My wife and I, married this past May, recently returned from our official honeymoon.  We visited my brother and sister-in-law for a week in Qatar (a great story in and of itself), then spent the next week in Greece.

You know the New Age musician Yanni?  He wrote a song called “Santorini”,  the island where we stayed.  Ever seen a postcard of Greece featuring blazing white villas with cobalt blue doors perched on craggy cliffs above a cerulean sea?  That’s Santorini.  (I’m not usually given to flowery adjectives, but believe me, the place is amazing.) More on Yanni in a bit.

One of the places we went in Santorini found us driving up an insanely narrow, winding road – more like wide sidewalk – to the mountain top ruins of the ancient city of Thira.  Since very few visitors come to Santorini in the winter, we had the place almost completely to ourselves.  We walked through the agora, public baths, and individual residences occupied by normal, island-dwelling men and women – three thousand years ago.

You’d think that walking ancient streets would prompt visions of centuries of toga-clad characters living, marrying, building, worshiping, fighting, and dying.  Some of that happened for me, but frankly… not all that much. (Probably why I’m an editor, not a screenwriter.)  The thing that would really blow my mind was still to come.

One thought that did stick in my head as we headed back down the mountain: it’s a good thing they built cisterns up there to collect rainwater, because it would SUCK to carry water up that hill.

While the bulk of our time in Greece was spent in Santorini, we spent the last day and a half in Athens.  As you might guess, the number one priority for a quick stop in Athens is the Acropolis, a collection of temple ruins atop a mesa-like hill randomly jutting up in the middle of the urban sprawl that is the capital of Greece.

Even in its crumbling state, the Acropolis is still astounding.  For me, it’s less about the structures themselves but more of what they represent.  The structures on and around that hill were the equivalent of The Vatican, the Houses of Parliament… and the Vienna Opera House, and the Chinese Theater of Hollywood.  And that’s what captured my imagination – while we did indeed walk around the Parthenon, the main temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, I was drawn to the two amphitheaters lower down the hill.

Speaking as a resident of the United States, it’s rare that I ever personally experience anything that is truly old.  But walking through the Theater of Dionysus was something else.  Because before we had Lady Gaga, Survivor, Citizen Kane, Barnum & Bailey, fat ladies singing Wagner, or even Romeo and Juliet… there were Greek plays.  I mean plays whose lines were preserved on papyrus or tablets of stone.  Delivered by faceless actors wearing Comedy or Tragedy masks.  Lines written by someone like Homer.  And not the Homer who works at a nuclear factory while munching on donuts.

Sitting in those ancient marble seats, I knew that as a 21^st century storyteller, this place represented something ancient and foundational to the craft I practice today.

Towards the southwest corner of the Acropolis sits the other performing arts venue, the Odeum of Herodes.  It’s actually much smaller than the Theater of Dionysus and in much better shape, so much so that open air concerts are still given there.

It actually cracked me up walking backstage, imagining tech scouts taking place before an event.  The lighting and sound engineers ask their venue contact, “so what sort of infrastructure do we have at the venue?  Any electricity or lighting grid in place?”  The local Greek raises his eyebrows.  “Uh, it’s an amphitheater built into the side of a really steep hill in the year 161 AD.  You want anything, even porta potties, you better bring it in yourselves.”

And people certainly have done that – one of the more notable concerts, “Yanni Live At the Acropolis,” took place at the Odeum on September 23, 1993.  Huge light and sound, high-end TV production, and a full symphony orchestra supporting Yanni’s band, and of course Yanni himself, surrounded by a wall of synthesizers.  (I’d say it was a bit of overkill on the keyboards, but that’s how the guy rolls.)

Watching video of the concert, there are those who to this day snicker at the long dreamy dissolves of the mustached musician flipping his shoulder length hair dramatically over his shoulders.  But make no mistake – the man is every bit a communicator with his asymmetrically metered music as any reporter who sits down to a computer, or filmmaker who calls “action” on a film set.  Whether you agree or not, one thing is for sure – people respond to the man’s music:

• The Live At the Acropolis video is the 2^nd highest selling music video of all time, second only to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
• The concert’s broadcasts have been seen in 65 different countries by half a billion people.

I could go on, but you probably get the idea.  Numbers aside, that concert, at its core, is communication that powerfully affects its audience.  To this day, parts of that music still make me want to jump up and dance in joy.  And whether it’s a live concert, a random webisode, a blockbuster film, or a monologue on a bare stage, what are we as storytellers all about if not communicating stories and messages that affect those who hear and see?

