we do in all of the softwares, there’s like, “Oh, it doesn’t do that, but I can do it this way.”

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
That’s right. Or you buy a third party program, that maps it out.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, Automatic Duck.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s what I used to use.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I haven’t used that in a while, but yeah, I remember Automatic Duck.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s how I talked to the Avid when I was on Final Cut Pro.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That’s right.

Sarah Taylor:
I love it. Is there one project or series or something that you’ve worked on in your career that has left a real lasting impression on you as a human or as an editor?

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Good or bad impression?

Sarah Taylor:
Both. That could be… Yeah, take it in that direction. Why not? “I’ll never work with so-and-so again, because of this project.”

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
There was a director who would work with me, and when he wanted me to make a cut, he punched me in the arm.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
What?

Sarah Taylor:
That’s awful.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And that is definitely not a person I ever worked with again.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
No.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
There’s been directors who have like done the *snap* this and I stop. And I’m like, “Okay, no, that’s not happening. We’re not doing that.” But then they actually think that that’s okay, “Cut there.”

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Right now.

Sarah Taylor:
I had somebody who would stamp the desk, “Right here.”

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
And they don’t realize there is a lag, you might do that, but when I hit the keyboard, it’s not going to be right there.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
No.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Any positive ones? End it on a positive note. I’m just kidding, Jeremy, you gave us good stuff, [inaudible 01;33;50;29].

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
I probably have a positive one somewhere, I know. I loved working on Durham County. I got to say, it was probably the first time where I was like, “Ooh, Canadian TV could be really good.” It was dark and terrible and you hated all the characters. But at the same time, I felt like it was the first show that I ever worked on where it was close to my sensibility and we could really dig in. And the filmmakers were very daring and everyone was on board. That was very inspiring to work on that show.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I was a fan of that show when that aired. I loved it.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Oh, thanks. Cool.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
A highlight for me was working on a show called the L Word.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Oh, it was great.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Oh, yeah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
The original series.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Right.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, it was so good.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Awesome.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I know it’s going back a few years, but when you’re working on something at the time, you kind of know it’s special. And I knew it was very special at the time, but as the years have gone further away from it, you look back going, “God, we were so fortunate to have that opportunity.” And just the filmmakers that we were introduced to that we would never in my lifetime, ever get a chance to meet and talk to and learn from. And it was treated very much like an independent film. The showrunner, Ilene Chaiken, she was really good about letting the directors have their cut, and it was a respected cut. It wasn’t like, “Okay, get out of the chair, next.” Which sometimes happens, as we all know. But it was a great filmmaking experience, and again, it was revolutionary for its time, now it’s not so much. But at the time it was incredible. And they had incredible-

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Absolutely.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Guests, appearances. It was iconic, and it was really a highlight for me.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
A highlight that I had, one of my most memorable ones was working on a documentary feature called David and Me. It was about, back in the eighties, a 16-year-old was convicted of murder and he was innocent. And so the director of the film befriended him, and as we were making his story, the director was actively investigating and trying to come up with new evidence to exonerate him. By the time our schedule ended, nothing new surfaced, so we had to end the film with him still in prison. And the film was released and the district attorney in New York City saw it and opened it back up, and a few months later he was released.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Wow.

Sarah Taylor:
Wow.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Not that it was the cause, not that it was the reason he was released, but they were like, “Okay, we got to look into this.” So they opened it up again and he became part of a series of all these wrongfully convicted kids back in the eighties that were then released. And actually the filmmakers went back, we shot his release and we recut the film with the new one at the end.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Oh, cool.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
So good.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah, so that was really just amazing, and we got to meet him. And it was such a personal story for the director and just the investment that the ownership everybody had that was working on it. And Rubin Carter was in it too, “the Hurricane”.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Because he was a big champion of the guy. And yeah, so that was pretty special to be a part of.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
That’s when you’re making a difference.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
I think we all want to work on things that affect people’s lives.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I did have a positive note, it took me a while to figure it out.

Sarah Taylor:
Last one. Let’s do it.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Okay.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Jeremy.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
For me, it was working with Cory Bowles on Black Cop.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Oh, yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
That was the first dramatic thing that I cut in many, many years.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Oh, wow.

Sarah Taylor:
It was so good. You did such a good job.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Well, it’s a lot of him, you got to know that if you know Cory, right? But just working with him and the way he works and the synergy that we could have, no ego, that is the best kind of cutting for me.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
I’d love to have that on everything, where I do something, he does something, my assistant cut a scene that he watched it. It was just everyone’s in it to win it.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
That’s good stuff.

Sarah Taylor:
That’s the best one, when everybody’s egos are out of the game. We’re just there to create the best that the piece can be.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, it feels so good. Feels so good. Well, on that note, thank you everybody for joining tonight. This has been an awesome conversation. And thanks for all the people here that asked questions, and I hope everybody took a little bit of something with them. And maybe one day soon we can all get together in real life.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
That would be great.

Sarah Taylor:
That would be amazing.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
I know.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Thanks.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
It was so nice talking to you guys.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
Yeah.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Yeah.

Roderick Deogrades, CCE:
It was great to meet all of you.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Yeah, really.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Getting different perspectives from across the country, which is really cool.

Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, yeah. No matter where you are, you can do it. You can get a job. Just put yourself out there. You can do it. Awesome.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Taylor:
Okay.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
You did a great job.

Sarah Taylor:
Oh, thank you.

Jeremy Harty, CCE:
Thanks, Sarah.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Yes. Thanks, Sarah.

Sarah Taylor:
Bye everybody. Have a good night. Thanks, everybody. Bye.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
All right.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Good night.

Annie Ilkow, CCE:
Take care.

Lisa Binkley, CCE:
Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:
Thank you so much for joining us today, and a big thanks goes out to Annie, Jeremy, Lisa, and Roderick. Special thanks goes to Kimberlee McTaggart, CCE and Alison Dowler. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music by Chad Blain and Soundstring. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao.

The CCE has been supporting Indspire, an organization that provides funding and scholarships for indigenous post-secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca. Or you can donate directly to indspire.ca, I-N-D-S-P-I-R-E dot C-A. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry, and we encourage our members to participate in any way they can. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Till next time, I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.

[Outro]
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