Benjamin Duffield
C’EST COMME ÇA QUE JE T’AIME « Épisode 4 »
(Productions Casablanca)
Annie Jean, CCE
ZIVA POSTEC. LA MONTEUSE DERRIÈRE LE FILM SHOAH
(Films Camera Oscura)
FAST HORSE follows the return of the Blackfoot bareback horse racing tradition in a new form: the Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison Red Crow struggles to build a team with second-hand horses and a new jockey, Cody Big Tobacco, to take on the best riders in the Blackfoot Confederacy at the Calgary Stampede.
The Q&A was moderated by fellow editor Brenda Terning. If you would like to see FAST HORSE there is a screening on November 20th in Toronto, Ontario at the TIFF Lightbox Theater or you can watch it on Vimeo where it recently received a staff pick.
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2019, ?Special Jury Prize for Direction? 2020
CINEMA EYE ?SHORTS LIST? Nominee
TRAVERSE CITY FILM FESTIVAL 2019, ?Best Short Documentary?
SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2019, ?Special Jury Mention?
IMAGINATIVE FILM FESTIVAL 2019, ?Best Short Documentary?
MAORILAND FILM FESTIVAL 2018, ?Best Short Documentary?
BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL 2018, ?World Tour Selection?
YORKTON FILM FESTIVAL 2019, ?Best of the Festival? & ?Best Short Documentary?
Director: Alexandra Lazarowich
Producer: Niobe Thompson
Composer: Jonathan Kawchuk
Cinematography: aAron Munson, Daron Donahue, Sergio Olivares
Executive in Charge of Production, CBC Docs: Lesley Birchard.
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This episode was generously sponsored by Vancouver Short Film Festival
For much of her career, Cathy has focused on long form social issue documentaries, but the breadth of her talent is demonstrated with a wide-ranging filmography with credits in music docs, comedy TV shows, theatrical feature films, children’s programs, reality and lifestyle series. Her work has been recognized with several editing awards for such films as the classic feature documentary Forbidden Love (1992 Atlantic Film Festival), The Four Seasons Mosaic (2005 Gemini nomination, Best Editing in a Performance Program), And We Knew How to Dance (1994 Columbus, Best Documentary) and Omar Khadr: Out of the Shadows which received a 2016 Emmy nomination and won 2016 DGC Award.
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This episode was generously sponsored by Post City Picture and Sound
Pia is originally from Toronto and is now based in the UK. She is a BAFTA and CCE award winning editor best known for editing Tyrannosaur, The Crown et A Very English Scandal.
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This episode was generously sponsored by Jaxx – A Creative House.
For many post-production professionals, their introduction to the cutting room is through the world of Assistant Editing. This talk provides a deep dive into the role of the Assistant Editor across the spheres of scripted and unscripted film and television.
Panelists Shelley Maclean (Master Chef Canada, Kim’s Convenience, Jann Season 2), Maja Jacob (Loudermilk, Percy, Take Two), and Xi Feng (Last Train Home, The Apology).
They bring a wealth of experience to this discussion on workflow, technology, collaboration and teamwork in the cutting room.
The panel was moderated by award-winning editor D. Gillian Truster, CCE.
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Monté par
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This episode was generously sponsored by Post City Picture & Sound.
Kimberlee has been working in the Canadian film industry for over 30 years. She graduated from York University with a BFA in film, where she won the Dean?s Prize for Excellence and a national prize from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and TV.
More importantly, she met a bunch of cool people who inspired her then and continue to do so today. Despite spending her university years in Toronto, a city she loves, she was immediately drawn back to her home province of Nova Scotia where she has carved out a varied and successful career.
Kimberlee produced, directed, and/or edited several award-winning documentaries before beginning to work exclusively in post production in 1994. She also began to work exclusively on non-linear systems, glad to leave the Moviolas and Steenbecks behind! Kimberlee has edited several dramatic series such as Lexx, Gullages, Made in Canada, This Hour has 22 Minutes, Call Me Fitz, Studio Black, Seed, Pure et Diggstown. Her work on the Call Me Fitz pilot brought her one of the last Gemini Awards.
She was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for her work on both Call Me Fitz and Seed, as well as the feature film Blackbird. Kim took a break from editing for a few years to run a production company where she and her business partner produced several documentaries and two documentary series. She also worked as a business affairs consultant for other companies during this time, and executive produced several short dramatic films.
And now, after being back in the editor?s chair for 10 years, she is dipping her toes back in to the producing waters, beginning with the award-winning short film Pearls. In addition to serving on the Board of the CCE, Kimberlee serves as the Chair of Women in Film and Television ? Atlantic as well as the Editing Caucus Representative of the Atlantic Regional Council of the DGC.
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Doug is a post production supervisor based in Toronto and has worked on many Canadian classics like ?My Secret Identity?, ?Street Legal? and “The Kids in the Hall.” Doug has also worked on films like ?Requiem for a Dream.? and “The Shape of Water.”
Over those years Doug has earned the respect and friendship of many in the editing department as well as producers.
His leadership has put him at the forefront of in-demand Post Supervisors and is a model by which all in editing strive to achieve.
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He is an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Member and internationally renowned Film Editor, Story Editor, Creative/Editorial Consultant. Ricardo Acosta has been awarded with an Emmy, and has been nominated several times for Genie, Gemini, CCE and CS Awards. Ricardo came to Canada from his native Cuba in 1993, where he studied and worked at the world-renowned Cuban Film Institute in Havana.
He has been a fellow of the Sundance Institute (as alumnus and adviser) for several years for the Documentary Editing and Story Lab and The Composer and Sound Design Lab.
His film Sembene! (2015), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and at the Cannes Film Festival.
Marmato (2014) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
In this episode we discuss Ricardo?s role as a story rescuer and his work on Shooting Indians, Heman’s House, The Blessing et I am Samuel.
The Editor?s Cut – Episode 026
Sarah:
Hello, and welcome to the Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. In today’s episode, I talk with Ricardo Acosta, an editor based in Toronto, Canada, but he started his editing journey in Cuba, where he studied and worked at the world-renowned Cuban Film Institute in Havana. Ricardo is an alumni of the Sundance Institute, as well as a teacher and advisor. His outstanding work and keen sense of human condition has contributed to the success of several award-winning films that have premiered in film festivals around the world, including Venice Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and Cannes. In this episode, we discuss Ricardo’s role as a story rescuer and his work on Shooting Indians, Herman’s House, The Blessing, and I Am Samuel.
[Podcast Intro]
And action!
This is the Editor’s Cut.
A CCE podcast.
Exploring the art-
Of picture editing.
Sarah:
Ricardo, thank you so much for joining us today on the Editor’s Cut. You are currently in Toronto joining us via the internet, so thank you for sitting down with us.
Ricardo:
Thanks to you and very happy to talk about my experience. I really like your program very much.
Sarah:
Oh, thank you so much. We’re going to discuss more things about ethics of editing, documentary specifically. But I want to give the audience a bit of a summary of your career journey and where you started and how you discovered editing was your passion.
Ricardo:
I wrote something for the Canadian Cinema Editors about how I became an editor and I don’t know if I should read that.
Sarah:
Sure, if you want to. I remember reading that. It was so poetic and beautiful. If you’d like to read it, go ahead.
Ricardo:
I think I should do it. Yeah, I will try. First came the broken dream of becoming a classic ballet dancer. I was 10 years old and I was fixated with classical ballet. My mother and I agreed that I would go to the National Ballet School audition. For weeks, I rolled my feet on a wine bottle in search of the perfect arch. Audition day arrived and my mother and I were getting ready to travel to Havana. My grandmother asked my mom, “Where are you going?” My mother answered, “El Nino wants to be a dancer and we are going to the audition at the National Ballet School.” Long silence. Angela, that was my grandmother’s name, look at me slowly scrutinizing my body, my nervousness, my dream, “A dancer,” Angela exclaimed. “A classical ballet dancer. Have you any idea of the danger you are exposing El Nino to?” She asked my mother.
Ricardo:
I was left alone in the living room while Mama and Abuela argued behind closed doors in my grandmother’s bedroom. “No, no. Mama, don’t do that to him.” I heard my mother scream. The door to the bedroom opens, my mother comes out crying and pushes me into our bedroom. “Mi Amor,” she says, “Abuela doesn’t approve of you going to ballet school. You know our situation right now, we are living under her rule and I have no other place to go with you and your little brother. I can’t afford to fight Angela. We have to wait. Maybe there will be another time, you will dance.” I cried and cried and cried until my shattered dreams got so wet with my tears that it melted into nothingness. I took refuge in reading poetry, metaphors were my pills for pain, my tickets to travel, my weapons to fight.
Ricardo:
Time passed and I became a young man studying art history at the University of Havana. Throughout those years, I had been an amateur ferocious actor, director, and theater was my way of expressing myself and conversing with the world. One day my lover, [name] was an editor at the Cuban Film Institute told me of a brand new class that the institute was launching in search of new talents to join the world of filmmakers. I went to audition. I impressed the committee with my poetic approach to storytelling, the moves and mannerisms of my dancing body, the passion of my history, the history of my delivery. They were infiltrated with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this strong ambitious man who looked like a dancer could be one of the new talents that they were looking for.
Ricardo:
They welcomed me at the Cuban Film Institute. You want to be a director, a photographer, a sound designer, a producer? No. Editing was my choice. Why? Because it is the intersection of movement, history, art, poetry, soul, politics, emotions, and humanity. Because it is the ultimate scenario where cinematic choreography is born, the rest is history and it is still unfolding. That’s what I wrote.
Sarah:
It’s so beautiful. It’s a touching story. How did you then end up in Canada, Toronto doing documentary work and being known as the Story Rescuer?
Ricardo:
This is a long story. I knew from the beginning that editing was the work where I could write, basically. I don’t know why my mother always put me to bed reading me poems. She was a little bit eccentric and I really appreciate her. But then I came to Toronto after being here a few times and I knew that Toronto was a city where I have friends and was having a very inspiring artist scene in the early ’90s. It was a place where I could reinvent myself and heal and start from scratch. I have a lot of desires and needs to do something, so I arrive and I connect with a few artists. The first films that I edited were with Ali Kazimi, it was his film Shooting Indians: A Journey With Jeffrey Thomas about an Iroquois photographer.
Ricardo:
Of course, when I came here I was faced with that question that was kind of strange for me at the time. ?Are you a picture editor or a sound editor?? I would go, “What, what is that?” I was formed and raised to be an editor, someone who approaches the story with all the elements of it. That’s why, for example, soundtrack, the moment of scoring music in the editing suite is so important for me. Not something that you put in a lame way but something that really adds another layer of emotion to the story. Of course, I immediately say, ?No, I am a film editor. If I have to choose, a picture editor of course.?
Ricardo:
I worked on a few things but I have the luxury of from the beginning to be able to continue working with artists who were working outside the conventional work. Then reality TV arrived and those shows started coming in. I have nothing against people who work in reality TV, but I cannot do it for myself because I find that it sometimes very problematic with the way that things are manipulated in the name of the show and things are orchestrated and how ethics are so elastic and flexible and how the subjects are twisted and sometimes disrespected. I believe that you should be doing something that you enjoy and that you also understand and respect and feel validated and happy with, and that was not the area. I was very clear about no, it’s going to be this way.
Ricardo:
Also, documentary versus fiction. I have nothing against fiction, but I felt that the work that I want to do and the conversations that I want to have with society are more reflected through the genre of documentary and that’s where I feel at home in many ways.
Sarah:
Then you got your chops as a documentary editor and then you became known for your storytelling skills and were often brought in to rescue the story in many feature docs. I want to talk about how that came about. How do you approach coming into a project that has already been worked on by somebody else?
Ricardo:
It’s difficult.
Sarah:
I can only imagine.
Ricardo:
Sometimes it’s difficult and sometimes … First of all, you have to come with a lot of humbleness. At the same time knowing that you are coming in not to follow something that may have been that it’s not working. To be honest, brutally honest, and to come in understanding that it’s not about you, it’s about the story. It’s not about the director, it’s about the story. What for me is important is to really understand the relationship that the director has with the footage. What is the story that is behind it? The layers of tension that are sometimes put on top of it in the way that it is told. To us, very important questions depending on the material.
Ricardo:
For example, in the case of Ali Kazimi, he was making a film about an Iroquois photographer and he had been working with very brilliant editors who were all people who I adore. Because Ali was being too serious about how he was approaching Jeffrey, the photographer. When I entered working with him, I asked, “What is it that you have that makes you the person to tell this story versus somebody else? What is your unique connection with this? In which way do you connect as a person with this story you are trying to tell?” For me, it was like an Indian from what is called India in South Asia looking at another kind of Indian. The name of Shooting Indians comes from that. I felt like unless you put yourself in as part of this journey and enter the story from a humble and honest place of what seduced you and interested you about Jeffrey, so that in many ways brings you back to your own process, to your own journey. That can’t be done by anybody else. What is your uniqueness?
Ricardo:
It’s complicated sometimes with a director, a producer of a movie and I would not recommend that in most cases, but when it’s good and when it works, it could be beautiful. It’s another way of owning a relationship with the story. When he saw that possibility, he empowered himself and the inner voice. His relationship with the subject became different. Now, he became a subject in his own movie. It’s a film that is very beautiful. Whenever I see it, and I show it in my master class, we both really feel that it was done yesterday. I think it has to do with the layer of honesty that we are seeing. But then I realize, we need to really then address the whole film. When you change one scene, other scenes may have to be changed. Sometimes it is better to start from scratch than to try to fix something. I don’t know if I answered your question.
Sarah:
No, I think you did. It just shows how there’s so many levels that you touched on. You go in being humble and it’s not about your ego or you as a human, but you’re looking for the essence of the story, of the subjects, and then even touching in on the director and the fact that you have an awareness to say actually, you need to be part of this film too, really shows this insight that you have on the whole process of storytelling and you can catch and see what’s there. It sounds like even when you wrote your story about becoming an editor, you clearly from a young age, have had a sense of art and story and the essence of being human. I feel like it’s instinctive, but how did you realize that that’s what you need to do to make these documentaries honest? To make, like you said, that this film still resonates today and you worked on it in the ’90s. How does that work for you? How do you know that that’s the way you need to pursue the story and the editing?
Ricardo:
I don’t know, Sarah for me, every story has an emotional narrative, even if it’s about a building or an object, which is different than being melodramatic or sensationalist or opportunistic about using pain in an exploitative way. Every story has a pulse, a subtext and a spirit underneath. I don’t know how to say it, but for example, in Herman’s House …
[Clip from Herman’s House]:
I can only about four steps forward before I touch the door. I’m in the cell for 23 hours a day. I’m used to it and that’s one of the bad things about it.
*
I’m not a lawyer and I’m not rich and I’m not powerful but I’m an artist and I knew that the only way I could get him out of prison was to get to dream.
*
What kind of house do a man who is out there dream about? I don’t dream about no house.
*
That kitchen looks really great. I wanted it yellow, which is like totally ’70s, he’s been in solitary since 1972.
*
In the front of the house, I have various plants and gardens. I would like for guests to be able to smile and walk through flowers.
*
Jackie, this is the one for the 30 years. Yeah, this is the one he’s in now.
*
The majority of my life, it’s been in a cell in a cage. The majority of my life.
*
Solitary confinement is solitary confinement. Yes and no. Some people deserve it and some don’t.
*
This guy has been in prison three times my life. How can I be like this dude here where he’s just at peace.
*
I need help. I’m doing this by myself, Herman. I need help. I know. This is the [inaudible 00:15:27], kiddo. All right? I hear you.
*
It was never my hope that he would have to rely on his house to get out of Angola.
*
Whether I live in the house or not, it makes no difference. It is the symbol of what this house is all about.
Ricardo:
We also have made a choice, a very important choice based on the fact that I was dealing with a story that was a fragmented population of many phone calls that were from five to 15 minutes long interrupted by the voice of the penitentiary in between Herman and Jackie. Those phone calls were going to happen whenever they allowed him to talk, not when you wanted or you expected. But it is very important that we did not have access to Herman. Herman also at that time, has been 35 years imagining our world and living in solitary confinement in a six by nine cell.
Ricardo:
One day I have this very strong premonition and epiphany that was coming from a place of frustration and anger that said, he had to imagine us for all this time. I think the audience would have to imagine him and dream of Herman because we are not going to show the audience how he looks. At that point, I went from spending two months or three months paralyzed looking at footage or listening to phone conversations and not knowing how to touch this, how to address it, how to enter, how to talk to the material. Until I realized okay, it’s this way. Then it became a political act but also a sensorial relationship with the audience.
Ricardo:
I love when you tell stories using the senses. I like to say that today the audience is extremely privileged and there is this expectation that the audience don?t have to think. Everything has to be told and then showed, which is the other way around for me. There is this tendency that everything has to be given to the audience because they are entitled to it, and I don’t think it’s true. I would say that when you walk into one of my films, you are taking … It’s now on your own and I respect that you want to see it, but you’re on your own with your own emotions with experience and take responsibility for it. The idea of a film where you don’t show the subject also brought this huge question, which was beautiful, how do you do that?
Ricardo:
Then it became this aesthetic challenge, which was okay, let’s do it with animation, but no illustration. Let’s do it with what I call abstract impressionism circa 1960s. Let’s do a homage to the National Film Board animation studio. We knew what we wanted. We didn’t want anything sleek or trendy or chic or all that kind of being hip that is so current. We want something that also relates to it. It was that act of finding a way in, which we were able to talk to the material and to Herman. That was for me the turning point, the moment in which I was able to enter the story.
Ricardo:
I have to enter the story as an editor. I cannot exist as a disconnected person that works from nine to five. The story becomes a child and the characters are part of it and I have to take care of them. I do not have to say, I don’t think you go through the same experience when you are working in fiction. Perhaps, it’s a different process. In a documentary when you have 400 hours of material and 20 or 60 subjects and only four can make it to the story, it’s a lot of casting that you have to do. In that casting, you are casting with your respect, with your honesty, with your sensibility, with also understanding the little story and the big story.
Ricardo:
Herman’s House is a beautiful example for me of how I cannot force the process. At the beginning, I was paralyzed and I was paralyzed because I was just being a passive receptor of that material. Then when I found my way in, then we started seeing the movie and the rest is history. But one thing that was very important and we also knew that we could not work with anybody that would not understand or respect our choice, who was we will not show you Herman. Some people from CBC to others came ?just if you want it, here’s the money, basically. But you have to show Herman.? We would say, “No, you are not for us and we are not for you because that’s a different movie.” Or they would say, “We have in Jackie. We’re interested in Herman.” That’s a different movie, go and make it yourself. These are the kind of conversations that I don’t know, I’m very privileged in the sense it’s the kind of conversation that you have when you work, of course, in a film for many, many years.
Ricardo:
Then the Ford Foundation came and they came because they understood what we were trying to do. Then we were super lucky because we knew that we were in good hands. Then the Sundance Foundation came – The Sundance Institute – but those are the people that we needed. We needed people who respect and who nurse our creative process.
Sarah:
That’s so important and then getting that … I think as editors we all get those moments where you’re kind of paralyzed. You’re like, where is the story, what are we doing? When you get that spark of creativity, or you find that whatever it is that you need to find, I sometimes say the creative genius comes through, then you’ve got to run with it. The fact that you both stood your ground and said no, this is the way that we need to creatively tell this story. This is what the story is. It’s just cool, I don’t know, I think it’s just really inspiring that can be done. That we can stand our ground and we can still, as editors, have a say because we are such an integral part of the process of creating the film. Thank you, thank you for sharing that.