As we walked back down the Athenian hill to find some lunch, I pondered how truly ancient an art we practice. I wondered about the reactions of the ancient crowds to the stories told on those marble stages, the feelings evoked from performances both ancient and modern.  And I considered how no matter the form, it’s all communication, it’s all storytelling.  It’s been around even before the Greek ancients, and it’s what we still do today.

In the previous Brown M&Ms post, I mentioned the following:

…part of editing professionally is learning the appropriate practices for any given project, and sticking to them so everyone knows that they can hand things off to you and know it’s gonna be done excellently, and done right.

Rick, a friend of Editmentor, commented:

Forgive the noob comment, but where exactly are the specifications of appropriate practices?
  Is it a customer by customer basis? How would one develop the good habits without specifications or guidelines?

Far from being noobish – those are very legitimate questions that aren’t quickly answered.  “Professional practices” vary wildly at times, are rarely codified, and sometimes it’s difficult to find that out until you’re actually on a job and you “screw up” – i.e. go against expectations that may not even have been concretely expressed!  At which point you say “how the heck was I supposed to know that?”  And people just kind of look at you funny and say “Uh, that’s normal.  Everyone knows that.”  (It’s not unlike women expecting men to read their minds without actually saying what they actually want, then getting all worked up when men’s ESP isn’t perfect.  My wife is not like that, and I am so grateful.  But I digress.)

The more I thought about professional practices, the more I realized I had other questions to address first.  Editmentor serves lots of different people with varying levels of experience, and we’ve had a number of questions from people asking “How can I become a professional editor?”  And, in a world where literally anyone can assemble clips of video and audio on their own computer, what makes a professional editor professional?

The short answer is, one can usually be considered a professional editor by being paid for doing it.  However, being a well-rounded, steadily-working, professional editor involves multiple areas beyond simply doing what an editor does.  Let’s start, though, with just that – at the risk of sounding like everyone else who starts by giving their own definition of “what is editing,” here’s my take on “what do editors do?”  Ahem.

WHAT EDITORS DO

First and foremost, a professional editor uses the tools at his or her disposal to put together picture and or sound in a manner that best satisfies the requirements of the job as communicated by the employer.

Let’s break that down.

“professional editor”: Could be a picture editor in the film world, only editing picture and basic audio.  Or also in the film world, a dialogue, sound effects, foley, or music editor, only editing their specific part of the soundscape.  Or a visual effects editor, only editing effects shots and previsualization animations. Or in television, most editors these days have to be able to do all or at least some of everything the film guys do.  The bigger the television project, the more likely you are to have multiple specialized editors, whereas that’s the way film has always been.  Commercial editors usually cut picture, some music, and some sound, maybe some graphics, and send everything out for picture and sound finishing elsewhere.  Special projects like music videos involve heavy picture editing, and often graphics work, though very little sound editing.

“the tools”: A professional editor should know how to use whatever tools he or she is given.  In the pre-digital days, editors worked with machines (Moviolas, flatbeds, and open-reel audio decks) that shuttled reels of physical film and magnetic stock back and forth.  These days digital editing gear provides instant access to digital reels or clips of media – and it could be anything from Windows Moviemaker to an Avid Symphony in picture editing, or Garage Band to a ProTools-driven, million dollar Euphonix console in the sound editing world.

The fancier the tools, the more critical it is that the editors know them like the back of their hand.  Editors need to know their tools so well it’s like the tools are invisible.  For further discussion on tools of editing, including the long-running Avid vs. Final Cut debate, check out Gimme a Gluepot.

“best satisfies the requirements” – let’s just say that the requirements for any given job vary wildly. Here are three examples:

Picture editing on a multi-million dollar Hollywood film: Be familiar with dozens, even hundreds of hours of the film’s footage and over the span of multiple months work constantly with The Director to shape the film into a work that will satisfy the producers, studio, and distributors… but most importantly The Director.  The result should be art.  Or at least something that will sell lots and lots of movie tickets and have people talking about it for years to come.

Editing a news package for a daily local newscast: Get 5 to 10 minutes of video, slam it together so it conveys a basic story.  If it’s a big news station, you might be a dedicated news editor and that’s all you do, but these days the on-camera reporter is often the producer and editor too.  Either way, you’ll probably have between 2 hours and, say, 10 minutes to cut the piece (often with stressed-out producers screaming at you).  The biggest requirements are that the piece says only what it absolutely needs to say, is exactly the length required to the second, and has picture and sound all the way through.  It is disposable, forgotten as soon as it hits air, and it is definitely NOT art.  It’s news, and its main value lies in how quickly it can get on the air.

Editing a home movie for viewing on YouTube: who the heck knows what that might require.  It could be one clip, or it could be a jumbled sequence of still images or painstaking distillation of hours of footage. It usually has to be shorter than 10 minutes long (given YouTube’s time limit for uploads), and the editing could take as little or as much time as you want. It could be art, or it could be completely meaningless.  It will probably mean little to people other than you or your family, though if it’s funny or outrageous it might become ridiculously popular landing you your own TV or internet series.

I could go on and on, though suffice it to say that the aspiring professional editor needs to have or gain as much experience as possible in the categories of editing you want to get into.  Because a news editor very rarely has the organizational and storytelling skillsets to masterfully shape the arc of a feature film, and most feature film editors would wet their pants if you told them to cut that 40-second package in 10 minutes… for a mere fraction of their film pay.  And the home video YouTube editor very rarely has the skillsets to be either a news editor OR a film editor.

For more thoughts on the purposes of editing, check out Shakespeare and Grocery Lists.

“the employer” – the employer could be a single person, a group of people, or a multi-billion dollar organization, in which case you’re probably answering to many different layers of people.  Most times employers actually hire editors for money, though not always.  Maybe the employer is even Your Mom.

The bigger the project, the more people need to be satisfied, be it tv or film.  Movies and commercials are especially notorious for having too many cooks in the kitchen, many of whom are more concerned about validating the need for their professional existence rather than working in the best interest of the film.

THERE’S MUCH MORE.

As I said above, being a well-rounded, steadily-working, professional editor involves multiple areas beyond just what an editor does.  You have to be part creative, part technical, and part psychotherapist.  More on that to come.

In the meantime, that’s it for now – I’m gonna go find me some brown M&Ms.  Later.

We were watching That’s Entertainment, a film featuring clips from classic MGM musicals and hosted by former MGM stars including Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Frank Sinatra.  In the 1940’s and 50’s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) was the undisputed king of the Hollywood musical, producing classics including The Wizard of Oz, Singing in the Rain, Gigi, An American In Paris, and many others.  By 1974, when the host segments for That’s Entertainment were shot on the old MGM backlot, the studio barely resembled the powerhouse it once was.  In fact, the studio had failed to evolve with the times and had lost so much money in the 60’s that in 1973 the studio’s new owners almost completely shut down production to rein in the studio’s massive debts.  Not only that, That’s Entertainment’s host segment shoots were emotional for some of these stars, who, having spent years acting on those sets, knew that they were the last scenes to be shot before the entire backlot, recently sold to real estate developers, would be bulldozed to the ground.

Not only was MGM in dire straits, the studio heads weren’t all that sure about the film’s prospects, being one of the first “docu-tainment” or “clip show” movies.  Nevertheless, the film celebrating the bygone Golden Age of splashy Hollywood musicals struck a nostalgic core with a film-going public who desperately wanted an escape from the drama of the Watergate Scandal and seemingly endless Vietnam War. The film was a hit at the box office, and its premiere, for one last time, hosted megawatts of old-school MGM star power with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, and Mickey Rooney in attendance, celebrating the once powerful studio that used to boast of featuring “more stars than there are in heaven.”

Things certainly changed for MGM over the years.  Change happens whether we like it or not.

Things have changed in the world of editing even in the years since I moved to Hollywood.  When I was first working as an assistant editor, I was constantly making timecode-burned outputs to VHS tape.  These days, I can’t remember the last time I used ANY video deck in an offline edit bay, never mind a VHS deck.  Yeah, tape.  Remember that?

My fellow assistants and I would shuttle big, bulky drives back and forth between edit bays.  It was a truly fantastic thing when shows finally started using central media servers like Avid Unity so we didn’t have to keep copying files from one place to another, saving different versions of projects, and praying we didn’t screw anything up.

When I was editing the first season of Supernanny on ABC, we had two American executive producers and two British executive producers.  The assistants at the show would take the segments we editors cut on the Avids and output and upload Quicktime files to a server so the British execs in London could watch the cuts and give notes.  I thought that was the coolest thing ever.  These days, that’s almost the only way it’s ever done, unless someone actually wants an output on DVD.

Heck, that’s only a few changes in the last 10 years of digital, nonlinear offline editing.  There’s a whole world of other editing systems and practices long since rendered obsolete.  (Let’s just say I’m not really feeling the urge to pull out the Moviola and splicer tape just for the sake of nostalgia.)