Ricardo:
I think it’s important for me, I really feel that we have a lot of power and enough passion that we can put in our work. It’s part of our gift and our responsibility also. We are there to take care of the story.
Sarah:
You mentioned to me the film you are working on called I Am Samuel. You talked about the ethics of storytelling and also the care of the subject. Can you talk that a little bit, about how that story evolved, and how you actually helped make sure that the people who participated in the film were safe.
Ricardo:
This is a very beautiful question and experience for me. Peter Murimi is an amazing Kenyan artist filmmaker who lives in London, who is a very gifted journalist and photographer. He was making a film about what will be the first story about a gay Kenyan man from the working class who decided to come out to his family, to his friends, to society in a country where you have a penal code that criminalizes homosexuality. That’s very difficult to do and very courageous to do. The complexity of the story is that Samuel, who is the main character, has a lover named Alex. Samuel has parents who live in the countryside and he is in Nairobi, the capital, trying to make a life and living.
Ricardo:
When they showed me the rough cut that they had and they were editing for while with another editor in London, I have what I will call a physical reaction. I just felt that the film was told in a way in which Samuel was a hero and his father was a horrible person. But I could not buy it, and I talked to Peter and to Tony, the producer. Why? What has he done to hurt his son? The issue with the father is the father was a Jehovah Witness pastor. Other than being not in accord with his son’s sexual orientation, not understanding homosexuality, which is not a crime, it’s a state of mind that you can have. That doesn’t necessarily automatically make you a bad person. I myself, didn’t understand myself for a long time. That’s also part of who I am today.
Ricardo:
I asked the question, what has he done to hurt his son? He said, really nothing. Why are you profiling his father as a bad character? What I see here is a man, you’re seeing a father that is using the tools that he has, the weapons he has, which in this case is religion to wrap it around his son so he doesn’t get hurt. I would do the same if I would be a parent. When I sat down, he looked at me and said, “I have been trying to say this but my editor was not listening. This is important for people to know. He was an experienced person in that editing suite and I was a director making my first feature film documentary. At some point, it felt like I had to bend to this other power and the way he was taking the film.”
Ricardo:
At that point, he asked me, “Do you want to work with me?” I said, “I would love to because I feel that there is an injustice being made here. If I can help to fix it, I would love it because there is nothing more painful than to profile people when you yourself don’t want to be profiled.” To profile a subject it’s in the wrong way. It’s something we can do, we have the power to do that as editors and directors working in documentary. The difference for drama, fiction is that those characters are fictional characters. You can kill them, maim them, abuse them, do whatever you want. But you cannot do that to a subject, they are human beings. Their life is super important.
Ricardo:
I went to London and started working with him for over two months and we now have a new film that is the same footage but it’s different. Different story, different spirit, and in his film that we have now, his father happens to be the most progressive character and the only subject who evolves in the film. Somewhere at the beginning of the film he is someone who is coming out and he looks at the world like I did when I was his age, everybody is wrong and I’m right. His father is the one who go from dealing with his own masculinity crisis with his own values to somehow making peace with his own ethics and values but also with his love. I also choose a way of telling this story from a place of love and not from a place of exploitation.
Ricardo:
The other thing that I thought was important and beautiful is how the director and the producer knew that Samuel was making an incredible contribution to society by sharing with us his coming out in a country where you can be burned on the street for being gay. I find it problematic when we go out and we ask people to do and say things that put their life in danger but we don’t actually create any mechanism that will protect them from being hurt after that. I think that’s a problem. There are cases in which it has been very problematic because the person, the subject has been hurt after.
Ricardo:
In this case, the director knew that by the time I Am Samuel will be done and the film is out and premiering, Samuel will need to be somewhere else, away from Kenya, so he could be safe in case there will be any retribution. I am happy to say that all of this is in place and he is going to Germany to study. His partner is already in Germany. They both will be at university for a while. The movie is very beautiful. I am very biased about that. And I feel very proud that we were able to understand something, which was this is a story in which it’s not me coming in and imposing my values of a city boy living in Western society.
Ricardo:
If you want to understand the issue of sexual orientation and coming out in Africa in a traditional family, you need to count with the family. Because there is no way you’re going to solve the problem, just by being on your own. Your parents count a lot and I needed to respect that and not to edit and tell the story as if I was Samuel, but to have some distance to also protect his father from Samuel’s arrogance. I’m dying to be able to share this film with the audience. I think it’s going to be a film.
Sarah:
I really look forward to seeing it. I think it’s so beautiful that you do take so much care of the people in your films. I feel like often we kind of forget, or not even that we forget because I even know for myself, I cut documentaries and I’ve done some short docs where the documentary really impacts my life and makes me feel like I’ve become a better human from the things I’ve learned. But I don’t the people, those people that the story that I told, I don’t actually know them but I feel that they’re now so integral to who I am. I think it’s a really interesting place to be as an editor in the doc realm where you get to learn so much about somebody and yet they have no idea who you are, but you do still need to respect them as humans. I don’t know, it’s just such a fascinating position to be in, in life sometimes.
Ricardo:
I like to say sometimes in my master class I talk about the bad characters who are the most special characters in a film, the ones that I have to protect the most because it’s so easy to cartoon them, to be unjust, to just abuse their integrity, this humanity. I don’t think it’s right. I think it’s also much more powerful to see how repulsive they may be or not if you show it the way that’s a little bit more, has more flesh, more depth and not just as a dot. There’s a tendency to do that, to punish the scenes you don’t like. We have to be careful with that. It’s a conversation I have with many of my fellow editors sometimes. You are not a judge, you’re a medium right here to shine on somebody else’s story, not to punish them.
Sarah:
It’s so much, inspiring things. I feel like in society right now it is so common and so easy just to paint everybody, okay you’re the bad guy, it’s so black and white but we’re all human, so we all have bad and good and there’s so much gray in the world. I think by the films that you help create, we show that there’s so many sides to everybody. I think it’s just beautiful.
Ricardo:
Also, because Sarah I think it’s very easy to make a story to preach to the people who are already converted.
Sarah:
Totally, yeah.
Ricardo:
The real challenge for us, the real artistic, the real accomplishment is when you can affect a little bit the perception, the emotion, the feeling, the way they think on the ones who are on the other side of the issue. The power of the stories that we tell is to become difficult conversations but to become a forum, not to be a monologue about us and how great or how victim or whatever we are where there is no room for dialogue, where there is no room for the other person to look at you and for a moment feel different. It’s very important to remember that. That’s why I always try to say conflict and ideology which I was abused by as being raised in a Communist country, are not tools I would use when it’s about people’s lives.
Sarah:
Have you worked on something where you’ve had to struggle with your own morals and values to try to shape the story of say the villain or the bad guy so that you actually yourself had to step back and be like hey, this is kind of against who I am but I still need to tell their story.
Ricardo:
Yeah, I have. I think in every film there’s a moment where you feel you know in Marmato I had a character that was a Canadian prospector. It was such bullshit in the way he expressed himself, his colonialism. He was brutally honest and he was genuinely interested in those people to exploit them, whatever, but he was. In the film, we have a scene where Lawrence is inside the mine with the miners and he said to them, he said, “I don’t want to be lying. What’s going to happen here if you don’t sign and you don’t agree, one day they will come and they will bulldoze your houses and you will be out of here.” For me, I respect him so much for that gift. There’s a difference between an activist saying they are going to call members of their houses and take them out of here or the villain saying to the victims, they will come, bulldoze your houses and take you out of here. That is what I call in terms of dramatic narrative storytelling, a gift.
Ricardo:
That?s what I need. Without his confession, everything else could be my own conspiracy theory. He gave us an incredible gift to make the story powerful and concrete. For that alone, I respected him. There were moments in which it was just ugh, but the reaction I had from friends was, why are you giving him so much time? You are making scenes with him that are kind of eerie, it’s like he’s one of my heroes in a negative way. He’s a protagonist. In his repulsiveness, he is also giving us something very important for the story, so I have to be generous.
Sarah:
I just love the way you look at it and the way that you let yourself just observe and be there for the characters. Even if it’s against you or not, something that you would do, you still honor them for who they are. As you said, they become your hero. It’s fascinating and makes me think of different ways to observe the footage that I have in my suite and I’m sure the audience will agree. Do you ever find that you bring too much of yourself and your heart and your soul into your work and have to step back in order to protect who you are and protect yourself? Not so much because you’re telling a story that’s hurting you or something but because you can just put so much of yourself into your pieces or is that part of how you work? That you need to put your whole being into the work you’re doing to make it be amazing.
Ricardo:
That’s a very good question, Sarah because I don’t know the midterms. I’m passionate. Poetry for me is very important, emotion. I always said that for example, the historic dot of an event in a history book when you find it there, I’m telling you the emotional history of the event. What happened to the people who lived that event, how they were affected. That’s what really makes history interesting for me. Not just the disconnected, rational narrative. It’s really when you mix the witnesses of that story that the story becomes meaningful for me because then you understand it. It’s about the lie and the consequences and the suffering and the waiting and the acrimony of the two brothers who live one on one side of the Berlin Wall and the other one on the other side. It’s not about what the Berlin Wall signified, that’s just a line. That’s something you can find anywhere. But what you cannot find anywhere is what happened to those two that could happen to you too if another wall is built. For me, I have to be able to connect. Yeah, involvement is problematic sometimes, I get too involved.
Ricardo:
I remember once Karen Merdez from the Ford Foundation now, at the time she was at Sundance, said to me, “I love you because the way you protect your storytelling.” I said, “Yes, I accept the dialogue, I accept the feedback, but what I don’t accept is when you start abusing my story in the way you do not understand it or disrespect it because then I will push back. Because I know here to take that, I want an elevated discourse.
Ricardo:
That’s why for me it’s so difficult to decide who do you invite to a screening. Sometimes people go to a screening and what they want to tell you is that you got it wrong. Let me tell you how to make your film. It’s like hold on a second, back off. It’s my film, not yours. That perspective needs to exist. I have to be involved. For example, in Herman’s House, I never cry during the storytelling of the film. Then the day that Herman died, I cried for too long, I cried for almost a day, I couldn’t stop crying. I realized I was crying because someone who was very close to me has died. It was almost like a father.
Ricardo:
That happened when Asencion from Les Silence of Others died. I felt very touched by him, very, very touched. All the emotion, all the control, the feelings I hold back when I was editing that difficult sequence of 11 days of exhumation, finding the body of the father. All of that, I released at that moment perhaps. Because we do establish a connection, it’s about humanity. I don’t know, I have the specialty of always dealing with very complicated issues. Maybe I should start making movies about flowers.
Sarah:
It might be a little bit lighter but I don’t know, the flowers die sometimes too.
Ricardo:
Exactly.
Sarah:
You touched on something, I could step back into a personal experience for myself where I worked on this, it was just a short piece, but I really felt a fondness for the character. She was this beautiful woman and she was teaching us some traditional Cree basket weaving. Anyway, she was beautiful and I really enjoyed what I learned from her. During the process of this bigger project, she ended up passing away and I was so emotional and I kind of felt like hearing you tell that story made me realize like I didn’t … I kind of felt weird about it. I was like, why am I so upset? I never even met this woman. But I was helping her share her tradition with the world and it felt like it was so important and then she also taught me so much. We are in a really lucky spot as editors and as filmmakers to bring those stories to the world but also to ourselves. We get the privilege of really getting to know somebody on an intimate level without actually knowing them. I don’t know, it’s just so interesting.
Ricardo:
It’s very interesting. You?re a medium. I think it’s really important to have empathy for the people who have put themselves in such a vulnerable place to give you a part of their life to play with.
Sarah:
Yeah, totally.
Ricardo:
I think it’s good to cry for whatever is the time.
Sarah:
How do you approach telling stories of underrepresented people and what are you mindful of?
Ricardo:
I think it’s very complex sometimes. Maybe we should talk about The Blessing.
[Clip from The Blessing]:
If you have no respect for the earth, it’ll take your life. You don’t just go digging it up and destroying it. These mountains are sacred. Last night I prayed, please do not forsake me mother earth. I walk in two worlds.
Ricardo:
The Blessing is a story of a Navajo father who works in a coal mine and he has four children. The directors were after me for almost a year when I was in Spain editing. When I came back to Toronto, I finally watched their story and they were so persistent, so persistent. I saw something that was very conflicting that I could not get away from it. It was very problematic. I felt like it had a lot of potential. They flew me to New York and I told them what I thought. I said, “I don’t think your movie is about the coal mine. The coal mine is a monolithic object in the background of the life of these people. What do you have of these people? What happens if we flip the values of this story where the coal mine goes where it belongs in the background, the people come to the foreground?”
Ricardo:
It was a magic process. I really respect directors and producers who have the courage to go after whoever they consider the best advisor that they can have who is also capable to know when a movie is in trouble, don’t know exactly how to fix it, but we are going to find that person that will help us to fix it. That’s a gift. It has nothing to do with being weak, it’s the opposite for me. Then they start showing me all this footage and all this footage and then the film became about something else. What was so important in that story was that I like to present the movie as this is the story of a single parent of a middle class, single parent father who happens to be a Navajo. That’s the way I want the audience to see it. I don’t want the audience to see the poor Navajo that live in a coal mine. No, that’s the cliché. That is the way that we have badly represented them.
Ricardo:
The other thing that was important for me was I realized that they gave him a GoPro and to be honest with you, I didn’t know what to do with that footage. I felt like I don’t know what to do with this. Then one day I started looking at the footage and I went like, wow. He’s giving us access to a kind of beauty and honesty and tempo and color of his personal life that is not filtered by the presence of our cameras, our crew, our visit, our time with them, our privilege. I said to the director, I think he needs to be a collaborator and not just be a subject. That was very powerful for us. Only for me to understand that, then the way I found how to use his footage through the film, you have different texture but also who compliments what we are saying. It was a very difficult balance. I don’t know how we got it. If you saw the film, you can tell me if you think it works or not.
Sarah:
I thought it worked.
Ricardo:
Thanks. It was a way of giving him respect. Those are things that for me are important, super important. When we talk about cultural appropriation and other issues that have to do with who has the power when we’re sharing the story, those things are important. I am against the idea that stories can only be told by people who belong to a community, because then we will be living in a world of walls and indifference. Stories need to be told from a place of awareness and collaboration and respect and empowering the people that you are also storytelling about if they need to be empowered.
Sarah:
Another thing I want to touch on is to me it sounds like you were helping to write these films, but often editors don’t get the writing credit. What are your thoughts, and I think I know what your thoughts are, but what are thoughts on editors getting the writing credit for the writing that we’re doing in the suite.
Ricardo:
This is a very important ethical conversation about what is the collaboration and who does what? In retrospect, I think I have been a co-writer of pretty much all the films I have helped to craft because that’s the kind of editor that I am. That will be one reason that you will work with me. Where do you write a documentary, when you have 400 hours of footage? You write in the editing suite. That’s why I also talk about in one of my classes is, is documentary the fiction of reality? Surely it?s the fictionalization. It’s something that you invent, and de-invent in one day. But the difference is that as a documentary filmmaker I’m working with reality not with fiction. But to pull down a five-hour event into a beautiful four-minute scene that has a heart, that is three dimensional, there is no, that word I hate so much, wallpaper, it’s really an experience. I have to work with all the elements of storytelling. So I’m writing. Writing is not to write for parts.
Ricardo:
Also, when you structure, when you define what are the different narrators of the story, what are the values of the storytelling, what are the storylines? That is writing. And I?m very much an active collaborator who put in all my gifts, and all my drama sometimes. And the sad aspect is for a long time, I didn’t ask myself. The directors and the producers would take it for granted. We have the credit of writers. Sometimes producers who will not even write, they just will correct the grammar will be co-writers and it is not. For example, something very beautiful that happened in The Silence of Others, Robert Bahar is the producer and the partner of Almundena Carracedo, the director. He called me one day and said, “Rickie we need to talk about the writing credit.” I said, “Writing credit, what’s up?” He said, “We had four writers.” “Who are they?” “Almundena, you, Kim Roberts, and me.” I honestly start, I have tears. I feel so emotional because I never had a situation where a director or producer have that quality of saying we all want to honor what we did.
Ricardo:
They were nominated for the Alma Awards for Best Screenplay and we won that against fiction films. That was also very wild apart from of course winning the Goya which is Spanish Oscar for Best Documentary. But from that moment on, every film that I work on, I discuss at the beginning of the film about the writing credit. A writing credit I cannot take for granted. If you give me some paperwork, a paper cut and I am just a pair of hands, cool, that’s not my writing credit. But if I am going to work in a process where I put in all my complexity as an artist, we know that the film gets to be richer in the editing suite. I think it’s fair, respectful and important that it is recognized. That is discussed and agreed upfront because again and again and again every day there are editors who are not given that credit when they should have it. This is not something that we need to do alone. This has to be done with the complicity and the respect and the collaboration of the directors and producers.
Sarah:
Yeah, that producer basically gave you permission to actually ask for that in the future, the fact that he came to you and said, you’re one of the writers. Then you’re like, wait a minute, I am. It gave you that agency to say, I am a writer. I think you telling that story can allow other people to step forward and say actually, this is the way I work. We are collaborating in the suite.
Ricardo:
I think it’s important. I don’t see Nick Hector as anything else but a writer. Cathy Gulkin nothing but a co-writer of every film she worked on.
Sarah:
For sure, yeah.
Ricardo:
That’s why I also teach young editors when they work with me, what do you bring to the story? What are the tools that are part of your gift and your responsibility? This whole business about the writing thing needs to really be discussed. Not for a passive/aggressive way of oh, it’s my credit. It’s really understanding what’s your contribution. It’s a conversation that needs to happen more and more.
Sarah:
I might start doing that myself, thank you very much. I think one of the things that even if you’re starting that conversation with somebody when you’re first working with them shows that you are collaborative, work like you want a collaborative working relationship. I find for myself when I’m feeling like I am in an authentically more even-leveled collaborative situation, the film is always heightened because we are both putting fully ourselves in. I think if you start having conversations like that at the beginning, you’re going to get those moments I feel a little bit easier, maybe. You mentioned working with younger editors and stuff and I’m curious, what kind of tips would you give young editors or just editors in general in the documentary world?
Ricardo:
Demo reel. I think that it is disrespectful, insulting, against what we do.
Sarah:
You can’t show how you tell a story in three minutes.
Ricardo:
Somebody will call you and say, do you have a demo reel? No, I have the right to say, I am sorry that is not a question to ask. People need to know that. Since I’m changing that level, does that mean the conversation is becoming less important, less sophisticated, less valuable. You are devaluing, disrespecting your craft and your gift. No, no to demo reels yes to: do you have time to watch the work that I have done? Let me give you three samples. To know that it’s okay to say no. Also, very important too, you as an editor are also entitled and encouraged, I think, to ask questions, to interview the director. It’s not one way, it’s both ways. I think that it is very powerful and very important that you talk about story when you are looking for a potential job. That is story talking, that way in which we realize if we are clicking or not, there is already a connection, there is an energy that will be a good omen to what can happen or not after.
Ricardo:
It’s important that you also ask questions, that you also interrogate, that you also know that you are there as a collaborator, not as a staff. I also don’t like the word product. I don’t do products, I make films. Clients, my directors are collaborators are artists are people who I respect and they respect me. We work and I don’t have a client.
Sarah:
That’s interesting you say that because I often say, I have a producer coming over or a director coming over and it sometimes feels funny to say client also in the edit suite. You spend so much time with somebody, they become your friend.