Like I said, change happens.  And you gotta be ready for it, or be okay living with the results of not changing.  So help me, I’ve worked with professional editors who told me “Avid is the only system I need to know.  Final Cut is stupid.”  Well, okay.  At some point those folks won’t be able to keep their heads stuck in the sand anymore because they’re gonna have to cut on Final Cut to get a paying job.  Get used to it.  Adapt, people.

A lot of people in Los Angeles are bemoaning the fact that things are changing here – that production, historically mostly taking place in Hollywood, is moving across the US and into Canada, Australia, Mexico, basically any place other than here. Cartoon animation and visual effects studios have long since ceased to exist only in Burbank, Hollywood, and Santa Monica, and are now springing up all over China and India. I won’t go into all the reasons why, but the fact is it’s happening.

And it’s not just production.  Looking ahead, I predict that it’s only a matter of time until editing and postproduction is outsourced all around the world, with the same connectivity as a current-day LA post house with fiber optics linking all its edit bays to one in-house media server.  As Hollywood’s culture becomes more and more engrained throughout the world, American editors who say that Americans are the only people who really know how to edit American TV and film will be shocked to find that their big paychecks (including mine) have been grabbed by smart young storytellers all around the world, doing it remotely for a fraction of the price.

If you’re one of our Editmentor friends in Mumbai, Prague, or Shanghai, this is fantastic news.  All the more reason to continue building your storytelling skills.  If you’re the LA editor who refuses to learn Final Cut because “it’s stupid,” you’re probably shaking in your boots.  With your head still firmly planted in the sand, I’m guessing.

And if you don’t CHANGE YOURSELF accordingly, you’ll wake up years from now, like MGM, wondering what the heck happened.

Change happens.  How will you adapt to it?

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Editmentor.com is here to spread the knowledge of storytelling through editing, including our wildly popular Top Five Rules for When To Make The Edit and high-quality packages of unedited film dailies.  Check out our editing tutorials too.

Rock star legend Eddie Van Halen became notorious for a clause in his contract forbidding the presence of brown M&Ms in the backstage candy bowl at his concerts.  Here’s the flip side of that story and why it matters.

Celebrities have had all sorts of random requirements included in their contracts over the years.  Aretha Franklin contractually insists that her hotel rooms must never be higher than the 5^th floor, and that all air vents must be taped shut.  John Kerry, when appearing for speaking engagements, requires a recumbent (not upright) exercise bike.  Though in the heyday of big hair rock and roll, Van Halen’s prohibition of brown M&Ms was particularly singled out with disgust as the classic example of rock stars run amok with infantile delusions of grandeur. Most of those critics never found out what you’re about to read.

Van Halen’s band traveled from venue to venue with a convoy of 9 semi trailers full of gear.  (When was the last time you saw 9 semi trailers of anything?)  Not surprisingly, their rider contract was dozens of typewritten pages long detailing the largest and tiniest technical requirements of their show, down to the amperage and placement of electrical outlets. The “M&M Clause” hid in the middle of a contract so voluminous that it guaranteed any reader’s eyes to glaze over after the third page.

If the band rolled up to the next venue and found brown M&Ms in the backstage candy bowl, they immediately demanded a full line-item review of the entire rider contract.  Eddie Van Halen specifically buried the M&M Clause, because concert promoters who don’t pay attention to one part of a contract usually don’t pay attention to the rest of it, and resulting technical issues could be disastrous, even deadly.

When it comes to editing, details matter.  In fact, that’s what editing is – hundreds, even thousands of details.  As the editor, it’s our job to take care of myriad details, decisions, and problems before they become problems.  Most professional editors have rules of organization and application that their employers come to expect and associate with that high level of professional editing.  (While this isn’t standard practice in LA, I have a standing offer with any producer I work with – I say that if they ever find a misspelled graphic leaving my edit bay, I’ll buy them a steak dinner.  I believe it’s happened only once – in my entire career.)

Now, chances are nobody’s going to go nuts if you put a track of music on audio channels 2 and 3 for a personal project.  But part of editing professionally is learning the appropriate practices for any given project, and sticking to them so everyone knows that they can hand things off to you and know it’s gonna be done excellently, and done right.

And when you’re that good, who knows?  Maybe some day you’ll end up in a place where you can request the brown M&Ms removed from your candy dish.

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Not there yet?  Wanna get better at the art of editing? Check out our tutorials.

In the meantime, you know all those folks who were saying “thank you” for their awards?  Did you notice how often they thanked the colleges they went to?  Cuz they didn’t.

Speaking plainly, film school – and most film professors who share their knowledge and passion for storytelling at film school –  is good for reasons discussed below.  The need for a film degree, though, is greatly misunderstood.  In fact, I’ll be as transparent to say that I have not finished my Bachelor degree.

My lack of a college degree has not at all hindered me or many others in our paths to success in Hollywood.  Now granted, I haven’t won an Emmy or an Oscar.  I will say, though, that my editing work has been seen around the world by millions of people, and I have earned over $100,000 a year in Hollywood since the age of 22.  Which is why when a Facebook friend asked me my thoughts on BFAs and MFAs in film and the relative values thereof, I proceeded to step up onto my soapbox and typed out the following, which I would wish every film student in the world could see before embarking on becoming the next Spielberg.  By the way, keep reading for a shocking tidbit about Mr. Spielberg.

Here are some thoughts – say you’re a classical pianist.  Say you have a MFA in piano performance from a music school no one’s heard of.  People (whether they see your degree or not) won’t book you in a concert unless you prove you can actually play piano, and play it well.

Now say you have an MFA in piano performance from Juilliard or Eastman.  Impressive.  People still aren’t going to book you in a concert unless you prove – or already have proven – that you can play the piano well.  Granted, an MFA from Juilliard means people are more likely to take you seriously, but the degree, no matter how impressive, will never book you a gig.

I can’t tell you how many college students I’ve met and stories I’ve heard of people who get their BFA in Film from USC or UCLA and expect the world’s gonna immediately hand them a 3-picture deal on a silver platter.  Those students seriously need to put down the crackpipe, because ain’t nobody gonna give an unknown film grad – no matter their degree – a director, producer, or even key grip gig on any big project until there’s a proven body of work that’s really, really good.

Now let’s back away from the film world for a second… say you want to be a high-powered lawyer: you better work your tail off in high school, get immaculate grades, get lots of college prerequisites under your belt, and do your undergrad in a school that has a solid pre-law program, then get your J.D. from a large, famous university that has ivy hanging on the buildings outside.  Same if you want to be a Fortune 500 CEO – you better get your undergrad in business and international law, and get your MBA from a school with said ivy hanging outside said buildings.  Those are places where degrees and alphabet soup after your name do matter.

But in the creative/arts/entertainment industries?  You have a degree?  That’s nice, there’s the mail room.  And refill my coffee on the way.

But, but, you say, I spent 4 years dissecting Eisenstein’s editing theory and debating the cultural philosophy of Bergman!  I even took the elective in Meisner technique to understand actors!  I’m an artist, dammit, I’m going places, and I deserve immediate respect!

It doesn’t work that way. Lemme explain.

In the eyes of most employers, a high school student who immediately goes for a BS or BFA in film means they’re looking at a college grad who hasn’t lived life long enough to have anything worth saying.  Now if you go for an MFA in film, the MFA means you love your craft enough to spend a lot of money and time getting an MFA.  It doesn’t mean you’ll ever work regularly in the industry just because you have an MFA.  Now show me an MFA grad with 3 completely different careers before film school… and I’ll show you someone who knows something about life, the world, and people, and can harness that life experience to say something meaningful in film.

So why get a film degree?  To learn as much as possible about as many parts of your craft as possible.  That’s the initial part, though not the most important part.  The biggest reason to get a degree in film is: the people with whom you go to school.

Because the fact is – and write this down, folks, because this is big:

A film degree will never guarantee you a job in film.

People get you jobs in film.  And people are most drawn to people like you who don’t whine, don’t make excuses, and they make projects happen.

Plus, the people who have the most singular visions about what they want to say in film don’t wait on other people – they get off their ass and they JUST DO IT.  Period.  Then people take notice and say, “wow, that’s really good.”

These people of vision don’t sit around whining about how much easier it would be if they only had a real budget.

They don’t sit around whining about how the economy sucks and that’s why they can’t sell their script.  If you have a script that’s any good, keep working until you meet with people who believe in it and will make it happen.

If your dream is to be a film director, then FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DIRECT SOMETHING. ANYTHING!!!  ESPECIALLY IF IT SUCKS!!! When you’re done, display and sell it if you can, AND THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DIRECT SOMETHING AGAIN!!! THEN DO IT AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN!!!

Do not listen to the WHINERS who always point the finger at anything other than THEMSELVES to make excuses why they can’t make things happen in their lives.  Because I’m telling you, I would still be sliding vinyl siding into semi trucks in a lumberyard in Omaha, Nebraska, unless I had decided that I was serious about getting out to LA to work in Hollywoood, and actually did it.  And now it’s DONE.  And by the grace of God, I continue to move forward.

So.