Ricardo:
I can understand they’re my friends. I also think that for me it’s important to understand what is feasible, doable, right, respected, and a mature schedule for making this film happen. You spend six years filming and you are giving me four weeks for editing. No, I don’t want to work with you. If you don’t have the respect for the editing process and fight for it, then it’s going to be a disaster. I know that we are drawn and you want the job and if they say to you eight weeks, stories don’t get to be made in eight weeks. Some of them do but I’m talking about really thinking about with time and because a practice has been implemented doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the right practice. It’s healthy to really have these conversations or even to say, well I have this schedule but let’s agree that we may be over by three weeks, and have that preliminary conversation.
Sarah:
To be realistic.
Ricardo:
To be realistic and to know that workaholism is not going to make you better. It’s important that you also know what are those films that you can be good for or not. I’m not the right storyteller or the right collaborator for every story or every filmmaker, absolutely not.
Sarah:
I think that’s something that comes when you have experience too. I know for myself, when I was younger, I just took everything. Then I’d work with people that I was like, I’m not comfortable with and then I got to a point where I was like, why am I in that situation, I can say no, and to be allowed to say no is something that takes practice.
Ricardo:
It takes practice, it’s complex.
Sarah:
But it’s important.
Ricardo:
It’s definitely important. I also think that you need to be able to take control of your editing suite because it’s your temple, not them. Everybody always is a visitor, but it’s your temple, it’s your house.
Sarah:
Yeah, for sure. That totally makes sense.
Ricardo:
It’s very important that that also is respected. I don’t know, the point of knowing as an editor, you are someone who is there to inspire, to ask difficult questions, to come out with amazing solutions, to have fun, to collaborate, to be passionate, to fight really for whatever you think is the right way to go. Sometimes when our egos, that we all have, get in the way, have the capacity to say, ego, let me alone. Send the ego for a walk. For a long time, I have been having the pleasure of working, having as an assistant editor someone who I think is very talented and is John, Chris, Jordan. Ever since then, you don’t have to grade editors. One is David Casella who is fantastic and I adore. We are very different human beings, very different. We compliment a lot.
Ricardo:
I love it that he has been able to experience his creative process in those two environments. I love the idea when I’m working in a scene, I will just go and tell Jordan, “Let me tell you what I am doing.” For me it was very important if he was going to be my associate editor or my own assistant who I saw that had all the potential to be a great editor that he understood the reason why that scene was that way and no other way. He loved that kind of conversation, which for me was a way of grooming – not of giving him some of the experience, I don’t know. Those things are not rushed, I think they come from a place you don’t own, they are within you. But the way I put a scene or not, is something I don’t even know when I’m starting to work on it, but I need to channel it. I love sharing that with an assistant editor.
Sarah:
I think it’s so important because we don’t get that very often anymore the way our industry is to even have those moments.
Ricardo:
Yeah, we don’t. I had the privilege of being an assistant editor in the time of 35mm prints. I will be sitting there absorbing and observing and once a while [my editor] will say, “What do you think Ricardo?” I will go blah, blah, blah. That was an amazing class to be in an environment where I was being taught how to tell a story but also what is the role that you play as a storyteller when you are an editor. The moment we become passive/aggressive and we start saying, oh sure, I will do that. That’s the moment that we start doing the wrong thing with the story.
Sarah:
Yeah, and I think we’ve all come to that where you get frustrated.
Ricardo:
It’s painful, very painful when you do it. You know that you are just punishing you and the story and it’s toxic. Also, to be able to know when you need help and to have a brilliant mentor or partner or another editor that you consider someone that you respect that you can share your work and show your belly, share your vulnerability and that person is not going to hurt you or the story. That?s going to give you very meaningful feedback. I have those and they are different for every film.
Sarah:
That is so important. It is really scary to sometimes share that, especially if you know it’s not working because we all want to be perfect. We all want to be the best, and the more we share in those hard moments, the better we can be, all of us can be. Even watching somebody else’s work and giving constructive feedback in a gentle way makes you a better editor too.
Ricardo:
Absolutely, and for me I am the product of my privilege, of my community of friends, editors who I share my work with, that share their work with me. I learned that with many years of collaborating with being part of the Sundance documentary program and being in a lab as a fellow and being in a lab as a mentor, it’s a great circle. You’re on both sides of that. It’s the beauty of knowing that in that circle, in that moment, the people who are giving you advice are doing it in a very respectful way, but they are all also brilliant storytellers. Those are advice that not necessarily you have to take. They’re powerful because they empower your process, your critical process of thinking about what you’re doing, how it can be better or worse. I don’t think we have a lot of that in the Canadian context.
Sarah:
I don’t think so either. I think we need more of that, for sure.
Ricardo:
This amount of solitude that we spend alone, not having any support. I do a lot of work more and more as a story editor, as a consultant, I don’t know what to call it anymore. I work for both, for the director and for the editor, and I did that on many films. For me, it’s important to work for both. Sometimes the editor needs to be alone and the director doesn’t know how to do it, and I will say hey, back off. Let me work with him. The editor doesn’t know that he can say or she can say, ?I need space.? I feel very proud when I have been able to do that. I probably have more advice but those are my….
Sarah:
Everybody is going to want to come and visit you and learn from you after listening to this episode I think. Thank you for sharing so much insight into your process and your thoughts on what story is and how important characters are and how important we are as human beings. I found it really inspiring, so thank you for taking the time to share with me today and to share it with everyone who is going to listen.
Ricardo:
Thank you to you, Sarah. We will see each other some time in Toronto.
Sarah:
I hope so, yes.
Sarah:
Thanks for joining us today, and a big thank you to Ricardo for taking the time to sit with me. I’m happy to let you know that I Am Samuel is having its world premier at Hot Docs International Documentary Festival. Check out hotdocs.ca to find out more. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall, additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blaine. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Until next time, I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.
[Outro]
The CCE is a nonprofit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.
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In this episode we hear from our past guests and editors down south from ACE about how life is for them. We hope these messages bring you hope in these uncertain times.
Thank you to the editors who contributed to this episode:
Cathy Gulkin, CCE,
Kevin Tent, ACE,
Nicole Ratcliffe, CCE,
Justin Lachance, CCE,
Liza Cardinale, ACE,
Paul Day, CCE
Mike Munn, CCE,
Daria Ellerman, CCE,
Zack Arnold, ACE,
Stephen Philipson, CCE,
Jesse Averna, ACE,
Jonathan Dowler,
Krystal Moss
Lesley MacKay Hunter,
Paul Hunter,
Stephen Rivkin, ACE,
Pauline Decroix,
Scott Parker,
Michèle Hozer, CCE,
Jane MacRae,
Ron Sanders, CCE,
Jillian Moul, ACE, D.
Gillian Truster, CCE,
Paul Winestock, CCE,
Sarah Hedar,
The Editor?s Cut – Episode 027 – ?Hope in the Time of Corona?
Sarah:
Hi, and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’ve been thinking about my fellow editors around the world in this unique time. Some still have work where others have been at a standstill for a couple months. I wanted to hear how everyone is doing and what’s helping them get through. So I reached out to our past guests and editors down south from ACE to share how life is for them. For myself work has slowed right down, but life in Edmonton Alberta is still busy. My four year old daughter is home with me. She’s here right now.
Young Voice:
Hi.
Sarah Taylor:
And my husband and I are both working from home. I have two dogs and two cats and five fish. Mondays now consist of pretending with my daughter–
Young Voice:
Let’s play!
Sarah Taylor:
–extra long dog walks and lots of baking. I’ve also been attending the many Zoom events the CCE and other organizations are hosting. In some ways I feel more connected with friends and family, as we’ve been taking the time to call each other and check in. The app, Marco Polo has been a savior as it feels like I’m talking with friends all day long. There are definitely low days and days where I have all the energy in the world but I just ride the wave. I know we will be okay. And for now I will settle into this new world.
Young Voice:
Let?s go for a walk.
Sarah Taylor:
I hope these messages bring you hope in these uncertain times.
Cathy Gulkin:
Hi fellow editors, Cathy Gulkin here in Toronto. The centre of the universe is awfully quiet these days. But as a homebody, I don’t mind all that much. I think many of us editors are pretty happy living quiet lives. We’re the ones who prefer to work by ourselves in our own spaces whenever given the choice. So it’s kind of nice that there’s no other option now.
The director can’t come in and sit over our shoulders and frame fuck. I for one, find that liberating. I continue to do all of the things I’ve always done to protect my physical and mental health while working in the edit suite. Take lots of breaks and go for brisk walks. Now wearing a mask and social distancing. But since the streets are mostly deserted, it’s not that difficult. I’m also counseling the director I’m currently working with about how I think we can complete the project using tools like Zoom and Skype, to do pickup interviews, because this doc was supposed to follow three young people during their last year of high school, and our Act Four–graduation–has pretty much been canceled. Finding a new act four is a challenge. What I’ve said to the director is, if he can’t fix it, feature it. We’re living in an historic moment. And so are the subjects in our documentary. I think that capturing their current experience through online interviews in their own vlogs is going to make a very interesting film. I know things are much harder for editors working on fiction, where all production has stopped, and for those who are waiting to begin projects that would have been shooting this spring. My current gig ends in June, and if Cruz can’t go out this spring and summer, I won’t be working either come September when I’ll be eager to get back into the edit suite. But I’ve been through the boom and bust cycle in our industry before, and there were no government income programs to help us out then. I just saw my savings dwindle, went into some debt, and then things recovered and so did my financial situation.
This too, shall pass. Stay strong and safe colleagues.
Kevin Tent:
Hello, friends and fellow editors, north of the border. It’s Kevin Tent reporting from down here in Los Angeles. I hope you are all healthy and well. You may be familiar with me and some of my early work on classics such as, Salt: The Hidden Threat, Cholesterol: What Can You Do? And one of my personal favorites, Teenagers: How to Get and Keep a Job. It’s such a mind blowing and difficult time for all we humans right now. And the film business has taken a huge hit, especially on the production side, which of course affects us on the post side.
Yet as grim as it sometimes seems. I am optimistic that once it’s deemed safe, there will be a big demand for content and productions will be back up. It might not be overnight, but I have faith in the ingenuity, the versatility and the creativity of the people in our business. They’re amazing. So things will get better. It might take a while, but they will.
In the meantime I am extremely grateful that my family and I are safe and healthy. I’ve been proud of the people of Los Angeles and California. For the most part, they have taken the situation seriously and are following safety protocols. And although our numbers are climbing, they seem relatively manageable and not as bad as they could have been for a state of our size and population. Personally, what’s helped me a lot in dealing with the pandemic has been exercising regularly, and meditating. About four years ago, you may remember we had an election down here, and the day after I realized I had to do something to deal with how I was feeling.
So I bought an app called Headspace and started, and it’s been a godsend. I moved down to different forms of meditation, tried different things and different apps, but I highly recommend some sort of mindfulness practice. All editors could use it pandemic or not. So make sure you get out and exercise if you can, treat yourself well physically and mentally. And when things get tough, cut yourself some slack. You will, and we will get through this. Wishing you all the best from south of the border. Stay safe, stay strong, stay sane and hug your loved ones. Your friend and colleague Kevin Tent.
Nicole Ratcliffe:
Hey everyone, Nicole Ratcliffe from Vancouver here. I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe. Like many of you, I lost my job around mid March when all of this happened, and it seemed like the entire industry around the world shut down. So now that I’m home, I have all this time. Time to get things done that have been on my to do list for what seems like years. And also, to finally catch up on all those TV shows and movies that I keep telling everyone I’m going to watch.
A few other things I’ve been doing is I’ve taken up knitting in the last year. And I’m really enjoying that. I finally have gotten over the stress of it, and now I’m enjoying it. I’m working on a big knitting project right now. My biggest project so far, it’s a large six color shawl. I’ll send you all pictures when it’s done. I’ve been reading a lot, getting through quite a few books, enjoying that. And luckily the weather has been quite nice here in Vancouver over the last couple months.
So, I?ve been spending a lot of time outside in the yard, getting it cleaned up from the winter and getting my greenhouse ready to start planting what will be my own food, really looking forward to that. I’ve been keeping in touch with my film family here in Vancouver, and some people in Los Angeles online via either Zoom or Houseparty. And it’s been really great just to keep in touch with people, see what they’re doing to keep busy and just talk about what’s going on right now and how people are feeling about it.
I find that everyone is being incredibly supportive, but having fun online with those people as well has been really, really great. I recommend Houseparty, if you haven’t tried it. Anyway, as I said, I hope you’re all doing well. I’m thinking of you all. And I hope that we all get back to work sooner rather than later, but in the safest way possible. Take good care.
Justin Lachance:
What’s up guys. This is Justin Lachance and this is my impression of every Tech/gaming podcast intro on the planet. [beep] Oh no. Okay. All right. [beep] At the beginning of this pandemic, there was a meme going around that editors would send each other. I’m sure you all saw it. It spread faster than COVID. If somehow you haven’t seen it. It had two pictures of an editor at his computer. And under the first picture, there was a caption that said, ?A video editor.? The caption under the second picture said, ?A video editor in quarantine.? Both pictures were identical. I admit, I thought it was funny because at the time I was about to start working on a small series with an insane turnaround schedule. I thought, yeah, that’s totally it. I’ll be working from home and we’ll be able to get it done before things get really bad. This was on March 11th. As the news became darker and darker by the hour, I realized this was going to change a lot of things about our industry.
The production was put on hold as the country closed up shop. I found out that because Quebec Spring Break happened just before shutdown, some people on the set of my series had contracted the virus while on vacation and spread it to a lot of the cast and crew without knowing. I thought about the meme and was like, well, I guess being a post-production loner is a good thing now? I don’t know. Days went by and I talked to the Post Super, the director, my agent, the producers of future projects. And we all didn’t know what to say to each other. We’d say, we’ll give it a couple of weeks and see what’s up; in the meantime, take care of yourself. Weeks went by. I started doing things around the house. I painted my fence, planted my seedlings. I tried to take my mind off the fact that there was a global pandemic happening out there. And on top of that, I wasn’t editing. A month went by, two. Today is May 11th. And there’s talk of some production starting back up in July, but that’s a big maybe.
I got to admit, it’s pretty brutal–to have a full year of exciting projects blow up like that is rough. But then I think about that meme. I look at it from a completely different angle now. Before I’d see the brutally honest hilarity of our job, I’d be like, “Yeah, I willingly spent my days alone in a room while being lost in a very specific train of thought sometimes to the point of madness.” It was funny, but like so true.
Now I look at that meme and see the hundreds of people behind the editor that aren’t pictured. The conversations with the directors, the producers, the other editors I’ve worked with. All the fun we’ve had, the hilarious sleep-deprived laugh-a-thons, the creative eurekas. And I mean, I’m not kidding myself, there were some pretty frustrating times too. But it takes a literal army to make a film or show. And the hard part about this current moment in time is that we are more alone now than when we’re in our edit suites. But, one good thing about right now is that these people are free to talk cause, well, what else are they going to do besides making banana bread?
I’ve been able to have Skype virtual beers with old colleagues, call friends, text with people I haven’t talked to in ages because we now have time. I’m learning more about the people I work with because we’re talking about our lives, telling our stories about how we’re dealing with this stuff. It’s kind of awesome. It’s definitely not perfect, but I’m appreciating this time to rekindle the human side of this industry. And I got to say groups like the CCE and Les Treize are helping make that happen. Also, I’m re-watching Community on Netflix and hopefully laughing myself to July. Until then, take care.
Liza Cardinale:
Hello. This is Liza Cardinale ACE, reporting from Los Angeles, California, where the birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the cameras are not rolling. I wrapped up the second season of Dead to Me, the day our Safer At Home home orders began. We had to cancel our farewell Margaritas at Don Cuco?s in Burbank because sharing chips and salsa is on hold down here along with most social interactions.
I miss my friends. I miss getting on airplanes and I miss dropping my four year old daughter Izzy off at school. Her education and exercise needs are far better met by trained professionals. I fear I fall short as her substitute preschool teacher, but mostly we have fun. Izzy is thrilled to have me home giving her heaps of attention. I feel like I’m making up for lost time stuck in edit bays. We craft with glitter, act out stories with her dolls and do fizzling science experiments.
Before the pandemic, I had no idea how much entertainment you could get from a bag of baking soda. But my slow simple life will soon come to an end. I’ve been hired to cut a show called Social Distance that will comment on our current situation while shooting under extreme restrictions. I’m sad to leave Izzy?s playroom, but we’ll strive to bring her joy of spontaneous, messy, sparkly creation into my own.
Daria Ellerman:
Hi, I’m Daria Ellerman and I’m a picture editor from British Columbia. Like lots of you, the idea of working hard and then stopping is not unusual. On March 13th, I was at the end of a much needed break with a project booked for the end of March. And within a week we received an email shelving the project indefinitely. By that time I’d already realized the implications of the pandemic on the film industry. And I thought it might be possible I wouldn’t work again this year.
I think having been a freelancer, my entire career has been a huge help. I’ve weathered three economic slowdowns, changes of technology and delivery systems and the cancellation of really great shows we’d all hoped would run for eight seasons. I’m doing as I’ve always done between projects, get more exercise, do those forgotten things around the house, renew friendships and binge watch shows or watch movies I missed seeing.
Granted it is different now, coffee and lunch dates are out the window and email FaceTime and Zoom calls are the way we’re keeping in touch. Staring out the window and drinking coffee is an acceptable way to spend half an hour during pandemic. I text with some editor pals about how much we’re eating. I talked to girlfriends about being with your partner 24/7. About a month into my isolation, I started fretting about work.
What I did was reach out to my agent and to post producers that I’m close with. All of them got back to me quickly, and they were glad to talk about life in isolation and then work. Let’s face it, we really need to talk to work colleagues about work, to really talk about the inside baseball of it. My agent talked about the demand that will be there once production can begin. My post producers talked about how easily we in post could create environments that were safe and how we could even work from home if we had to. These conversations made me feel positive about the future. One thing that I’ve really enjoyed are doing webinars. I love seeing my colleagues talk about what they do and it makes me feel part of a community. Editing, directing, and a class in modern art have inspired and transported me. Many editors are introverts by nature. We don’t mind being on our own, and we’re able to easily get lost in our work. In the absence of work, we need to find projects to channel our decision making skills into.
So, while sorting my son’s childhood Lego collection and listening to Anna Maria Tremonti interview Catherine O’Hara isn’t editing, it does appeal to my visual organization side while making me feel part of a community. Hang in there. We will all be back in a little dark room soon.
Zack Arnold:
Hello, fellow editors and post-production professionals in Canada and all around the world. Zach Arnold here, editor of Cobra Kai, as well as the creator of The Optimize Yourself Program and Podcast. No different than you, my world has also been turned upside down over the last couple of months, and I’m stuck at home with nowhere to go. As a self proclaimed extreme introvert, I have been practicing social distancing pretty much as an Olympic sport since about 2005.
So to be honest, things haven’t really changed for me that much. But in other ways, everything has changed. My family is home all the time, and both my wife and I have become homeschoolers, which definitely makes it harder to do that deep creative work that I love to do so much. And without any editing projects to look forward to in the near future, there is of course, fear of the unknown. What’s coming next? Is there going to be work again?
But if there’s one lesson that I hope to take away from this experience, a lesson that all of us can take from this experience, it’s that realizing there is very little that all of us actually have control over in the world and the best place that we can focus our attention, is on the things that we can control, like how we spend our time, what we can do to prepare for when there are jobs for us again. And most importantly, the kind of people that we want to be at home with our families and our loved ones.