Back to film degrees… the success of your activities in film/tv/whatever does not depend on your degree.  The success of your activities in film/tv/whatever depends on two things:

1. The PEOPLE you work with – many of whom you will meet at film school.  So yes, film school is a good thing.
2. More importantly the ACTION that YOU continuously take to make your film projects and any other dreams in your life a reality.

Should you go to film school?  Yes, because that’s where you meet fellow filmmakers who will provide the foundation for your professional network, and can learn invaluable information from dedicated teachers who want nothing more than to pass their skills and knowledge on to you.

Should you work on your own projects during and outside of film school?  Absolutely.  Find people who work well with you and share similar motivation to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.  Make sure they’re trustworthy, because all relationships of any kind are the most productive in an atmosphere of mutual trust.

Do you need an MFA right away?  Personally, I’d say wait for an MFA until you have enough unique life experience to truly capitalize on the value of an MFA.  Then look into it.

I could rant up here on my soapbox for quite some time, but I’ll wrap it up… some closing thoughts:

It’s difficult to meet people in a specialized field if one is not in a geographic area where that specialized field operates.  If you want to get into couture fashion, you wouldn’t go to Denver.  You’d go to New York, London, Paris, Milan, etc.

If you want to work regularly in the American film industry, do not go to film school in Albuquerque.  If you like the artsy film scene, go to New York City.  If you want to get into the real US film industry, I believe you gotta move to Los Angeles.  You can find gigs in Michigan, Vancouver, London, and any number of places, but the heart of the US film industry is in Hollywood.  Period.

Having said that, the amazing thing is that today YOU CAN MAKE MOVIES ANYWHERE.  If you live in Tahiti, you might have to do something else to keep the bills paid, but you can still make movies there if you really want because THE TOOLS ARE AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE.

So if your dream is to direct movies, or edit primetime network television, or write internet webisodes, whether you’re 15 or 75, the question is: what are you doing RIGHT NOW to MAKE IT HAPPEN?

By the way, did you know that Steven Spielberg himself never finished his college degree until after becoming one of the most well-known film directors of all time?  Wikipedia says:

In 2002, thirty-five years after starting college, Spielberg finished his degree via independent projects at [California State University at Long Beach], and was awarded a B.A. in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an option in Film/Video Production.

Just sayin…

Editmentor.com is here to spread the knowledge of storytelling through editing, including our wildly popular Top Five Rules for When To Make The Edit and high-quality packages of unedited film dailies.  Check out our editing tutorials too.

In 2003, NBC was crewing up for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.  I was cutting for a daily entertainment news show on FOX, and I started asking everyone I knew about who I should contact to get on board with NBC.  Well whaddya know, I started getting leads.  A fellow editor from my previous job, also at FOX, had a friend who ran a post house in New York City who had also cut on location for multiple rounds of Olympics.  I called the contact in New York, and he gave me the info for the Director of Olympic Operations at NBC.  I kept asking around in Los Angeles for leads to the Olympics, and they pointed me to the same guy, who I emailed inquiring about how a young, fast, motivated editor could end up editing for the Olympics in Athens.

Imagine my reaction when I received an email from TheMan@NBC.com (yes, that’s a made-up address).  I was thrilled.  Amazing, I thought, I’ve been putting it out there that I wanted to edit for the Olympics, telling the stories of the best athletes in the world, and I just got an email from The Man who would hire me.  I was dancing a jig around my edit bay.

The contact asked me to submit a VHS demo reel to the address he supplied.  (Crazy how old school that sounds, huh?)  I promptly updated my demo reel, printed off a nice label for it, popped it into a little black VHS case and dropped it into the mail for NBC in New York.  And proceeded to wait.

In the meantime, I had actually bought the John Williams CD Summon The Heroes at Amoeba Music Hollywood (one of the most fantastic record stores ANYWHERE) and was cranking Olympic tunes for weeks on end everywhere I drove.  Would you believe, I started seeing references to the Olympics everywhere I went.

I found myself often driving northbound on the 110 Freeway past the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home of the USC Trojans and the site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics.  Even worse, every day I would cross Olympic Boulevard, a major east-west street in Los Angeles, and wonder, wonder, wonder… would I ever be part of the Olympics, and hear those majestic songs put to the pieces I would edit?

I waited, prayed, thought about all things Olympic, and waited some more.  I found out that my reel ended up in the hands of an NBC producer in New York, I was under consideration for the on-location position editing for the wrestling venue in Athens, and… the position was ultimately given to someone else more experienced.  Was I disappointed?  Sure.  Though I had no regrets whatsoever – I had put my desire and goal out to my network of contacts, and I knew I had done everything within my power to make things happen.  Everything beyond that was out of my control, and I immediately moved on to the next goal.

Looking back at those times now, I am absolutely confident that if I had continued my quest to edit for the Olympics, it would have eventually come to pass.  Because I knew I was good enough to do it, and it was only a matter of being patient enough to get the right hookup at the right time.  I’m currently pursuing other goals.  Like expanding Editmentor around the world.

What do you dream of?  What do you want to achieve?  What stories do you want to tell?  I’m telling you right now, it is always far more possible than we ever imagined.  Because when we set our minds to something, get off our butts and actually DO something, anything – it’s amazing what can happen when we decide that we want it, and go get it.

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A follow-up of our discussion of ADR and looping. Make sure to check out previous posts Actors In Tiny Boxes and ADR, Emmys, and Atomic Bombs.  Not only do individual actors often come back into the studio to re-record audio after production has wrapped, sometimes groups of actors called “loop groups” are brought in to recreate or enhance off-camera dialogue, ambience, or general group chatter.

The following is a follow-up to ADR editor Jill D’Aubery’s story of The Day After, for which she won an Emmy.  Jill remembers…

I had a wonderful loop group that worked on that project. The director, Nick Meyer, wanted the sound of the earth itself screaming in protest as it was torn apart. So I lined up my 20 loopers and recorded a separate scream from each of them. I also recorded a scream from all the women loopers together and a separate scream from all the men plus a few screams from the entire group. I did this at the complete end of the group looping sessions which lasted, if I remember correctly, around a week or so.

I cut these screams together and the result was amazing! When you heard the screams without any other sound, it WAS like the death throes of the earth! But when the incredible work of the sound effect editors was added to the screams it was chilling. And even though we had all worked on this for months and months, when we heard and saw the final result on the dub stage, I don’t think there was a single dry eye in the room. The bombs fell, the trees swayed violently, buildings crumbled and exploded, people and horses were vaporized…and over, through, and beneath it all was sound. Terrifying sound. Sound made more human by the voices of 20 terrific actors portraying the earth itself.

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Clearly a moment to remember.  Work on enough projects – be they professional or personal – and you’ll have those kind of moments yourself.  Here’s one of mine.

Picture from Brendan Donnison www.lypsinc.com

In the world of acting,there’s a hierarchy. Thousands of would-be actors in Los Angeles would give their eyeteeth to book a gig, one gig, ANY paying gig.  Many already have and wish they could just get any kind of recurring role.  Then there are the working actors – those who randomly book the occasional supporting or featured roles on a commercial, tv, or movie, and can keep the rent paid.  The ones who have it good are actors who book regular roles on soap operas, which crank out episodes day after day.

Yet I happen to know many actors don’t value roles on soap operas as much as if they were working on a dramatic tv series.  And those in tv series *really* wish they could make the jump to C or B-list movie roles.  Those who do appear in said C/B-list roles wish they were A-list.  And A-listers have been known to be discontent because they’re not Tom Cruise.  And you know what?  I’d put money on the fact that there’s a part of Tom Cruise that’s really bothered by the fact that in spite of his amazing career, he still hasn’t won an Oscar. (Though let’s face it, Tom Cruise is pretty much on top of the world anyway.)

There is always an opportunity to be discontent, always a reason to say “well, it would be better if…”

Likewise in the world of editing, I know of many who wish they could make a living in post-production, even doing the smallest projects.  Many editors in and outside Hollywood do, moonlighting on random corporate promos and commercials.  They often wish they could get something more regular, like cutting a tv series be it only on the smallest cable channel.  Those who have the connections to work in cable wish for the bigger paychecks of network television.  Editors cutting network television often do it cutting reality tv, and I know many reality editors who would LOVE to cut anything scripted, an actual drama or comedy series.  Even better: feature films. [Angel choir sings: ahhhhhh!!]  Feature editors, I happen to know, tend to be tremendously grateful for any feature they get to cut, because there are relatively so few to go around – they’re terrified they won’t have a next gig.  And yes, there’s always that whole “Dang it, why couldn’t *I* get that Best Editing Oscar?”

There is always an opportunity to wish “why can’t I be there instead of here?”

So, what can we do?  Say, “I wish I could do more, but this is where I am, I’m stuck, I’ll never do anything more than this”?  NO.  I believe that if we have genuine desires in our heart, and our motives are pure, we need to pursue them.  And we can’t just sit there wishing things would get better – we have to work our tail off by actually doing the things that will help us get there. Because guess what?  Most people don’t.  It’s just too much work.