Know that whatever you’re going through right now, you are not alone. Even if you live alone, and you haven’t seen another person for two months, you are not alone. There are literally billions of people experiencing the same anxiety, stress, and uncertainty as you. And we are all going to get through this together. Take care of yourself, forgive yourself for the days that you would much rather watch TV than get something done, and do your best to stay connected to the most important people that are in your life, even if that happens to be through video chat. Stay safe, healthy, and sane, and be well.
Steve Philipson:
Hey everyone, Steve Philipson here from Toronto, Canada. I hope you’re all safe and finding ways of staying healthy and happy. It’s mid May here in Toronto, and we’re still on partial lockdown. While some restrictions are starting to ease, it looks like the film industry will be mostly shut down for a while. Like many of you out there, I’m anxious to get back to work both for financial and spiritual reasons. But since there’s not a whole lot I can do about it, I’m trying to use this time as a sabbatical or a chance to refresh and recharge.
I started working on some writing projects. I’m working with the Canadian Cinema Editors Association, to help get some online events going. I’m getting in shape, spending lots of time with the family, and like everyone I’m baking tons of bread. Anyways. I’m really trying to see this time as a gift. And I hope you can too. Now I know it?s hard not to worry about the future, but I can’t help thinking things are going to work out.
I mean, the fact is people need stories more than ever. And since we’re storytellers, I’m really hoping it’s only a matter of time before we’re back in the editing room or a suitably equipped home office. In the meantime, I hope you can find ways of staying strong and using this little sabbatical as a chance to challenge yourself as best you can. Learn a new skill or tackle a project you’ve been meaning to do, but don’t forget.
We may not know when or how the industry will recover, but we do know that the world needs stories desperately and it needs people like us to help tell them well. So sit tight, stay safe, and I look forward to seeing your work soon in whatever form it takes.
Jesse Averna:
Hello, fellow editors. My name is Jesse Averna. I’m from down south in LA. First off, I want to say, sorry for what you’re going through. This sucks. You deserve better. I think it’s good to admit that. This isn’t some opportunity you’ve bumped into. It’s a crisis. So first and foremost, I hope you are surviving it with your loved ones. Unfortunately, we don’t get to choose the time that we’re in, but here’s the good news: we will survive.
I know this is likely the worst patch you’ve been through in maybe your whole life, but humans have been through worse and made it through. You’re here today because someone in your family is a survivor and you will be too. Something that helps me right now: when I can, I make sure to go outside at night and look up at the stars. Since LA skies are so clear at the moment, we have a decent view. I try to think about my place in the universe and in the history of time.
There’s something comforting to me about being reminded how small all of this really is. How brief it is on a cosmic scale, a blink on a piece of dust. I’m in no way trying to trivialize this situation. It’s absolutely awful. But it does help me to zoom out as far as I can sometimes. Anyways, please know that you were loved. And that you?re thought about, even if people don’t reach out as much as they should. Everyone’s wrestling with this in their own way.
I hope too, that you’ve cracked the working from home routine. I’m not there quite yet. And please keep going, keep surviving, look for the positive and the helpers. I’m honored to talk to you all. And I hope that we do get to meet in person when all this is over. Bye.
Jonathan Dowler
Hey everyone. My name is Jonathan L, and I’m an editor in Toronto. I just wanted to say, I hope you’re hanging in there. I hope we’re staying safe. I hope you’re staying healthy, these days can get hard. I’ve gotten better at homeschooling my three kids, and I started off the lockdown and I’m failing grade one math. So, I hope you’re doing better than me, if you have young children.
When Ontario shut down, I lost work. So, if you are like me without work, hang in there. The sunnier days on the horizon, I hope you’ve gotten some sort of creative projects that you’re working on. There’s some great resources out there online for anything you want to learn. There’s also a good thing to be said about learning a new craft. I’ve taken the time to try editing with Premiere Pro. I’ve taken the time to try and get into DaVinci grading software, the software’s free, and you can actually learn the fundamentals about it, which is always good.
But for those of you who just want to chill out, one thing that I’ve learned about all of this, is that we’re all running our own race and we’re all dealing with this in different ways. So, if being super productive and super organized and having a plan and tackling it every day is a way that you can deal with this time. Then that’s great. But if you just need to crash on the couch, watch some TV, watch movies or play video games. Then that is totally cool too.
In times like these, I try and draw inspiration from the place I’ve always found inspiration and that’s the movies. I’ll play the clip, it is something that has always inspired me. And it’s from Lord of the Rings. Frodo basically says, ?I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.? Which I think we can all sympathize with. Let’s just say the ring is COVID-19.
[film clip audio]
Frodo:
I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf:
So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
[wnd film clip audio]
So, I choose to use that and try and be positive about it. Stay safe, stay healthy, keep cutting, be creative. And I’ll see you on the other side of this.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
Hi there, it’s Leslie MacKay Hunter.
Paul Hunter:
And Paul Hunter.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
We’re asked to speak about what it’s like editing with the whole COVID-19 situation going on. We’re fortunate in the fact that animation is one of the areas that has continued going on.
Paul Hunter:
Probably if anything is also expanding and picking up speed.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
I happened to be in the middle of a contract when this whole thing went down and I have to say a huge shout out to the IT team, to not only figure out how 400 people were going to work from home, but short of ripping the TV down off the wall, literally sent every element of my studio to me. So, I have a full suite that I’m used to in the studio is all at home and I’m working from home. Thankfully, I’ve been working with this director for several months now and he and I have kind of got an idea of what we’re going for.
Paul Hunter:
So, I was in a unique position that I was between gigs when the whole lockdown happened. So, I had decided that I probably would not be able to find any work. All of a sudden I get a call and it looks like I now will be having a gig as well, because there’s a need for new content. And animation is the only part that can create anything new right now. So, I’m going to be in a unique situation where I’m going to be working with a director that I have never worked with before at a studio that I’ve never worked with before. And I’m going to have to figure out how to communicate and build a relationship while starting this project remotely.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
From a personal level, we’re both very thankful to have a fairly young puppy who has joined our family within the last few months. So she of course requires quite a bit of attention. So, we are getting out for walks with her. We’re trying to make sure we get some physical activity exercise in on a daily basis.
Paul Hunter:
Also working for a home. There is some pros.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
For instance, when I’m having a really busy day, I am very fortunate in the fact my lunch is usually delivered to me.
Paul Hunter:
Con, if you’re the second editor of the couple who gets a gig after the first one has taken over the nice office, you get delegated to setting up your suite in the basement laundry room.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
Sorry.
Paul Hunter:
Pro, we have a four legged stress reliever who likes to sometimes poke her head in and try her paw at editing.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
Con is she’s the hit of our studio. And nobody wants to talk to me on Zoom anymore. Pro you are able to relax the dress code even more so than normal.
Paul Hunter:
Con. I still can’t have boxer Tuesdays.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
We recognize how fortunate we are and we’re staying safe. And I encourage all of you to do what you need to, to just keep your head on straight during this time. Because it’s a weird time. It just really is. So take the time, do what you need to, have a giggle every so often and stay safe.
Paul Hunter:
Take care guys.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
We’ll see you soon.
Paul Hunter:
Bye.
Leslie MacKay Hunter:
Bye.
Steve Rivkin:
My name is Steve Rivkin and I’m in Los Angeles working on the Avatar Sequels. At a time when the majority of our industry is out of work. Our editorial team is very fortunate to still have a job. In March, our production crew was scheduled to head to New Zealand for the next leg of our live action shooting schedule on the films. A contingent of our editorial department was scheduled to go, myself included, when the national emergency was declared in the US.
The trip was postponed and we went into lockdown like everyone else. The Avatar projects are unique in the sense that a huge percentage of the films are virtual production based on the performance capture of our actors, which wrapped some time ago. We have the ability to play back those captured performances and create shots for the films without the actors present on the stage. Now their virtual characters will be driven by the actors? captured performances.
Currently, during the lockdown, we are unable to access the virtual stages at Manhattan beach studios to create those camera shots. But fortunately, we have a backlog of scenes to continue to work on remotely from home, and shots and coverage are still being created through alternative methods. Our entire crew of editors and assistants have been equipped with specially-formatted laptops, monitors, and an encrypted password protected path for us to access from home, the Avids and media that are secured in the cutting rooms at the studio.
We are conducting online meetings reviews with editors, assistants, VFX effects supervisors and digital artists. All working from home. The pandemic has forced us to test workflows that I believe will have a lasting impact on our industry and the future of how we work. I think when we get on the other side of this worldwide crisis, a lot of what we’re doing may stick and more and more editors will be working from home in the future. In the meantime, stay well, hopefully we will all be able to safely get back to work soon.
Pauline Decroix
Hi, my name is Pauline Decroix. Salut, mon nom c?est Pauline Decroix, I’m going to share with you what kind of change I faced during this quarantine time. Je vais vous parler un petit peu qu’est-ce qui a changé pour moi dans cette période de quarantaine. Pour moi, de n’ai plus une station de montage à la maison, mais deux. Pourquoi, parce que ma station de montage est sur Mac, et je travaillais sur une série de télé qui était sur PC, alors la production m’a gentiment ramené l’ordinateur de production à la maison. Donc maintenant je travaille sur deux stations différents à la maison. So, what has changed is that I have not only one editing station at home, but two now. My regular one is a Mac and the second one is a PC. I was working before all of that happened on a TV series that was working on a PC platform. So now I’m working on a PC platform from home, thanks to the production company who bought the production computer at home.
What is exciting for me during this special period, I’m fortunate enough to be part of two other projects. Two short docs, working on those, I find myself that I take more time than usual to work on them. And the time allowed me to be more creative, to find more ways to improve my cuts. So, I think I’m going to remember that in the future when we are forced to meet our deadlines. Just to remember that when we give time to creativity, it’s a win-win for the project and for ourselves. Donc, ce que je trouve qui est géniale en ce moment c’est que je prends plus de temps pour travailler sur mes projets. Pas sur la série de télé sur laquelle je travaille à ce moment, mais sur les deux autres courts métrages documentaires sur lesquelles j’ai la chance de travailler. En faite, je prends plus le temps de la réflection. Et du coup ça m’aide à être plus créative et je crois en faite j’essayerais de faire repenser mes productrices, producteurs, réalisatrices, réalisateurs que c’est important de donner du temps à la créativité parce que le projet au finale, sera que plus gagnant. Voilà ça c’est ma petite contribution aujourd’hui. Stay strong colleagues, restez forts collègues. Stay healthy, restons en santé. And we are going to go through that together – et on va passer à travers tout ceci, tous ensemble. So, see you on the other side. On se revoit de l?autre côté. See you on the other side. Bye. À bientôt. Take care.
Scott Parker:
Hi there, my name’s Scott Parker and I’m a documentary editor in Edmonton, Alberta. I usually work out of producers? studios and sometimes I rent my own temporary space if I’ve got a lot of different jobs on the go. The rest of the time I work from home. I was pretty lucky that I had a plan to move out of my temporary office on March 15th. Just about the time the COVID shutdown happened. So, now I’m working out of my little basement suite where I also live.
One of my biggest and most rewarding projects has been postponed for a while. I don’t think it will get canceled outright, but if it does, things are going to get pretty tricky. I’ve been spending my time learning new things on Udemy and I’ve taken some social media courses with Hootsuite. I do more and more social media work now. So, learning new skills is good. That’s always good. Even though I’m pretty solitary by nature, being solitary all the time is getting tiring.
I can feel it sort of wearing me down, and I feel stuck. And right now I feel like this is going to be going on forever. But I am lucky because my friends and family are doing fine and I don’t know anybody who’s been sick with COVID. It’s never been easy for us freelancers to make a living in this business. And the whole COVID shutdown has made it that much harder. But it’s going to be over and we’re going to get back to it.
So let’s try and stay sharp and look after each other. And when it’s time we’ll get back at it. We’ll make commercials and music videos and documentary films, and will curse system crashes and client changes and ridiculous deadlines and I look forward to all of that and I wish you all the best of luck.
Jane MacRae:
Hello Sarah and people of the editor’s cut who are listening to this podcast. I think it’s great that you’re taking the time to hear from everybody, so I’ll just keep it brief for myself. This is Jane MacRae. I am a film and television editor living and working in Toronto, Canada. For the last eight weeks or so–however long it’s been, I’ve completely lost track–I’ve been self isolating at home with my husband, a middle school teacher who’s been doing classes from home, and my dog who is mostly incredibly thrilled to have us around so much.
As a freelancer, I am pretty used to uncertainty in my life. I’ve had many periods of time where I’ve not worked for many weeks at a time, sometimes willingly, often unwillingly. So for me, taking this time has not been, I think as stressful as it has been for people in other industries. I am also fortunate that no one around me has been affected directly by the virus. Members of my family who were working are still working and people are healthy, so that’s great.
Here in Toronto, most of the editors that I know I think are not working. So, I feel very fortunate that I actually have been working quite a bit during this period. I had a job at the beginning of the quarantine on a show that had been shot already, so I edited that for a while. Then I had some time off and I’ve just recently started on a new show that’s being produced by a Canadian production company that’s being shot entirely with actors in their homes in lockdown.
I’ve only worked on it for a few days so far, but we have some really, really great cast members, young people who are filming using cell phones at their homes and interacting via Zoom and being directed via Zoom by the director and showrunner. So, I’m pretty excited about the show. I think it should be pretty fun when it all comes together and it’s definitely something that is going to feel unique and very particularly of this time, which I think is important, to kind of remember how we all felt and what we were all going through during this period.
My big hope obviously is that things will ease up, that we’ll be able to start going out seeing our friends and family and also that the industry here in Toronto and in Canada and around the world will get up and operating again. Here we’re very, very reliant on a lot of service productions coming in from the United States and it’s going to be really challenging to see what’s going to happen in the future if travel restrictions continue and just generally if people are feeling nervous about traveling and they might not want to come up here to shoot films or television shows.
So I’m not really sure what’s going to happen, and I just have to take it day by day and keep my fingers crossed that we’re going to be okay. In the meantime, I’ve also been working with the rest of the board of the Canadian Cinema Editors to try and connect people during this time when everyone’s stuck at home. The board has been amazing and worked so hard to put together a lot of online events, creating virtual socials, online masterclasses and talks. We even did a couple of Netflix parties just trying to find ways to get our post-production community to connect and talk with each other and not feel so alone.
I’m really, really proud of all the work that all of our board members, who are all volunteer, are doing during this time. And Sarah, I want to thank you particularly for your work on the Editor’s Cut and taking the time to bring in all these messages from around the world. I hope that everyone is healthy, that everyone remains hopeful and that we can all go back to the business of being creative and being excited about what we’re making as soon as possible. Good luck to everyone and wishing you the best. Thanks.
Ron Sanders:
Hi, this is Ron Sanders from Toronto and I’m in quarantine like everyone else. So, I’m staying home and trying to keep myself amused and a bit sane. FaceTime and Zoom are helping us to keep in touch with family and friends, but after that it’s a long day. I read and listen to music. I play guitar some. I grew a beard and I shaved part of my head. What makes my day more specific is the time I spend playing with my computer.
I have Avid media composer, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro 10. But I don’t have as much picture media. Few things I have managed to discover though: Media Composer?s new interface accomplishes very little. DaVinci Resolve I just don’t like and Final Cut Pro is pretty much useless for me. Big fail. I also have Garage band and Logic Pro, and a large library of samples and loops. I?m getting into funk drumming. 2020 will be the year of COVID-19, social distancing, and political tap dancing by our various leaders. It will also be the year of all of us doing the best we could. Stay home. Stay well.
Jillian Moul:
Hello, this is Jillian Moul. I’m a documentary editor and ACE member in Los Angeles, California. I’ve been working from home since late last year, so my routine has been much the same since our shelter in place. One difference is that my director, producers, and I collaborate on Zoom meetings. And even though I’m a bit of an introvert, and love to work alone with the footage and the story, when we do collaborate, I prefer to do that in person, which of course isn’t happening right now.
I find virtual meetings to be limiting and strangely exhausting. I?ve rarely gone out since early March. Safety has been a priority, especially since I have asthma, but as cautious as I’ve been, I woke up one day with symptoms that seemed like COVID-19. I got tested two days later and the results came back four days later. Negative. I was relieved, but our tests aren’t very accurate. There are many reports about false negative or false positive results. My symptoms would get better for a couple of days. Then get worse and better back and forth until five weeks later and they’re all but gone. I’ll get an antibody test, but I’ll wait for the Roche test since that one is highly accurate. There are still a lot of questions. What we do know is that our world has changed. Lucky for us in post that technology is such that we can work from home. I hope that you’ll be well and employed in the months ahead. I look forward to the time when my colleagues and I can once again share our stories in person.
Gillian Truster:
Hi everyone. My name is Gillian Truster, and I’m an editor from Toronto. I was working just outside of Vancouver on a TV series when our production shut down because of the virus. I’d only arrived there on March 1st, and was really looking forward to exploring the city since I’d never been to Vancouver before. But within days of my arrival, the news surrounding COVID-19 became progressively more serious. When I told the woman who ran my Airbnb that I was flying home, she said she was so relieved. Knowing I was alone in the city, she had been about to message me to let me know she’d take care of me if I got sick. It’s one of the kindest, most generous things anyone has ever said to me. Since I’ve been back home. I think of this often. It’s a good reminder that while crises can bring out the worst in people, they can also bring out the best. I find myself having a greater appreciation for things I used to take for granted and also having deeper conversations with friends.
Maybe it’s that small talk seems so trivial now in light of the pandemic, or maybe it’s the shared knowledge that we’re all going through some sort of trauma and we’re all listening to each other more. I hope some of that kindness stays long after the pandemic ends. This is a time of great anxiety and uncertainty for all of us, and I find it reassuring to remind myself that this too shall pass. In the meantime, I’m staying connected to family and friends. I think it’s important to check up on them, and nice to be checked up on. Perhaps the world in the new normal will be better than the old normal. I look forward to the day that I can see all your lovely faces again in person. Until then, please stay healthy and safe. Virtual hugs to all.
Paul Winestock:
Hi, ssh listen. It’s the early sounds of spring in Toronto. It’s Paul Winestock and I’ve been asked by the CCE to talk about how the challenging time of the pandemic has affected my days, my time. And of course, I don’t have work right now and I don’t foresee any work too soon and not in the next couple of months. So, I’m just trying to enjoy each day as much as I can giving a bit of purpose with projects. So I’ve been spending time in my garden building a trellis and prepping the garden for the summer season. I do stuff around the house–whatever my meager talents can manage such as painting or little fix ups here and there. And then in the evenings the family gets together and we will do a puzzle or play game, Rummy cubes, Settlers of Catan. We like to attack each other full throttle.
We do some cooking and baking. We’re baking every few nights actually. The carrot cake we learned a lesson that came out raw. The cheesecake brownies were a huge hit. I go down the rabbit hole of YouTube and Spotify and listen to new music and old music. And we’ve been binge watching shows like Bosch and I Unorthodox. And then we’ve gone to older shows like The Wire and re-watching The Wire and Battlestar Galactica, the 2004 version, which was one of our family favorites.
And when we feel like a good silly comedy, we go to HBO, Angie Tribeca, which is like an airplane movie humor, like the movie airplane. It’s great, silly fun. Anyways, I hope everyone is well and healthy, and I look forward to seeing any of you, all of you at an edit facility at a corridor, CCE event sometime in the near future. Thanks for listening.
Sarah Hedar:
Hi, this is Sarah Hedar and I’m in Vancouver, BC. Like pretty much everyone else. I’ve been social isolating and although I’m sure the sentiments played out, it hasn’t been a huge stretch for me to spend more time alone given my chosen profession. But despite that, I am looking forward to seeing more friends and family as restrictions ease up and in each phase. And in the meantime, I’ve been catching up on rest and working on some of my own projects and I’ve also been able to take the time to just watch more content and especially trying to see more work from friends and colleagues and peers.
So it’s been pretty great to see the caliber of work that’s out there. And I’ve also been trying to keep track of where our industry is headed in terms of productions resuming, and what that could look like for protocols and budgets and how that’s going to affect post-production. While there’s just so much uncertainty, and just also looking at where I’d like to be when things start to pick up again and if there are any changes to be made there.
I know a lot of people aren’t really getting any time and that things have been really up and down for a lot of folks, and people are just managing a lot. So, wherever anyone is at, I just hope you’re able to find your part and your peace and all this and make it through and I truly wish everyone the best.
Mike Munn:
Hi, my name’s Mike Munn and I’m a film editor and I live in Peterborough, Ontario. Like most other editors, I’ve been working remotely since the lockdown started in around mid-March and it has obviously a very big downside. There’s nothing like working with people in the same room and interacting in that way, but editing to a degree is conducive to working on your own. And I’m actually looking at this as a learning experience.
I’m trying to look at the upside as a kind of a dry run for doing more of my work remotely in the future because I live in Peterborough and all of my work is out of Toronto. If I can avoid staying in town and commuting into town to work periodically, I’d love to do more of that. I’ve been hesitant in the past just because working out the technical logistics of working at home has always been something I’ve not really looked forward to but I’m being forced to do it now.
So in a way I guess the benefit for me of this whole period is going to be having set myself up at home and learning to work with filmmakers remotely is something perhaps I can do more of in the future. I’m trying to look at the upside of this whole situation and the other thing I would say just in terms of my two-sentence worth with how I keep myself sane and functioning the way I should, for me it’s routine. I’d follow the same routines I would if I was working with other people or going somewhere else to work.
It’s getting up in the morning, getting dressed and isolating myself in the part of the house where my edit suite is and feeling like I’m going to another place and keeping up all the routines I would do when I’m normally editing, which is taking a break periodically and finishing more or less the same time every day. Trying to not work in the evenings too much. For me, that’s always been the way to not burn out or not overdo it. Keep up a regular routine, so anyway, good luck to everyone. This will be over eventually and work will return to normal, so. Okay, bye.
Michèle Hozer:
Hi, my name is Michèle Hozer. I’m a documentary editor and filmmaker. In 2017, my husband and I bought a property in Prince Edward County. We had spent the previous year working on a documentary for TVO here, and we fell in love with the place. The plan was supposed to be in about five years from now, I’d be able to have a full time studio and production office here. In the meantime, I was going back and forth from Toronto to the County working mainly in the city during the week.
When the pandemic hit, I realized that I can set up shop full time here in the County. I brought my favorite equipment including a standup desk and started cutting here. Okay. There are challenges working here in the County, notably, a really bad internet. But with a little bit of creativity, I’m able to crunch down files small enough to upload them onto Vimeo and Dropbox. My two favorite tools working remotely. It’s great working here in the County. We’re able to go for long walks and we’re near the lake.
So I’m very grateful to be here. The question remains, what’s going to happen to our industry? I know a lot of people whose productions are on hold because of COVID-19. What’s it going to look like next year at this time? I am optimistic though with the little ingenuity. I think we’ll be able to work around it or at least I hope so. Good luck to us all.
Paul Day:
Hi Sarah, it’s Paul Day. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this extra special podcast. During this crazy time, I know for myself, keeping busy and cooking and reaching out to as many people as I possibly can has really been a help for me. Friends who I’ve missed and thanks to sort of social media and Instagram, Facebook and Zoom and FaceTime, emails. It’s definitely one of those times that reaching out and connecting with your friends in any capacity is the best medicine I think.
For maintaining creativity, I’ve been playing a lot with Photoshop and learning a little bit about After Effects and watching a lot of videos on the making of things and the editing of things and reading books on the editing and being part of the DGC and the Canadian Cinema Editors. I’ve been able to interview some editors and I was interviewed for some things as well. If it’s a small way of reaching out to people who are just starting off in the business or just for the same simple interest of people who are in the business who want to learn more about what we do and sort of peek inside the trials and tribulations of a cutting room or than where they started. And the multiple levels of appreciation for people that you meet along the way. And the understanding that a career doesn’t happen overnight. A career is built over time and hard work and perseverance and it takes an army to build a career. And I wish everyone the best. My career has always been in the sense of giving back as much as I can because I just think people need opportunities. And they want to see that people care about the next generation. And I think that’s important, more prevalent in post-production because we’re always so isolated away.
And to have editors reach out and talk to people and share their experiences is a good thing. And I think everyone should do that. This COVID experience is yet another chapter in people’s lives, in their careers, whether they’re just starting off or whether they’ve been in it for 20, 30, 40 years. It?s definitely a trying time to think of a more frugal way of living, which I guess we should all do anyways. This too will pass. If somebody’s listening to this and they’re feeling down or they’re feeling low, I encourage them to reach out to friends and just say, “Hey, I’m not feeling well today. Do you have 10 minutes or 20 minutes to have a cup of tea and just chat on the phone.”
But there’s also times to just get outside and walk the dog and enjoy the silence. Thinking about I’m taking the dog for a walk, how quiet it is outside. So I kind of relish in that. And just one day at a time, we will all get through this and we will all get to a point where we’ll look back on this and go, “Gee, we survived this.” So anyways again, this is a great idea for a podcast and I hope I’ve contributed something. And again I can’t thank you enough and the board at the Canadian Cinema Editors for the amount of work that you have all put in to entertain and to inform and to build up the prestige and the fascination that people should have with editorial. You guys definitely have been knocking it out of the park. Take care everybody. We’ll see you on the other side of this. Bye.
Krystal Moss:
Hello, Bonjour. My name is Krystal Moss from Edmonton, Alberta and I’m a bilingual editor here and a new mom to a baby girl that was born this past January. While the pandemic has brought certainly unique challenges to motherhood, my day to day hasn’t changed a whole lot during my maternity leave. I’d love to share with you all some sounds from my home in the hopes that it brings you a little bit of joy today. We’ve got some baby girl gurgles [Baby gurgles].
Here I am dusting off my guitar while baby naps. [Guitar strumming.] And with the help of my downstairs neighbor Ben, here is ?Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams and Dream Your Troubles Away.? [Music playing] Take care editors. Remember that the sunshine always follows the rain.
Sarah Taylor:
A special thank you to all the editors that took time to share with us today. Thank you to Jane MacRae, Jenni McCormick from ACE, Stephen Philipson, CCE and my auntie Heather Urness for helping inspire this episode. I hope you’re all well and safe. Take care.
The episode artwork was designed by Jane MacRae, music provided by Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts, and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time, I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.
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The assistant editor is the foundation that holds the edit suite together, and is to the editor what Robin is to Batman.
But you may not want to be Robin forever. How does one make the move from assisting to editing?
How does Robin become the Batman?
Have a listen to this informal Q&A session with Vancouver editors Justin Li and Greg Ng.
Moderated by director Kaare Andrews.
Justin Li is a television and film editor based in Vancouver, B.C. His genre of work include drama, horror, comedy and science fiction. Notable projects include the television adaptation of the Douglas Adams novels, ?Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency?, CBC’s limited series “Unspeakable”, and historical horror anthology series ?The Terror: INFAMY?. Justin enjoys long walks, standing desks and ergonomic mice.
Greg Ng is a film and television editor from Vancouver, B.C., and though he doesn?t like being pigeonholed into one particular label as a multi-faceted human, he feels comfortable identifying as such for tax purposes. He is an alumnus of the UBC Film Program and the Canadian Film Centre, and has worked on documentaries, fiction films, and everything in between. In addition to these facts, he has won several awards for editing, which validated his professional insecurities and made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. Some recent credits include the VIFF 2018 People?s Choice winner, Finding Big Country, Viceland?s The Wrestlers, and Epix?s rock doc series Punk.
The Editor?s Cut – Episode 028 – ?Moving from Assisting to Editing (Vancouver Master Class)?
Sarah Taylor
This episode was sponsored by Finale ? A Picture Shop Company. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. Before we dive into this episode I have a message from DOXA. The 19th Annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival returns June 18th to 26th online. Committed to cultivating curiosity and critical thought. DOXA will present both short and feature films from across Canada and the globe representing some of the best in documentary cinema. The online festival will include live and pre-recorded conversations with filmmakers as well as industry specific events. More announcements including programming to come. Visit doxafestival.ca for details and further updates. Today I bring you the panel Moving From Assisting to Editing that was recorded on October 16th 2019 at Finale in Vancouver. The assistant editor is the foundation that holds the edit suite together and is to the editor what Robin is to Batman. But you may not want to be Robin forever. How does one make the move from assisting to editing. How does Robin become the Batman. Have a listen to this informal Q and A session with Vancouver editors Justin Li and Greg Ng. Some of Greg’s recent credits include the VIFF 2018 People’s Choice Winner Finding Big Country, Viceland?s The Wrester and Epic?s rock doc series Punk. And Justin’s recent credits include Dirk Gently?s Holistic Detective Agency, CBC?s limited series Unspeakable and historical horror anthology series The Terror: Infamy. This panel was moderated by director Kaare Andrews.
Kaare Andrews
Well I think we should start. I’d like to just set the stage with like how you guys got into this where you were your background is are you from here. Are you from some other faraway land. Greg you grew up here and is that right. Or where did you how did you where were you born.
Greg Ng
I was born in this city. Yes. And then I went school Richmond. blah blah I went to UBC for the film program and that was very good. Very small kind of program. It?s still small. Then I went to the Canadian Film Centre in 2008.
Kaare Andrews
You’re from here as well.
Justin Li
I am from here. Yeah I was born here I grew up in Coquitlam just like a suburb outside of Vancouver for those not from here. And then I actually didn’t know films or want to get into. I watched a ton of movies growing up my parents took me every week to cheap Tuesday didn’t matter what the rating was probably not the best parenting but worked out for me. I went to SFU I studied Communications. Then I went to BC IT for broadcast actually and I used to work in sports and news just in various things shooting, graphics ?
Kaare Andrews
Let’s back up a little bit a little bit. We’re racing ahead to education but really most people here their love of film starts at an early age. So Greg how did it start for you. What was the what was the what was the turning point for film and then how old were you when you realized that some could be an editor of a film. When did that. When did that happen. That’s secret information.
Greg Ng
It’s Star Wars. I loved that. And I got a box set. So the making of and I was like holy moly these guys made aliens and spaceships. I want to do that.
Kaare Andrews
When did you when did you realize that there was such a thing as an editor do you remember? Was there a moment when you when it was like oh there’s a whole list of people here that have done different things.
Greg Ng
You know I can’t remember the specific moment but I do remember when I wanted to make a movie with my home video camera. I was like How am I supposed to get from this shot to that shot? But without you know they I just like you into the stop start movie making? So I was like there’s gotta be a better way to do this.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah. Your family had a handy camera was it a friend?
Greg Ng
Yeah my family had a handicam. It was cutting edge at the time and had a color viewfinder.
Kaare Andrews
And Justin how about you when did you get into it like wonder with the love or film one of that kind of emerge?
Justin Li
Love of film just came with watching a lot of movies with my family growing up. Yeah. It was always innately there. The first time I saw it as a career opportunity something that I would actually be interested in especially specifically editing was in SFU. I was in a class regarding technology and society and our final project for the class was to do a five minute video documentary on any subject related to the course so my group did online dating. No one knew how to edit, shoot, make anything. I was the most comfortable with computers so I took on editing, pirated some software. I taught myself how to use it I think Sony Vegas or something. That’s how long ago it was. But I taught myself to edit. I got all the footage for the project two nights before our final was due, stayed up for 48 straight hours and was very happy at the end of it and really enjoyed every minute of it. After that I was like Yeah I can do this and I kind of sort of sought those opportunities out.
Kaare Andrews
And Greg When was your first when’s the first time you edited something?
Greg Ng
I edited in school in elementary school. Doing the two VCR system was probably my first editing experience and I went overboard with like my favorite song of the time and there was some projects I don’t know what it was exactly. We had to remake a Shakespeare scene in modern day times and I took an entire song and had this huge build that only remember the band and it was magic because I was like Can’t you feel the emotion that’s happening right now. The music’s gone all these things and it was very complicated though to time the VCRs with the whole thing.
Kaare Andrews
And you been pretty tech savvy since I’ve known you that as it is that what did that lead into. What you liked about editing?
Greg Ng
Yeah for sure. I it was a big fan of tinkering with computers and recording devices played music and recorded it. I pirated some software as well. Now that’s not something I do, I?d just like to clarify that I subscribe to all my software. But yeah tinkering with all the gear and sort of knowing how to record things and sort of embellish them and play them back was always really fun.
Kaare Andrews
There’s a big connection between music and editing for a lot of people. Is there is there with you Justin? Were you into music at all?
Justin Li
I like music but I don’t think it related to editing for me. I like that you can take two images that were totally unrelated. Juxtapose them and just like infuse meaning into them. I think that was something that really caught caught my eye about it. Looking for meaning, creating meaning and I think and you know just empathy was something that was really interesting to me because you could take something and hold it for an extra second and it feels wholly different. Knowing that that’s how it would affect people. I think that that part of it was really interesting. Yeah it sounds like I’m super manipulative.
Kaare Andrews
But that’s the job isn’t that manipulative?
Justin Li
Yeah I think that’s what holds my interest in it.
Kaare Andrews
OK Now let’s get into the school. So Justin when you started school you weren’t initially I’m going to be an editor. In film. You were telling me you were gonna give me Give me the rundown of your school.
Justin Li
I went to school for broadcast after I made that discovery about editing. It was more that I also wanted just like work and like you know pay off debts and things like that. So going to BC IT was a quick way to earn a job because I would graduate right when the 2010 Olympics came here. But I knew that we covered production in the course. So I was using that kind of as a back door in and through that met a lot of the editing instructors and that’s actually how I got my first assistant gig.
Kaare Andrews
Through one of the instructors at school?
Justin Li
Yeah. So he is a post producer in town and I kind of just asked him after this they have these conferences with all those staff and you can ask them questions as students and stuff and try to improve the program. And I went out to him afterwards and I asked him if I could take his course at night or anything in addition to my broadcast course. And he let me audit it for free. At the end of that course they had everyone apply for jobs to be a first assistant on one of his pilots that he was doing. And the editor chose me and that was my first gig.
Kaare Andrews
Oh that’s cool. That’s great. Greg how did your first job come along?
Greg Ng
I actually had a similar story? UBC. Yeah I went to the film program there when I finished the program one of the teachers knew somebody who is a post supervisor and was looking for a post P.A.. And so right out of like I graduated and started working at Bright Light Pictures where I learned a lot about you know how movies actually got made.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah. Now let’s say what that first job were you prepared for that job. Was it overwhelming and was it easy when was that what was it like to see.
Greg Ng
I mean the first one being a post P.A. it was like just being a production assistant you know for post-production and was pretty it was pretty light. There was you know getting lunches. I built a lot of spreadsheets a lot of I built a database a lot of sort of that sort of stuff I procured certain things for certain people that are now legal. There was not part of the description but it was something that fell upon me.
Kaare Andrews
And Justin how were you when your first job what was that what was that experience like?
Justin Li
It was good. I mean it is you don’t really learn too much about syncing and dailies paperwork and all that stuff in school. So you know you go there and you lean on another assistant if they’re there or you know they train you in afternoon and it’s kind of trial by fire it’s sink or swim I didn’t delete all the footage my first night ? everything got sunk I was ready for everyone in the morning you know it’s like yeah it’s kind of it you just get thrown into the deep end. But yeah thankfully it worked out for me. I was just comfortable enough with technology and computers and stuff that I think I was able to muddle through it.
Kaare Andrews
And what about what about the first time. You you’re now working started your your your career working as a lower position. The first time you started you were you editing your own material on the side or how did that. Did you have time even. I mean it’s very busy.
Justin Li
Yeah I think for me once I made the jump fully into film you grab anything you can edit I mean you’re not getting paid for it. I think that’s probably what everyone needs to understand is you can’t get a editing job that’s going to pay you right out of the gate. You need to build credibility and also prove yourself to people. So for me while I was assisting assisting was great it paid the bills and it gave me a real a real life like opportunity to learn from masters of the craft and people that I consider like the best editors in town. And then on the side I’d be cutting everything I could shorts, reels? like whatever people will give you and let you mess with. And I think that by far accelerated my learning and my ability to do so.
Kaare Andrews
And how did you how did you get those little things. How did you get those shorts and those reels?
Justin Li
Word of mouth. There you go. You go network. I think we didn’t have the VPA back then. That’s something that we have here now that you can go to networking events for. It’s talking to people in other departments on shows that you’re working on I think you know at your entry level there’s someone at an entry level in Camera, in ADing, whatever and they all need editors particularly free ones so there’s opportunities there. I think it’s just making it known that you’re interested in those opportunities to anyone that will listen and eventually someone will ask them and they’ll pass your name on.
Greg Ng
When I’m on set. It’s. Like it’s like everyone’s always making their own projects. Yeah I guess it’s just finding those people that are making their own projects and to make things with.
Kaare Andrews
And Greg, what about you? When you were at Bright Light and were you cutting shorts and things like that Bright Light?
Greg Ng
Yes I was. I was cutting things on the side and then I would do all this sort of fast film competitions that were happening. I did a lot of 48 hour competitions a lot of the 24 hour all the hours. Crazy eights. Yeah. And so that was kind of like I met new people and did fun things on the weekend and lost a lot of sleep. Working on short films Yeah.
Kaare Andrews
How long did you spend at Bright Light and doing these shorts and stuff on the side. And then when did you leave. Like what what was what happened next.
Greg Ng
I think I was there for three or four years. Kind of post P.A. working and then eventually evolving into assistant editor. Learning the ropes from the other assistant editors that were working there.
Kaare Andrews
By the time you jumped into assistant editing. Did you understand the job or was it still a very new experience?
Greg Ng
It was I think the I mean there’s a huge difference between assisting and editing. Editing is you know the emotion whenever I like putting them together the creative side and assistant editing on a feature scale is you know is a huge sort of organizational nightmare. And still lots of you know tracking viz effects shots and I think I learned a lot about sort of just managing this sort of monstrosity that a movie can be when it’s big on a short film. You know my organization and I think in the beginning like working on Final Cut 7 or whatever it’s all just like everything in one folder and you know it’s happening in 48 hours I don’t need to remember the footage scrub the footage and like where’s the shot. We don’t have it. But on a feature you know I learned a lot about organizing and know how to just like simplify and refine and all that sort of stuff just through assisting. I think taught me a lot about how to break things down into their elements and sort of make things manageable.
Kaare Andrews
And Justin when did you start officially assistant editing?
Justin Li
I think it started around 2000. I did that first one in 2010 but I was still working broadcast for a while. So I went into it full time in about 2012.
Kaare Andrews
How did that happen?
Justin Li
It’s just opportunities came up. I was able to roll on to from like a MOW to a limited series to a series kind of back to back to back with overlap.
Kaare Andrews
Kind of with the same core people?