For those that do get off their butts and take action in their lives: when certain levels of success are achieved, should we always say “Well, this is ok, but wouldn’t it be better if…” I propose that there’s a healthy balance to be struck between refusal to rest on one’s laurels and finding reasons for gratitude where we are.  Heck, as long as we are breathing, there is always something for which to be grateful, even at the very lowest levels of perceived success.

Speaking for myself, my life is overflowing with reasons for gratitude.  I’m doing what I love in the single best place in the world to do it.  I have a loving family and circle of friends stretching around the planet, an amazing woman who I will soon marry, and the opportunity to serve others by sharing the skills of storytelling around the world.  I am indeed humbled, and tremendously grateful.

So as we all examine the grass on which we stand – and the neighboring grass that may or may not appear greener – why not ask ourselves, “What things in my life are worthy of my gratitude today?”

First up: an edit by Joseph Andrews.

Joseph brought some great character development to the edit. Good eye for actor performance.

Next: a silent edit by Hanky01.

Hanky01 is already gunning to be a colorist – nice use of color correction and vignetting. Great solution to the “how do we motivate the guy to fly off-screen” question too.

Sara Bonnett took the story in a different direction:

While I didn’t understand Sara’s music choice at first, it became obvious that she made a very strong choice that works well, and with a cool story twist. We have no idea who Brett is, but clearly he’s fantastic.

Speaking of story twists, here’s one by FotoDesignStudio:

The initial viewing left me scratching my head… and still being okay with that. I predict some very creative plot twists still to come in FotoDesignStudio‘s future.

And I gotta say, the edit by Byron Towns is sheer comedic genius if watched after other edits of Copier Wars:

See, this one’s all about viewing context – comedy is often based on surprise, getting what you don’t expect. If, while reviewing 20 cuts, I would’ve watched this one first, I would’ve grinned and moved on. Luckily, I saw it as version number 15 or something… it’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything on my first viewing because I would’ve spit it all over my computer screen. Way to go, Byron. Damn, that’s funny.

Click here to see more fantastic edits – and to all of the editing students at Bellevue College, you rock. You’re bringing some solid creativity to the table. All the best to you, and we’re looking forward to seeing more of your work.

• “Politicians always say they’re going to change things, but I really mean it.” [point dramatically at self]
• “Oh yes, models really do look like magazine covers in real life, all the time.”
• “Making TV and film is a super magical process that can only happen in big TV or film studios by specially anointed people.”

To all of the above I say, with all the sincerity I can muster:

Ppppppppppppppppppppppbbbbbbbbbbbtttttttthhhhhhththhhhh.

Especially that last one on the list. Because chances are if you’re reading this, you know as well as I do that it just ain’t true. (Excuse me while I wipe off my computer screen… okay, we’re good.)

Dan Weaver

I was a junior in high school, attending a week-long TV Talk Show Production class at the annual Donna Reed Festival for the Performing Arts under the guidance of Emmy-winning producer – and since long-time friend – Dan Weaver. Sitting around the table with Dan and my fellow classmates, we started shooting ideas back and forth. It was during that humble little production meeting that I realized a fundamental thing: a good idea is a good idea, no matter who comes up with it. And you DON’T have to be in Hollywood to have a good idea. We were in Denison, Iowa, surrounded by cornfields and hog farms – about as far away from the soundstages of LA as you could get. And we still put together an hour-long, live-to-tape talk show with local talent, live musicians, covered by a multi-camera production truck from Drake University.

I was astounded that we could do something so ridiculously COOL with just the elements available to us. And I knew that the only difference between what we were doing right there and what it would have been like in New York or LA was bigger lights, fancier cameras, and a bigger budget. Other than that… IT’S THE SAME THING.

Like I said, it pretty much blew my mind.

Pulling back the curtain. Good Toto.

The world has changed drastically in recent years. More and more the gatekeepers of TV and film are realizing that they’re just as likely to get their next big talent from YouTube as the graduates of the Cinema School at USC. Storytellers are realizing that maybe they don’t even need the approval of said gatekeepers. Now, more than ever, the proverbial curtain is being pulled back, showing that in today’s world, the people who are the most successful in TV and film are those people who have great ideas and tell great stories.

And, by the way, you don’t have to be Spielberg to be a great storyteller, and you certainly don’t have to be in Los Angeles to do it.

So, to repeat myself, because it’s just that important:

A good idea is a good idea. A good story is a good story. No matter who you are, no matter where you are. Period.

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Now watch this 3 minute video. Right now. It’s one of the ways Editmentor is pulling back the curtain for YOU.