Justin Li
You know like similar Post Supervisor. You know when I got into that series there were four editors I got to work with three of them two or three of them. One of those editors and I hit it off and he took me to another post supervisors so that my network you know, grows. And you know from there then I got to work on a different series and you need more editors and that’s kind of how it is for assistants. I’d say it’s wonderful to build rapport with the same post supervisor because that’s how you’ll ultimately get opportunities in the end when they trust you and you put your time in with them. But at the same time you can’t put all your eggs in that basket. And I think not being afraid to take chances and work with new people is is something that’s important because when you work with new people your network grows and then there’s that many more opportunities flying at you especially if you’re good.
Kaare Andrews
What was that initial learning curve like when you were just into it?
Justin Li
It was you know it was intense and was fast paced but it was something I was very passionate about so you know I think on those shows like I would pull all nighters sometimes just because I was given like an action scene and I wanted it and they’re just like oh can you do sound for this and I’m like Okay I’m going to crush sound for this. And I stayed up like the entire night went home to shower came back to work and you know and that’s ultimately the editor that took me onto another show with him. So it’s like you know it was steep. The other thing too is I would say if you’re in opportunity where you get to work on a series or there’s multiple First Assistants or assistant editors in general talk to each other like teach each other stuff because the amount of stuff I’ve learned from them. Like James Lawson’s in this room as an assistant editor. I don’t know how much stuff James taught me. Like most all of my templates and stuff are from James. It’s like so you know talk to each other and don’t don’t be kind of protective of your skills. I think sharing them with other people and other assistants is only gonna make you better you need to. You need to support each other and have each other’s backs. And I think for me like that allowed me to grow as an assistant editor and ultimately as an editor too much more quickly.
Kaare Andrews
So some of those first things you can do to really prove yourself was like sound design things like that temp sound.
Justin Li
Yeah sound design. I think it’s a sound design temp visual effects like I didn’t really know how to use anything but you know we have YouTube now. You can get a tutorial for like anything whatever is asked of you. Just give it like go for it and then try to figure it out. Like even if even if what you did isn’t great. Ultimately if you try people will appreciate it and they’ll take notice of it and you’ll learn and the next time you get asked to do the same thing you’ll do it that much better.
Kaare Andrews
I’ve worked with editors and they’re like oh there was this other assistant on the show and I demanded he was my assistant cuz? he does amazing things with sound or whatever there was you know certain things that people get known for. And Greg, what was the first what were the first areas you could like prove yourself as someone who could do things in a way that was exceptional.
Greg Ng
Well similarly I had an action scene. Lots of bullets to ricochets lots of big boom. There was definitely something that I prided myself and was like working with sound like? how can you take a sound that’s there and sort of bend it into something that became like you know as polished as possible for? there?s sort of the attitude that it just has to be good enough to you know sell the idea for it the scene to work. And then there’s the idea that it has to be you know just polish that scene as much as possible so that people don’t have to necessarily rely on their imagination to make it work which translated into temp effects. And other such things. So I learned how to do after effects and whatever smoke 3D stuff and whatever like just to make it pass.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah I know for me when I’m when I’m doing my director’s cut and there’s. Great sound design temp sounds in the cut I know it’s going to it’s going to make the sound designers rise up to at least that level. Like it or not you’re trying to beat it. You know yeah it’s super important to have not just placeholders but like good work there.
Justin Li
Yeah I think to your point I like doing temp sound may seem frivolous because it’s ultimately all gonna get replaced but it’s a really great way to show your taste level and ultimately becoming an editor is? it’s about your taste like the whole job is based on your opinion and I think if you can showcase that you have that high level of taste or a level of taste that’s in sync with what the director the showrunner the other editor wants. I think that’s a good way to inch your way into being given scenes to assemble because they’re like Okay I trust this person. They clearly know how a show should look sound and feel. So let’s give them more chances.
Kaare Andrews
So what what were some of those early chances that you were given in terms of OK here’s what you do run on this. Justin?
Justin Li
Yeah. I mean like for me it’s like you know you did sound and then be like oh like this guy can understand music you understand kind of like sound design a little bit like you don’t need to be a master at it but it’s something something you can work at. I mean we all watch TV and movies you should have a rough idea of how things are supposed to look and feel and then yeah you do that for editors and they?re like Hey this is pretty good. I’m getting slammed I have nine hours of dailies today. Can you take the scene off my plate and the answer’s yes. See you do it. And then hopefully that goes well I think and then that will snowball right.
Kaare Andrews
Do you remember the first chance to show yourself?
Justin Li
I think it was just the dialogue scene. I mean most editors will start you off small. They’re not going to give you something with a ton of coverage because they ultimately need to know that coverage inside and out but they’ll give you a dialogue scene three or four setups and then you just I think it was something like that as you’re just cutting back and forth between two people talking? And and that goes well enough and they give you a bigger scene and the bigger scene and then eventually you’re cutting something like 26 setups. And I think you know and it’s it’s all frozen. He’s just learned a long way.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah yeah. Greg what do you remember the first kind of chance you were given really prove yourself in a scene?
Greg Ng
You know I can’t exactly when I think back to that time. There was a lot of energy drinks and a lot of late nights in my memory it was kind of foggy of those holes so I don’t? I do remember one particular scene in a movie that I was given a chance to do some cutting on and it involved the Taliban running through fancy gardens chasing after Hitler or something. It was just bananas.
Speaker 34
What movie was this?
Greg Ng
Uh Postal, I think? Yeah I was assisting for Julian Clarke and it was he was very knowledgeable and it was a fun wacky time.
Kaare Andrews
When you say he?s knowledgeable like what what did what did you learn from him or one of your other editors you worked with around that time that stayed with you? You just kind of starting to be given these chances to prove yourself. You’re kind of you’ve kind of learned things technically. What were some of the early points of advice that really helped get you know get you where you’re going.
Greg Ng
Well I think we were just talking about sort of you know polishing the scene and refining and refining and I do remember not one thing that comes to mind right now not from Julian but from the movie I worked where they I didn’t like I knew people were using test scores but I didn’t know the certain level to which temp scores were being used where like they were really they were pulling like from one scene there was like pulling from like a dozen different movies and each one of those things were like a tiny little sting to make you know make the movie sound like it was fully scored. And that was the first time I saw a temp score being used so meticulously and I there was a period of time where I just couldn’t wait to work on any short film so I could mess around with the temp score from Indiana Jones or whatever like the biggest movies possible just to give it like a huge sound but to time it to your own movie.
Kaare Andrews
And then specifically for like someone like Julian was it was there a thing that sticks out like his approach to something that that inspired you to do try things a new way or?.
Greg Ng
I will say he was very inspiring but I couldn’t tell you like a nugget of wisdom that he may or may not have told me. I remember I picked him up one morning and we were driving to the office and or maybe we were driving home. It was a foggy time and he was looking out the window and said something like he was like looked over and he’s like I think I must be daydreaming because I just was like looking out the window and be like you know this window needs some matte bars because it’s not the right aspect ratio.
Kaare Andrews
And Justin what about you? Were there any early mentors or editors that?
Justin Li
Yeah totally. I’ve had lots of editing mentors which is what I’ve been very lucky about. A lot of guys in town that have brought me up taking me under their wing I think building on what I was saying earlier about proving yourself to them and then being given some trust in assembling scenes of stuff. It’s great to assemble and it’s always nice when you click on that bin later and like there’s been very few changes. But ultimately all that assembling is not gonna help you a lot from a learning standpoint unless you have someone that’s willing to discuss it with you. And that’s ultimately up to the editor but if you get a chance to work with someone and they are okay with you assembling I think it’s important to make sure that you ask to see if they can talk through that edit with you after especially after they’ve done changes you know they might ask you why you made certain decisions which is an important skill to learn because once you’re working with someone like Ari and it comes in the room and he shot the special and you don’t use it you have to explain why. So I think breaking down your assemblies with that editor is is where I got most of my wisdom from from these editors. Like they they tell you they basically take the position of the producer or the director and you have to explain to them like they would explain to someone else why certain decisions are made. So I think that’s most of my learning was from editors in that way. Yeah. And I think also just like just building on that. And if you get past that point and you have a really good working relationship with the editor sometimes it’s just being in the room with them it’s like you probably learn more from you’ll probably learn a ton from Julian but you can’t peg a specific thing but being around him and seeing how he conducted himself I’m sure it was helpful for me when I worked with editors that I was close to and I was able to be in the room with them when they’re working with directors and producers and show runners and you can be in there with them as they’re doing their cuts. It’s great to be a fly on the wall. You see how they talk to them. The types of questions they get asked what it’s like to be in that kind of environment. I think if you can work with that editor where you’re in the chair even to a certain degree like it’s it’s a great way to learn. You have someone telling you trims that they want and things like that and then you’re in the hot seat on the controls while someone else is pushing you for what they want. So that’s another thing I would suggest. And even if you have you know if your editor?s too busy or isn’t up for that that’s fine. If you have other assistant editors maybe do that with them as an exercise.
Kaare Andrews
So that’s essentially because that’s also the second skill set right. One is just the creative aesthetic taste and two is working in the room with either a director or producer or a showrunner. That’s a different skill. But it has to be wrapped up in the same job.
Justin Li
And that’s something that you don’t necessarily learn from an assistant editing standpoint. I mean you have to work in a team and there’s interpersonal skills which are always important. But in terms of how to operate within that dynamic and navigate the politics of being an editor I think you don’t get that unless you can be that fly on the wall.
Kaare Andrews
What were some of the early things you learned from that dynamic that let’s say let’s say working with the director. Yeah. What are some of the lessons you learned early and like how that works.
Justin Li
However much you may critique the footage in private. Don’t do it in front of the director. Nothing is a problem. It’s just could be better. Like you know those kinds of things. It’s how you speak to someone how you conduct yourself I think. And also just like in how you can gain trust so that they’ll take your opinion seriously and also how to offer that opinion without offending them.
Kaare Andrews
Because different directors too, I mean I came up making shorts, learning to edit myself because there was no editor to work with until? maybe like Greg but some directors have no technical ability at all and just rely on you as? for that entirely and somewhere some are very tech savvy and know what you’re doing. Like what is that difference?
Justin Li
It’s like the skill sets are important. And I think you need to quickly gauge how it is someone likes to work whether that’s them micromanaging you or not micromanaging but whether it’s right or whether it’s them being like two frames one frame one frame or someone being like I want this faster. Like as a global note. So it’s like everyone works differently. And it’s also learning how to interpret that information and execute it quickly.
Greg Ng
Or someone saying two frames two frames they really mean faster. But they’re trying to micromanage?.
Justin Li
And like you know and you need to figure out how to navigate that rapport that you’re hopefully building from the moment they walk in the room and then make suggestions to them or be like you know like Is this what you wanted. Yeah.
Kaare Andrews
And Greg I know we’re just working on a movie now and during shooting what I like to do with editors call them every day. Just like recap what happened the day before. Because to get a clean perspective of like what what actually happened beyond the drama of the set and late nights and you know all that all that stuff things not happening things compromising all that stuff like. How do you how do you like to work best with directors in general on a film.
Greg Ng
Well I sort of started by saying. Coming up sort of in the sort of indie world or whatever working on a bazillion shorts or whatever. I was I was not always but I have a strong preference and would continue to work with people that would have good rapport with or trust or like we can have a good banter because like we?re? Justin was saying it’s all about your opinion and you don’t want to have to conceal anything or you know we’re supposed be critical about what’s happening no matter how many great specials there were or how many hours had to go into whatever the crane shot like. We have to look at it and judge it for what it is. And so I you know having to be able to be able to trust the people you’re talking to and that they could trust you if it went so you can if you have that sort of rapport everything becomes easy.
Kaare Andrews
It’s like I’m like an honesty in editing right. Yeah like it’s when you have to be honest with what was the what do we have? Yes sometimes you have shit right. You nothing there. And if you’re not honest with each other and you just try to pretend something’s there it’s gonna wreck the whole project. Or maybe you have to adjust. Maybe there’s still three days left to shoot and you can fix it if you’re honest with each other and if you’re not there’s no chance.
Greg Ng
Yeah. Everything is wonderful then the movie may not be. Yeah you know you have to be able to be very frank without having any ego on the line when it comes to that. Like if you’re calling me I have to be able to tell you. This was shit. And also you have to be able to tell me what you’re doing is shit if it’s shit and I have to be able to understand that you know it’s you know you get to sort of leave the ego at the door. It’s everyone’s movie and you need to make it the best. It’s not like in the edit room it’s nice to sometimes think look at this great movie I?m making it and I’m going to the big bush here and then we’re going to cut to the thing and then you know it’s not my movie to sort of you know I like the movie to be the best it can be but we have to work together to sort of make it.
Kaare Andrews
Let’s just back up a little bit. When did you start. How did you start. Now you’re assistant editing. You’re cutting on projects on the side. What was your first big break in in editing a big project and how did that happen?
Greg Ng
My first feature was directed by a woman named Tracy Smith who was working at Bright Light and had her own script that she wanted to shoot. She did a no budget movie and raised her own money did like there was like 50 producers you got a you could buy a producer credit for 500 bucks or something. Everyone was volunteering the whole thing. I’ll say you know it’s not a great movie but I learned a hell of a lot on it about just editing you know multi camera stuff long form being you know thinking sort of about you know what how does is this movie making sense which you know working with the director and kind of like having that relationship or calling them up and being like this looks like a student film at certain points can we please reshoot some stuff.
Kaare Andrews
Why did Tracy choose you. How did that work?
Greg Ng
Because I was free. It was a large one. I had cut a short film of hers before too. I think we got along really well which you know goes a long way.
Kaare Andrews
So no money at the time. How much time did you give to the project. How long did it take?
Greg Ng
I couldn’t tell you. It was all after work. Kind of weekends and after work for months I remember there was one summer where I didn’t have the summer I spent it looking in front of a computer trying to make this movie happen but it did happen and then that obviously led to other movies. You know people saw people that were involved knew that I cut it and then you know we’re good around this guy cutting some movies or cut this movie and they got you know a bunch of other shorts.
Kaare Andrews
And how did you meet Tracy to do the first short film?
Greg Ng
When she came downstairs where the editors were at Bright Light and she was like looking for a who’s gonna cut this thing for me. I need eight cuts in this short film. And I said Yeah. Like. I can do that.
Kaare Andrews
Because you volunteered to do that short. It allowed you to volunteer your whole summer away to do the feature. And do you think that was the key? That was the key that that opened up that?.
Greg Ng
It was a key I think in the way that I sort of look at it. You know I worked with a lot of filmmakers. I think I cut 50 or something shorts or more out of all those people that I worked with the filmmakers I worked with maybe 10 percent of them went on to do something bigger and then eventually they all came up with projects. You know working on fast films and building relationships with filmmakers you know at the time like when you’re making something on you know mini DV on a weekend and you’re not sleeping it may not seem like much but down the road somebody is gonna call you back and be like Hey!
Kaare Andrews
Like when you’re doing a film directors pick their editors. I mean they have to get approvals but if I?ve done a shot with you and had a good experience and we?ve already built up our trust. I know I can trust you with my feature film in a way that maybe I’m working with a very experienced editor. I would be wary that they would use their position to override me or or politicize the process or like take it over or like it’s almost more effective as a director to work with an up and coming editor that you’ve worked with on a smaller project because you know how it’s gonna go and you have the trust already and you want to prove something you know and you wanted to prove something like like you know you have that energy you gather you’ve already built in the two of you can go against the world in a way that if you’ve got a very experienced editor maybe it maybe you won?t feel so empowered or so like you’re fighting on the same team? Justin what was your what was the what was your very first big project and how did that exactly happen.
Justin Li
I think probably like a really big break for me was a TV series called Dirk Gently and that was something I started off on as an assistant and I was it was a producer I’ve worked with many times, editors that I was familiar with so it?s again people I’ve had relationship with for a long time. Ultimately they needed someone to fill in because you know an episode needed attention. I think the pilot was taking quite a while and then in the rotation they needed someone to fill that next slot and assemble and they’d been around me long enough that they thought I could handle it and they asked me to do so so I assembled while doing all of my regular duties as a first assistant I didn’t let any of that stuff slide because I was assembling I think the assembly for me was a bonus. So I would stay late and work on those kinds of things. And then you know after the first season that episode went well and they were kind enough to give me a credit on it even though the editor took over down the line. I took it through director’s notes and the first producers pass. So I got to take it pretty far. I think there was one more producer pass?.
Kaare Andrews
So it was the first time sitting with the director in the room?
Justin Li
Yeah that director in that situation he was in L.A. so it was remote notes which also made it easier because I could talk things over with the editor if there’s things I was uncertain about. But yeah I mean that that was kind of a big break and I think it ultimately led to them giving me my own show the following year because I asked for one I think I felt like I earned it and things went well and I think when you feel that opportunity is there it’s OK to ask for it if you ask for it too soon you may not like the answer and it could make your relationships a little weird but so you’ve got a time that.
Kaare Andrews
Well I’ve been on series where an assistant editor was given an episode. And it’s it’s like it’s a it’s a celebratory thing in the production like people want to do it and when they do it everyone’s so excited that it’s happened like it. I don’t know if it happens a lot but I know I’ve seen it firsthand where people were so excited to give this person a shot at their own episode and was like everyone really supported that process ? was it like that for you?
Justin Li
Totally I mean my whole team and the other assistants like banded together to help me find time to do these things like you know on the second season when I got my own episode I was still a first I said I would come back as a first if I could and they made that happen.
Kaare Andrews
So then you put that out there. I’ll come back if I I could have one episode. Yeah. Do you think would’ve happened if you didn’t ask that demand you think that demand actually was the thing that made it happen?
Justin Li
It wasn’t so much a demand it was a request. I would say to speak to that I felt comfortable enough doing that because I was really tight with my team particularly my editor which is something advice that I’ve gotten from a lot of editors I’ve worked with and why they said they would give me a chance in the first place because I had their backs it’s like if you’re a great assistant and you take care of your editor when the producers and directors ultimately are deciding whether or not you can have an episode they’re going to ask your editor is this guy ready. Is this girl ready. Is this someone can they handle it. Like are they good enough and you need to have that support and you need to prove yourself as an assistant so that editors will give you that time of day. And also when push comes to shove and someone comes asking them about you they’ll say you’re ready.
Kaare Andrews
I’m not that quite a lot especially in TV this you know and every level of production it can be like a grab for power in so many different areas all at once. Like I think if you if you can have someone back. That means so much especially in the TV landscape. I think that’s such a necessary quality to then return the favor later on.
Justin Li
Yeah. And I think it’s like they want to support you and they want to see you succeed. I mean there’s always the risk that someone like if you’re too good an assistant someone doesn’t want to lose you as an assistant. But you know I think if you have a good relationship with the editor they’ll look out for you. So I mean and that’s the biggest thing I think for some assistants that maybe struggle to make that jump to the next step is they’re in too much of a hurry. Like to them assisting at least in my situation like assisting is isn’t something that interests them and that’s fair. I think that’s why I admire Greg’s path so much because I think you just want straight to the source. Like you went and found directors and filmmakers that you could just work with and cut for immediately. I think for me I didn’t feel as ready to cut right away. So I chose assisting as an opportunity to continue to work and also work on projects I knew ultimately I would want to cut one day but to hone my craft and learn from these people and like and kind of like slowly do it that way. I mean I assisted for five six years I think maybe more before I really got?.
Kaare Andrews
It really is the opposite path because?.
Justin Li
I think that’s what’s so interesting and I was like I totally admire Greg like he? I don’t think I had it in me to go out and knock on doors and just like do all those things cuz I didn’t feel like I was ready to handle it.
Kaare Andrews
But also for series. Directors don?t hire editors. The director is assigned to the editor. Right, it?s like a different a whole different paradigm from getting those jobs.
Justin Li
Yeah. I mean and that’s true. Like for me like I really I mean I want to do like more features and stuff as well. But TV for me is fun and I think because there’s the opportunities for multiple seasons. And like you know repeat business on like the same crews and teams and stuff is a lot easier for me to build that credit. I guess so. And it’s a and it’s like a fun safe environment with like a lot of like team I think with features sometimes it’s like an assistant and editor and then maybe like the director in a room right. Like whereas on a show you might have like three other assistants and then like three or four editors to learn from. So for me it was a really big pool of like people’s brains to pick from and stuff and to learn lots of different skills. I think even now cutting I borrow little tricks and stuff from all the various editors I have assisted over the years.
Kaare Andrews
And Greg have you I don’t even notice if you’ve done TV?
Greg Ng
I did two documentary series. But yeah but not a dramatic drama.
Kaare Andrews
And Justin have you done features at this point?
Justin Li
I have done some. Yeah. I for a while especially and this is goes back to me saying try to assist on what you ultimately want to cut on. For me I always want to keep a toe in that pool. So when I was assisting I would purposely try to assist on a feature and a series every year at least one of each if not more if I could fit it in schedule ? wise. I think it gave you an exposure to different styles different workflows different people and networks. So that’s a good way to diversify too. I mean I never ultimately got into reality or docs but I really like scripted both features and series yeah.
Kaare Andrews
Now they say this is what they say that you don’t learn from success. Cuz there?s no lessons. You only learn from failure. That’s where you learn everything and the more you can fail and more quickly can fail the more you learn. So what I want to know if what I want to know is now that we’re all so humble as you stated very early on what was was big failure a big fail you really learn from somewhere along somewhere along the way? You don?t have to name names but like what was a situation that really like I learned a big lesson today.
Justin Li
The only one I can kind of think of. I don’t know if this totally ties in but it was really early on in my career as an assistant and I just felt like I was getting kind of a raw deal from the show like working like really ridiculous hours like no OT. Like just not being treated well. And then ultimately I spoke up but not in a nice way. I think I kind of snapped. And at that time I actually was making demands and it did not go well.
Kaare Andrews
Right you let it build up a little bit too much.
Justin Li
Yeah. And I think for me like as my lesson there as an assistant and I still carry it in everything I do professionally is like you’re not owed anything. So you could be an amazing assistant amazing editor no one owes you anything. It’s like like if if you build those relationships and you still have to be good but if you build those relationships and you put in the work maybe someone will take a chance on you and that’s all you can kind of do it’s like plants a lot of seeds. But yeah ultimately no one owes you anything and I think that’s an important thing to remember because sometimes people are in such a rush to get in the big chair or to get to that finish line that they forget they got to put the work in first then and have people actually give them a chance. I think it’s you try to surround yourself with people that you want to ultimately kind of emulate. For me it was like and that I was very specific about what editors I liked assisting and what types of shows I like to be on. For me it was is about kind of like forging that path and making sure that I had like a lot of good influences around me.
Greg Ng
You know as a failure in the short term but I think like there’s been a couple projects maybe more than a couple. I won’t put a number on it that I had the incredibly tough decision to leave for perhaps a another project or? because like it wasn?t jiving or I thought the movie was gonna be something and then it was turning out to be something else. And you know that sort of trust wasn?t there. And so you know I chose to walk off certain projects you know which is tough because you know there’s something? you always want to see it through. You always want to finish it you don?t wanna be a quitter or like you leave a project that’s a big sort of deal to sort of leave something behind. And I don’t think anyone really likes to have some unfinished business or you know to walk away before it’s done. But it wasn’t because anyone was you know yelling at me or? there was nothing there was no hard feelings. It was just sort of the project was not for me. I was not a good match. And you know I’d had to leave which taught me you know when you when you’re picking your projects it’s like you’re asking someone out. It’s like you’re getting married to the project. You know you know we’re gonna be spending a lot of time and it’s a commitment that you feel you need to make and it’s it’s hard when you have to sort of when you know it’s not working though it’s really in the best interest of all parties to sort of quit before it gets too late or you know those tensions build up.
Kaare Andrews
So here’s a good question. So Justin have you ever walked away from a job? Have you ever been in a position where you needed to?
Justin Li
I have not walked away from a job but I have left probably a little sooner than I had originally planned. This is much more recent and it’s one of the people that I kind of left in a bind is in the room which is why I am laughing as I say this but I had an opportunity to go do something. If the schedule according to plan it would have been a decent time to leave. I mean ultimately is another one of those things like I built enough trust in my team that they had my back. They let me go and they kind of covered for me and they made it work because they are all really awesome people that I was working with and they saw that I had opportunity.
Kaare Andrews
So you found a way to do gracefully.
Justin Li
Yeah I would say if you’re ever presented with that kind of situation definitely be honest. It’s a small city. Vancouver especially people are going to find out if you’re lying. I think everyone wants to see each other succeed especially if you’ve worked together a bunch of times. I think they’ll understand if you have an opportunity to do something? to kind of like better your career. I mean everyone gets that. No one’s going to fault you for it and there’s proper ways to do it. And I think like you know I mean I’ve probably actually done this a few times which is really unfortunate but there’s another time I was assisting on a show and then I got offered to cut a movie but I wasn’t done assisting that show for quite a while. So I tried to give them as much notice as I could. We tried to get another assistant in to fill in for me. No one was available so I asked them if they’d be cool with me cutting there at night or during the day if things are slow and I said I would hang out as long as it took for them to get another assistant. They were OK with it. The movie was okay with me taking the footage there and then I ended up doing that for like months and they never found another assistant and I finished the show as I finished the show anyways and then I went and I finished the movie. So it’s like you know like for me ultimately I didn’t want to burn any bridges. And when push came to shove I kind of took it on my back instead and I’m like fine I’ll be the one that loses sleep but I’m not going to let any of these shows that I make commitments to suffer.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah I mean it sounds like both both of you have taken these opportunties in a way that you know you just you you’re. You’re making them happen by putting the extra effort in.
Justin Li
Yeah I mean it’s like and like I said it’s a small city like your reputation means a lot. I think people will give you more opportunities. And I think if someone knows you have integrity and that you’ll never put their show in a bad position no matter what happens then they’re willing to kind of give you chances.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah speaking of the politics of it. So I know both when I direct TV or films there’s always people that want to watch those director’s cuts before they’re allowed to. I always get these calls from my editors being like: ?can I let them I don’t I don’t want to.? And sometimes I have to be ?No? and sometimes if its a showrunner I really know, I?m like ?yeah, I don?t care, show them.? Depends on the situation but have you been in that bind?
Justin Li
Yeah I’ve been in a bind as both an assistant and as an editor you know it’s a it’s a tricky situation. There’s a chain of command in film I think anyone who’s assisting knows you’re an assistant you have your editor?s back above everyone else. You’re an editor you have your director?s back until like the DGC is out of the way and then like they they’re not allowed to do anything anymore. But like you I think just do everything by the book be upfront with everyone. I think again with as with anything else it depends on the situation. But there’s a right way to go about it. I’ve had it before where I was like had a director’s cut in my room that I was doing sound on or something and I went to bathroom and came back and the showrunner?s in there and he knows to hit spacebar on the avid. And then I walk in there and he’s watching the cut. I’m like ?Get out.? Well I mean sometimes you can?t help it but you do your best to be upfront with everyone I think. Same thing with editors or anything. If producers of something are doing something shady I think they’re they ultimately have the experience and the know how to navigate those waters so lean on them for advice on what you should be doing.
Kaare Andrews
Greg you were born? I guess with film it?s probably less so.
Greg Ng
Most of the projects I’ve worked on have always been very director driven and all that sort of thing. But I do remember when I was the Post’s P.A. walking down the hallway with a FedEx ready to go of a cut of a certain movie and this like happily waltzing down the hallway and passing by the editor was like ?oh how?s it goin?? I’m like oh I?m just fed-exing the movie to blah blah. And he’s like ?What?? And he was unaware the director was unaware and then there was the little storm but I’d learned at that point that everything needs to be copacetic. I was just the messenger.
Kaare Andrews
How have you dealt with a difficult personality. Producer? director? No names but like? Like you know it’s a stressful situation. Even the nicest people can be can lose their minds in the pressure cooker of it all.
Greg Ng
I generally avoid situations and personalities that I think lead into that but ultimately. Things happen. I think I’m generally a quiet person. I feel like in a situation where people are getting big I think it’s always best to just you know Yoda your way through it and just remain calm. You know I can’t think of a specific example I’m willing to share.
Kaare Andrews
You ever had that big personality lose their mind in the room?
Justin Li
Yeah I mean it’s film we?re all weirdos. It’s like you can run into like all kinds of personalities and I think at every level you just need to learn how to deal with that. I mean for me in the room I’ve worked with some pretty crazy producers but I keep it about the work. I think if if it’s something that doesn’t jive with you from your personal standpoint like you can’t connect with them on a human level which happens sometimes keep it about the work, stay focused and like you know I think they’ll respect that kind of professionalism side of you. If you really want them out of there, just do everything they ask for as quickly as possible and like especially if there’s timing further down the chain to fix it. But I think yeah it should be professional.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah well I will say maybe not some who’s lost their mind in the room but someone who’s been under the pressure in that room it is nice to have a stabilizing person someone who is not trying to get into the conflict by your side to help ease you off a little bit.
Justin Li
Mean it goes back to that whole thing about being a fly on the wall in the room when you can as an assistant because I think you see how people manage those difficult personalities. And I think as an editor your one of your greatest assets to the show you’re working on is that you’re impartial you don’t know what’s going on on set you don’t know how long it took to get that shot like ultimately the story’s the only thing that matters to you and the cuts only thing that matters to you so you can put that out of it.
Kaare Andrews
And when you’re editing how important is it to think maybe there is a difference between film and TV I don’t know how important is it to follow the written page and how important is it to find the story that’s underneath the words.
Justin Li
Oh I mean yeah I think all storytelling is the same film, tv, docs it’s like you’re finding what that thing you’re working on is about and what kind of emotions and feelings you’re trying to evoke from that. I think the story is a story it doesn’t really matter the format. Dealing with difficult personalities? I think from our standpoint is another thing that’s interesting about it is as an editor you’re kind of a therapist in life too a lot of times like you are organized you’re literally organizing the chaos into a timeline a sequential linear timeline. The madness that happened and also just the person that you’re locked in a room with. I mean you’re you’re gonna spend 12 hours a day in a room with a director a producer it’s like you know for some directors when they see the rough cut sometimes it’s like the worst day of their lives because they think they just they just wasted like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And like all of their time. So you need to talk them off the ledge and learn how to do that. Yeah like you need to be like everything’s going to be OK.
Kaare Andrews
A lot of therapy on your end Greg?
Greg Ng
Yeah for sure. Lots of listening to people talk about their stories on set and so forth as you know. But I will also add to that that there is I mean I’ve worked on I think I don’t know how the difference is guess future worlds and doc I think especially in the docs that I’ve worked on I myself go bananas and I need someone to talk to. And you know there’s the sort of writer’s block and the editors block that still happens because maybe there’s some words on the page that don’t necessarily translate to the thing and you?re just like Oh my God what am I doing with my life. You know I go through that pretty regularly I think and I think it’s a healthy sign. So but you know not during those times I think it’s terrible but in retrospect. I was thinking about this, I don’t know if this is related at all. But I feel like you know when you’re assisting everything is kind of technical and organizing. I mean there?s still organizing in editing but I think a big part of it is a sort of emotional side of things which I feel like weirdly like somehow deep down inside you know underneath this incredibly emotionless stoic person is like a really emotional crybaby. And I somehow can manipulate myself into feeling these things when I’m watching the movie and like I don’t know? like I know it?s sort of working when I can tap into that emotion. But at the same time maybe that makes me susceptible to you know contemplating my existence and you know?.
Kaare Andrews
That sounds exactly like Justin you were saying earlier when you first started editing that magic of finding the empathy and manipulating the emotions shot to shot. Like that is the job. So if you could give three things people like things in threes three things that if they could take away three things tonight: Transitioning from Assistant Editor to Editing.
Justin Li
Actually a lot of the advice I’m giving you guys tonight is from Mike Bennis who’s an editor that I assisted for for a long time and gave me a lot of opportunities. So Mike if you’re listening to this podcast thanks. I think it’s kind of like actually when Greg and I met we met the other day briefly just to see what we’d gotten ourselves and two for this. And one of the things we said and this is probably number one for both of us is do it like just cut everything you possibly can get your hands on. I think it’s like I laugh at all those YouTube videos where people repurpose trailers to different genres and stuff but it’s actually probably a good exercise. It’s fantastic. But yeah I think like cut everything you can. Someone asks you for a reel on a show do it. Someone asks you for like like a gag really which I loathe but it’s good experience do it because you’ll end up getting notes from producers and stuff that you have to work on. So I?d say one is just to go out and cut everything you can. Except for unpaid wedding videos. You’re going to get asked a lot. Those are the ones that aren’t worth.
Kaare Andrews
It goes back to choose your projects wisely.
Justin Li
I think to build on that one which is kind of too I think if you’re working on a show and you have the opportunity to assemble, I think start small and work your way up. Start with scenes, take those scenes build them into acts, take those acts build them in two full episodes or movies. I think that’s the other thing with a lot of assistants. They think that they do a scene assembly they’re ready. There’s a lot more to it than that. I think you need to know how to put an entire show together. So build yourself up to that level and get lots of feedback from people that have been doing the job for longer than you and get regular work like ask them for advice. Lean on those more knowledgeable than you, don’t think that you know everything because you don’t. I mean I’m learning every day still. Every time I work with new editors especially if they’re open to it. I like seeing if they’re open to watching my cuts or having me watch theirs?.
Kaare Andrews
You share a lot of cuts with the team?
Justin Li
I do when I can. Yeah I think it depends who you work with some editors don’t like it and that’s fine. I think it’s kind of a personal thing. Like with any other artists you don’t want to show your work when it’s not ready and it’s something that’s kind of personal to you. But for me like I I work with some editors a lot that I know are open to that and we will usually watch each other’s cuts like before editor?s cuts go out and give each other notes and feedback and it’s like totally open and honest. And I think it only makes you better. And I think you do that with other assistants like cut multiple versions like work with other assistants and talk about why you like different versions better like all of that is a learning opportunity. I think don’t think of assisting as like this roadblock that is in your way to cutting and then be so excited to get away from it. I mean some people just don’t like the work and that’s fine. I got to that point too and that’s what pushed me to fight for more opportunities. But I think while you’re cutting there’s a lot you can learn and that’s something that you just need to remember.
Greg Ng
I’ll just add I mean just add three things. Well you stole some of my answers but I? You get to go out, meet filmmakers and work on films like you can’t cut movies if they’re not happening. You know if those opportunities and those people aren’t making them you know we lost a lot of sleep working on 48 hour movies and fast films and whatever and working after work you know all those relationships having paid off a lot and were super fun to work on. So you know it gives you a lot of chances to like you know I guess the beauty about working on shorts is that they’re always changing, they?re always different, you could work on a western, you could work on scifi, could do a drama and then just sort of little snippets of you know greater genres or whatever so it gives you a lot of room for experimentation just whatever and just you know I think coming together for something like this is super cool because editors, people in post don’t necessarily you know mingle a lot together but it’s nice when there’s community and you know people that are in sets are sort of they’re fighting the battle staying up late whatever eating and their crafty all together and in editing everyone is kind of like in your own room or whatever so it’s nice ? come out of your room and talk to other editors you know share your cuts if you can. That’s definitely I think my first go to is showing other editors the stuff that I have worked out because I have a rapport with them we can talk editing and then you know it doesn’t get I think getting notes from other editors they understand where you’re at like they don’t know like they know it’s a before the rough cut or you can watch a scene with no audio and still kind of get a sense of things because you know what it’s all about.
Justin Li
Actually one really important piece of advice I forgot which is something that when I was talking to other editors about coming to this event they all told me to say so I almost forgot: train your replacements. As an assistant if you want to move up, train more assistants. And it’s that same thing where you need to it’s a collaborative art form like you need to be open with everyone and you know it’s a lot easier to get an opportunity and get bumped up to assist if they know there’s another assistant waiting in the wings that can take your spot. I think if there’s like a gap behind you then you know someone might not want to lose you as an assistant editor especially if you?re good so I think you need to take it upon yourselves to train more train more people and make sure that there’s like there’s people there to fill those holes. And you know and selfishly down the road you’re gonna need an assistant too.
Kaare Andrews
That’s a good note to end on. And so let’s open up the floor to some questions.
Audience Question
I?m just wondering if you guys are still assisting or are you just taking editing jobs?
Greg Ng
I’m just editing.
Justin Li
I am not anymore. No but I mean now I thankfully am fortunate enough to get steady work as an editor that I haven’t been compelled to assist. But that being said when I first got into cutting I was asked by a lot of people like ?is this your last assistant gig? ?is this your last assistant gig? and I’d be like No I’m totally open to assisting. I think you get to the stage where you assist on things that you might have an opportunity to cut on but I’d never close that door. And I think you know some people need that push to drive them into taking chances to cut more. But for me I just like I said I don’t I didn’t see assisting as a roadblock. It was still a good chance for me to build relationships and learn to cut. So I bounced back and forth between the two for a while until I got steady enough work and I edited.
Kaare Andrews
So it is possible though like you were saying you were given your first opportunities while you’re still assisting. Are you able to balance that that for a while. Both assistant editing and then also be given your first couple episodes. How long did you juggle both?
Justin Li
I probably bounced back and forth for like a couple of years. I mean it’s people gonna have to want to give you things to edit. Also I think you know you when I’m saying go and cut everything you gotta know that 90 percent of the everything you’re going to go cut is not paying you any money or? like assisting is a great way to learn and pay your bills and then you cut and you grow your career on side.
Kaare Andrews
And Greg we’re used still assisting while you were still when you first started to cut bigger things are was there like a hard?.
Greg Ng
I had a hard out when I went to the Film Centre. I made a commitment to myself that I was like from now on I’m going to only edit because I figured that would be the best way to evolve and learn. And if I was to sort of dabble then I wouldn’t exactly make that a clear line to everyone else.
Kaare Andrews
So I mean the Film Centre is pretty cool. Can you briefly just tell them what it was like in the editing program.
Greg Ng
Yeah it’s like going to a 48 hour film festival for five months and making films all the time full time. Like it was nothing but short films all the time and all kinds of experiments and? one of the coolest things that they did and I think they’d still do it was they tried to find a movie that none of the editors have seen and they gave everybody all the footage, the script, all the whatever and each editor cut a version of the movie that they thought and at the end we watched four different versions of the same movie that were completely different.
Kaare Andrews
They give you all the footage all the entire movie just go just do it.
Greg Ng
Yeah. Make the best thing you can. Good luck. On the side while we do all these other short films. So they do a lot of very cool things like that but sort of give you a pretty crazy idea of how influential every step of the way is they would also give one writer?s script to all the directors and then each director would direct the same actors and however they saw fit and then yeah all kinds of super cool things.
Kaare Andrews
And when you’ve done that hard out if you didn’t hadn’t gone to the Film Centre or you still would have done it.
Greg Ng
I don’t know it would have been harder because they wouldn’t have had this reason I guess but it definitely was not an easy transition. I mean I had worked on assisting and I’d saved up you know to be able to afford to go to the Film Centre. I think there was some scholarships from the Arts Council and you know when I came back it was hard to? I couldn’t find work right away. I worked on this doc and yeah it was you know slow? the phone didn’t ring for a long time but I found people that were making movies and I had enough time and I guess savings to kind of afford to do it.
Kaare Andrews
Yeah and at that point a lot of the filmmakers you had worked with earlier were starting to get to do projects.
Greg Ng
Sure yeah like it worked out well that you know a lot of people that I met working on shorts some 48 hours were making movies that had hundreds of hours or at least a hundred.
Justin Li
Yeah I think to your point though about establishing that clear line with people about what position you’re doing that is something that is a struggle I think for a lot of people when you first start out and you’re wanting to transition from assisting to editing. For me it was I would still get calls for assisting jobs all the time while I was cutting and I feel like and it was a good opportunity but ?Oh like I’m already working thanks like I’m actually cutting this thing now? and it’s finding ways to let your old contacts know that you’re you’re doing this now and you’re able to do this and like look I don’t know about for you how hot was reaching out to all your old contacts and establishing to them that you’re also editing now or you’re only editing now like that. That’s a hurdle that you’ll have to go through when you’re leaving assisting.
Kaare Andrews
People know you one way and you need to announce to them that you’re?
Justin Li
Yeah. And in a lot of ways I mean that’s the frustrating thing is you have to start from scratch almost again. It’s like yes all these people know you but they know you as an assistant. Like they don’t know that you can actually hold your own in an edit suite.
Kaare Andrews
Where there some dry spells in that transition?
Justin Li
There were. Yeah for sure. I mean there were like chunks of time where I wasn’t working in particular like there was an editing opportunity that I had locked in coming up but it pushed. And you know assistant gigs are long especially if you’re on a series there are usually like five to six months. Right. So for me like I had to keep turning down work because I was holding out to do that to cut that show down the road. But it was like three four months away.
Kaare Andrews
And it worked out?
Justin Li
Yeah it totally worked out. I mean that show actually led to another show and then led to another show actually that’s that gap is the last time I assisted. So it totally can work out. But you know in that time while I’m getting work, I was like ?Oh no I can’t take it I’m going to cut this thing.?
Kaare Andrews
What were you doing in that dry spell? Were you just waiting or were you?
Justin Li
I was doing a lot of chores. I was cleaning my house, cooking dinner all that kind of stuff. But yeah I mean I would reach out to people? but actually no that’s not true. I cut an indie in that time. It was something that I told them I’m like I have this pocket of time I’d managed to hear about this indie which was fortunate.
Kaare Andrews
Like a non paying job?
Justin Li
It paid like a flat and I cut it in my second bedroom. But you know it’s like you fill those times. But yeah but I think that’s that that’s the big hurdle. I think everyone should be aware of and it’s something you need to navigate. I’ve heard of people just cold calling or emailing every producer in town that they know, being like ?I’m an editor now!? And like well not to them you’re not. Like you still need to kind of prove that and I think it’s it’s good to for them to know that it’s something you’re interested and you’re capable of doing. And you know actually truthfully that might work out. They might give you a chance but it’s something you need to kind of figure out based on your connections with people.
Kaare Andrews
I think at different times again I think right now right is pretty busy. There’s like most of the others are working.
Greg Ng
Yeah and assistants it’s so hard to find?.
Kaare Andrews
But it’s a good time. It’s a good time to look for those opportunities if you if you have a reel you can show. If you’re if you’re ready if you’re on that edge.
Justin Li
Yeah. I mean reals are an interesting thing too if you’re an assistant and say you’re only assisting you’re not cutting shorts and stuff on the side what are you gonna show someone when they ask you for a reel you know like here’s my temp visual effects that I did? amazing sound here? So that’s and that goes to cutting shorts and other things on the side that you can show. I mean for me actually I still don’t have a reel that’s like a whole other subject because I think reels are silly doesn’t show that you can cut a story at all. It shows that you can push buttons and pace things to music. But it doesn?t really show you edit.
Greg Ng
So I was just going to reiterate the exact same thing. You can’t gauge an editor by a demo reel. You can gauge the demo reel by the demo reel.
Justin Li
But to refocus it that is something people ask for. So I think making sure that you’ve done enough work on different things that you have something to show when someone wants to see your work that’s important because just being like ?reels are dumb I don’t have one? that’s not going to work either. So you still need to like make sure you’re creating content.
Audience Question
Another question. It’s kind of like building off of what you talked about focusing on editing and just editing and when you guys decided in your life that you really want to be an editor. Was there still a point in time where you had to make detours like what you said when you had dry spells when you decided to make detours and said Oh I think I’m not good enough and these other aspects of filmmaking because I guess we all started out as filmmakers. And did you ever make those detours as like directors or writers or producers and do you encourage that sort of thing? Because I mean am I my circle. We kind of fall into that as well because some of us were like I want to be a director but they’re like Oh I think I’ll produce a little bit or AD a little bit. Do you think that?ll help or?
Justin Li
I can’t see how being multifaceted could be a detriment. I think if you understand every level of the process that’s only going to make you better at anything you do. I think if you understand the limitations of production and what they have to deal with on set that will make you more sympathetic in the room and understand how to navigate the footage. Think if you understand how things are finished afterwards and online or sound or whatever that will also make you a better editor because you’ll know how to plan for those shortcomings or perhaps you’ll you know they’ll save your ass later on. As far as thinking you’re not good enough. That’s something I think all artists would deal with. I still think I may get fired on every show I?m on.
Greg Ng
Yeah me too man.
Justin Li
I think you need that insecurity and that drive to to make you better. I think if you walk in and you think that you’re always right you’re gonna have a hard time editing because it’s collaborative. And if you’re not and if you’re not willing to listen to other people’s opinions you’re going to have a really bad time and every every time someone makes you do a note because they will make you do a note you’re going to be miserable.
Greg Ng
Yeah. I agree. Like I don’t think you know just because you professionally might be editing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing other things you know to compliment your work or your your creative output. So for sure. Like the more you can do the better. But that being said I do remember that it was when I was in film school this writer came and gave a talk and I often think about what he said where he was like the only thing I know how to do is write and I made it that way so that I would have to write in order to you know feed myself. So he only would write and would take no other work and just like just write and write and write because that was what you did until he was going to do that until someone started paying him. And so you know there’s some value in that too. But balance everything out though.
Audience Question
This is more of a freelance editing 101 question. I’m just wondering mostly in indie projects and when you are starting to take on indie projects, how did you navigate like setting your rates and you know getting proper value for the labor and if you had the choice would you suggest to go on like a daily rate, weekly rate, or? You know a flat? From my experience mainly what is offere?
Greg Ng
That’s a complicated question with many answers I’m sure. Certain you know jobs if you know the project is super cool you could you know take a look you know do it so that you get the job take maybe a cut or you know a lower rate so that you can have that under your belt. I think ultimately you’ve got to think long term and so in the moment maybe it’s not a good rate but if it’s gonna be a cool project with super cool people that are going to be making movies later down the road it might be worthwhile to do that even then even still I mean today like I work on projects that aren’t massive but you know full of heart and may not have a lot of money but there’s what’s the what’s the word not sweat equity but something along those lines where you know you’re working with a bunch of passionate people that are gonna make something super cool so it’s worthwhile doing it for less than maybe what you’re used to.
Justin Li
And I think ultimately that’s a decision you have to make based on the project but from a practical standpoint if you’re looking for just kind of like a 101 on negotiating I think it’s you need to understand what you’re willing to take and take on before you go to the table. I think you have to establish those kinds of boundaries: how long you’re going to work especially if it’s flat, how many revisions, all those kinds of things. I think just to protect yourself. I mean I’ve gotten burned lots of times so I think now I just try to like and it’s super uncomfortable because you’re trying to build relationships but at the same time you have to be blunt and kind of protect yourself. But I think you need to? everyone understands being upfront. I mean that’s kind of the nice thing about emailing and a lot of ways. It’s there’s no tone to it. You can say whatever. Just put a little smiley face haha. But but I think to protect yourself just be upfront with all that. And yeah. And to Greg’s point like you need to gauge what that project is also worth. You like the intangibles of it beyond just the money. If it could lead to something more. If it’s something you’re interested in. If it’s just money. Ask for a lot. Then if they say no, then you don?t have to do it. And if they say yes, you get a lot of money.
Kaare Andrews
So that is a very complicated question. That’s a whole nother talk I think?
Audience Question
I was at EditFest in August and there was a panel that was talking about reality versus scripted. One thing that they’re going on about which I think really applied to Vancouver, I just wanted your opinion on it was kind of the reality editors find that there?s the stigma against them when they come into scripted and vice versa. And they?re expressing on the panel that when they came from reality to scripted that they’re going to have a bit of an advantage because they’re able to use a lot of the skills that they learned in reality in their scripted work.
Justin Li
I think no matter what kind of branch you’re working in in film industry there’s stigma. I think for me trying to jump into features is hard because I have a lot of TV credits. Maybe for someone working in reality it’s hard to jump into scripted. It’s like there’s all those kinds of avenues. I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying about working on the stuff you ultimately want to be cutting even as an assistant because if you’re an assistant in reality it will ultimately lead to editing opportunities in reality and then you’re cutting reality. So that’s something to think about and plan ahead of time. And it’s really unfortunate because for me I think reality editors have it harder than? reality assistants have it harder than assistants on scripted which I’m sure a lot of you can speak to like it’s just way more stuff to deal with.
Audience Question
I think there’s a little bit of a stigma this said it’s kind of in Vancouver but it doesn’t really exist to much outside of Vancouver it seems.
Greg Ng
I do feel that I mean I haven’t worked in reality I’ve worked in some doc things but there’s for sure snobbery that exists no matter where you go you know what? whatever industry and so but? yeah I do agree that people that are assistants and editors that are working the reality where everybody’s working super hard. It’s just you know the end product may not have a movie star in it or may not have visual effects but it’s still you know the work still good.
Justin Li
So yeah and I’m not saying to like quit your job assisting on a reality show because you don’t want ultimately cut reality. I think there’s value in all of that and in working like you’re going to learn something from every show. But you know it’s important to have range and that way you know if someone if someone’s asking you for your credits. Down the road even if you’ve done like reality scripted reality scripted you can give them. If that job is for a scripted show you can give them a CV with just your scripted stuff right. Or if it’s reality show I can give them a CV with just your reality. So I think it’s important to like just have your toe in a lot of different pools so that you can? is that even an analogy? Have your hands and a lot of jars of whatever? just put put things in a lot of other things.
Kaare Andrews
I can answer that question as the director. Because my very first feature, that Greg declined to edit, we ultimately used an editor who was a reality editor and this was a scripted thriller and he was editing that cupcake show back in the day. How we ended up being okay with that because it was a you know it wasn’t just me it was like producers in L.A. and Australia and Canada was that he came recommended by Julian Clarke. So it was a process of he had a recommendation of someone who was very esteemed in the genre and we just took a chance we liked him we just took a chance but his credit was the cupcake thing and we had to have this talk. Like explain to these producers that in Vancouver, it?s a smaller industry and there’s the great editors that will work across the spectrum of TV, reality, scripted and features. That’s just the way it is. But it was his relationship with other people that could vouch for him that really helped us get over the hurdle of being able to hire him. But I’ve had the same conversation with films like ?oh he’s a TV guy? or TV ?Oh he’s a film guy? like there’s always that. But I think from my point of view when I when I can hire editors on films it’s like if I can see stuff. Like shorts or other indie features no matter what they’re working on at the moment if I can see an example of how they can translate those skills into something along the way. That’s what I need to see. Like I would I probably wouldn’t just hire someone with only reality show experience to do a drama film unless I could see an example of the drama work even it was a short it was it’s awesome short. That’s great. Like I would you know that’s enough so we’d be looking for those opportunities to showcase the other side of what you could do.
Audience Question
Health in Post? Like it’s a sedentary and very stressful aspect of the industry?
Justin Li
What’s our advice for staying alive? I’m by nature I’m a very sedentary person. I’m well trained in sitting for long periods of time. So it’s been an easy transition for me. That being said I have had back issues and I know a lot of people that work in post have back issues. So you get us saying let’s go to physio. If you’re in the union, use your benefits. Drink a lot of water so you have to get up and walk to the bathroom.
Kaare Andrews
Have you start experiencing eye strain?
Justin Li
Eye strain? I’ve not yet I’m shocked that I don’t have glasses yet because everyone in my family has glasses.
Kaare Andrews
I start using those blue blocking glasses.
Justin Li
I did but that made my eyes blurry because the glasses weren’t very good. So I mean so far I’m OK I turn the blue light filter on your phone then I guess so. Give yourself downtime when you’re not working but yeah?.
Greg Ng
I would say definitely. I don’t know for I rode my bike to work and I think that has saved my life. I got a kneeling chair I got a seating chair I got my standing components so sit stand kneel whatever you know jump up and down if you can. And I think ultimately also in living you’ve got to maintain your health because you’re whole everything is all connected. You know you’ve got to be healthy you think healthy the whole thing. You know when you when you come to work as a healthy person you’re gonna make healthy work so you can you can’t neglect that.
Audience Question
What about agents? When did you get an agent?
Justin Li
That’s a great question because we have a couple agents in the room actually. I do not have an agent at the moment. It’s something that I’m like I’m definitely thinking about I’m not totally sure if I’m ready for it or not from the people I know who have agents and loved them, it’s it’s a great way to take some of the stress off you. I think going back to the last about health. I think for me the most enticing part about having an agent is expanding a network. I think for me I know who I know. There’s a lot of people I don’t know. There’s a lot of things I don’t hear about until after they’re stuffed up. I think that something that’s really interesting to me especially if there’s different types of work I want to do and I find that I’m stuck in a bit of a bubble. So I think that’s very valuable. From a practical standpoint, yeah they’re negotiating and all of that. I mean how is it for you because you have an agent?
Greg Ng
Yes I do have an agent. I still think most of the work comes to me directly but it’s nice to have my agent sort of looking out for me doing promotion because networking whatever maybe he drops my name here and there I don’t know. But you know I’m pretty socially awkward and it’s nice to have an agent who’s out there you know possibly saying ?Oh yeah Greg Ng he’s cutting stuff too! How about him?? You know if he’s just doing that that counts for something.
Justin Li
Yeah I think it’s nice to just have someone that can help you navigate the industry. I think for me in lieu of an agent I’ve been leaning on like my friends my co-workers like colleagues and stuff. And that’s kind of been my way of surviving so far without it.
Kaare Andrews
I think what you find though I get friends with directors like that they just don’t necessarily get your work. Yeah that’s what really. It’s like they are the buffer between the work. So if there’s money issues, or schedule issues or personality issues they can? it’s nice to have that middle man to like not make it personal. Yeah. A person to not make it personal.
Justin Li
That’s a really great point because I’ve heard that before it’s like you know there’s things you want and I think this kind of goes back to what we were saying before about how the emails don?t have a tone I think having an agent also kind of doesn’t have a tone in a way. Like I think they’re they’re doing their job and everyone understands that when they’re asking for things like they’re just doing what they’re supposed to be doing and no one takes it personally. So it gives you that kind of that layer of protection and a buffer protects you from damaging your relationship. I guess in a lot of ways.
Greg Ng
I do think that before considering an agent they can’t necessarily sell you if you haven’t sort of built up a sort of rapport, a bunch of credits, it will be a hard sell to be like ?Oh yeah how about this person cut a bunch of shorts? you to give him this feature?? I think part of? I resisted getting an agent for ever because I just felt like I wasn’t sort of ready for it until I had like enough credits behind me. And then when I did get an agent I had a several sort of exclusions based on people that I’d already worked with and I knew I would regularly work with.
Audience Question
I’m relatively new to film. I’ve been told that trying to get IATSE membership is super important. I hear other people say
Justin Li
That’s a great question I think especially right now because we’re very short on assistant editors in IATSE I think it’s really? anyone correct me if I’m wrong? getting permittee status in IATSE is super important right now because you know if there’s no one to fill those chairs they go to the permittee list and you might just get a call. I’ve also heard of shows that I’m on like shows very recently that we’re looking for a second assistant editors or to work during the day and they kind of interview people, hired them, and then ultimately couldn’t get them on the show because they couldn’t? they weren’t permittees yet. And it was like it’s taking way too long to get them on. So then they ended up having to give it to somebody else. So I think as with learning while you’re assisting and then getting a permittee status like you have to be ready for when opportunities come knocking. So I would say yeah definitely worth just like I think 100 bucks or whatever you like to get your permittee status. Make sure you’re on the call list because right now people are calling. The town is super busy for post right now like as busy as I’ve ever seen it it’s a good chance for assistants to try and get options cutting especially smaller stuff. And it’s a really good chance for you to get in as an assistant on stuff that maybe you wouldn’t have access to normally, especially if you can show that you’re competent.
Kaare Andrews
There’s no one more question. One final question to bring us home. Who’s got that no pressure. Well this will be the most important question of the night.
Audience Question
What?s the big dream for both of you?
Greg Ng
I always say when I’m talking to various people including my agent I get me onto Empire Strikes Back. That’s what I want. You know. But now that I think about things and my love of Star Wars has shifted since I was a child. But yeah I still have this lifelong dream of eventually working on Star Wars of some kind. The Yoda offshoot movie just the Yoda movie.
Justin Li
Definitely not specific. I mean it’s hard. I don’t know if I really have like a dream thing right now. I mean it’s I?m kind of really happy just working and cutting like I didn’t think I’d get to cut full time this quick. So I’m still kind of figuring out the next step. I think for me, I just want to make one thing that I would honestly say is in my top 10 things the whole time I think you spend a lot of time working on stuff especially in the city where we get all range of budgets that you probably would never watch on your own. I just want to work on something that I think I would be really proud of and love and honestly could say that I would have gone and seen that and really really liked it.
Kaare Andrews
Great. Before we go. I’m going to ask. Greg and Justin?.
Justin Li
You said that was last question!
Kaare Andrews
It was the last question from the audience. I just want to refocus once again on this idea transition from Assistant Editor Editor. So there’s one point one thing that you think people could leave with tonight even if it’s restating one thing you’ve said in this past couple hours. But one thing to send people away with to think about on the way home?.
Greg Ng
I believed it was Macho Man. But I looked it up and it’s not Macho Man.
Justin Li
It was Macho Man Randy Savage.
Greg Ng
Macho Man Randy Savage the wrestler rest said it’s like ?Success is when opportunity meets talent.?
Justin Li
Yeah just go do it go out and cut it. That’s what you want to be doing. Go out and find those opportunities. Hunt them down give yourself the best possible opportunity and put yourself in a position to succeed. Whether that’s getting a permittee status, being in the ear of people who can make decisions and give you jobs. Learning from every opportunity and every like every assistant gig you get. Find ways to learn and make yourself a better editor. I think it’s when you start showing up to work and it’s just a paycheck and you’re just filling out continuity forms or whatever and not even caring like it’s gonna be harder and harder. Grow because you can get stuck in a rut. So I think chase down those opportunities and make sure that you know if someone comes knocking you’re ready to kill it. And then that’ll lead to more jobs.
Kaare Andrews
Great. Well I want to thank Justin and Greg for giving us their? but I’ve learned more more than anywhere else probably here today. It’s all brand new information to me so let’s give them a hand and thank you.
Sarah Taylor
Thank you for joining us today. And a big thanks goes to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Sabrina Pitre and Finalé. This panel was recorded by Mychaylo Prystup. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Until next time I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.
Outtro
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