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Frank Smathers
Union Made

With a Little Help From My Friends

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By Frank Smathers

It all started in 1955, when my Mom took my sister Joy and me to see a kiddie matinee. I had never seen a movie and this was before our family owned a TV. When the theater went dark, we were transported by the magic of cinema to the Land of Oz. One hour and forty two minutes later—as the movie ended—I distinctly remember the shock of leaving Oz and returning to the world outside the theater.

Fast forward to 1969, when a friend told me to see a cool new movie with hippies riding Harleys. I didn’t know at the time that “Easy Rider” would change my life.

A month after I saw “Easy Rider,” I was drafted, did two years in the Army at Fort Carson, Colorado, and then went back to college. I graduated with a master’s degree in English Literature, which I soon found out was useless. I ended up working as an auto mechanic. One day, through the grace of the universe, I received a flyer from a Buddhist school opening in Colorado: Naropa University. I wasn’t too interested in Buddhism but I noticed that they offered a filmmaking class taught by cinematographer Baird Bryant, who had been a cameraman on “Easy Rider” and “Jimi Plays Berkeley.” To a skinny hippie from Florida, the idea of hanging with a guy who worked with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jimi Hendrix was a mind-blower. So I packed up my Corvair and took off for Boulder.

Bryant was a great teacher. He had a 16mm Moviola, sound transfer gear, and a gaggle of old 16mm wind-up cameras. I made a short student film about spiritual images in everyday life. Bryant encouraged me to go into film, so I enrolled in the University of Miami’s Cinema Department. At the end of the semester, two guys, Reuben Trane and Ken Wiederhorn, came to our class looking for interns to work on a horror film about Nazi zombies.

I soon found myself in charge of coffee, donuts and the Winnebago dressing room for “Shock Waves,” starring John Carradine, Peter Cushing, and Luke Halpin. We filmed the whole summer of 1975 in the mangroves of Miami. I was never paid a penny but I have never had so much fun in my life.

One day in 1977, I met a young editor, Raul Davalos, who became a lifelong friend. We were huge fans of “Star Wars” and dreamed of what it would be like to work on a real Hollywood movie. Davalos followed his dream and moved to Los Angeles and eventually I followed him there. After one year of peanut butter sandwiches and selling cable TV door to door, I got an assistant editor job at Filmcore.

My editor, Charlie Chuback, was a very busy guy so he gave me the job of editing simple soundtracks on the commercials he cut. I often went to Todd-AO to cover the sound mixes. One of the commercials I cut sound for was, “Man Was Not Meant To Fly,” a Nike spot where Michael Jordan flew off the basketball court with jet sound effects and slamdunked the ball with explosive force. The commercial won a Clio Award and I began to realize that my skillset was more attuned to sound editing than to picture editing.

Eventually, I was offered an editing job at David Yewdall’s Superior Sound, where I cut dialogue on Oliver Stone’s “Salvador.” I was new at dialogue editing so I’d be there until 2:00 a.m. every workday, searching through the dailies for alternates, creating fill loops, etc. Yewdall’s shop was union and with my prior non-union work hours, I was able to join IATSE Local 700.

In 1987, I saw the DAWN digital audio editing system, and that was the beginning of the long and treacherous transition from analog to digital film-making. At Paramount Pictures, I helped a bit on the development of Avid’s OMF digital sharing software (now called AAF) and survived the times when systems crashed every day and a 9GB hard drive cost $2000. With a little help from my friends, I have been a union man for 34 years. I’m currently working with a great crew at Universal Studios, cutting sound on “Chicago Fire.” As the years have passed, I have come to understand just how much a good union leads to a good life.

Frank Smathers is a sound editor. He can be reached at: conelrad47@gmail.com.

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The Lasting Impact of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’

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How an animated film inspired a young editor

By Katie Parody

I was born and raised in a small town  in northern New Jersey, and as a kid my greatest passions were, and still are, animals and animation. My identical twin sister, Valerie, also shared these obsessions, so we would spend hours watching cartoons and Animal Planet while attempting to draw our favorite creatures and characters. One Christmas, we received Digital Blues, which were cameras marketed as toys. They came with rudimentary editing software, and we loved them. We spent many hours emulating our idol, the wildlife TV host Steve Irwin, and would use our stuffed animal toys and plethora of pets to create little adventures and music videos in the “wild” of our backyard. Valerie played the role of Steve Irwin, while I filmed and edited on the family computer. I didn’t know it then, but this simple camera set me on my career path back in 2004.

Slowly, editing became a serious pastime. I outgrew the Digital Blue and started exploring other editing software, like Windows Movie Maker and, by the time I was in middle school, Magix Edit Pro 14. I became aware that I was spending more free time editing than drawing, but I still held onto my dream of being an animator. In 2010, DreamWorks released “How to Train Your Dragon,” and it became an instant favorite for me. I desperately wanted to work on a movie like this someday and made a decision right then and there in that theater: “I’ll be an animation editor!” Duh!

Two years later I started classes for my Film & Media Arts degree at American University (AU) in Washington, D.C. I learned Avid as an intern at the Newseum and by the end of my junior year was able to secure a summer internship at Warner Bros. Studio. My mother, my cheerleader, arranged for me to stay with family friends who lived 30 minutes from the studio.

After summer ended, I was back at AU for my senior year when I took the editing course they offered. I am forever grateful for my editing professor’s words of encouragement and for connecting me with a former student of hers who worked at DreamWorks. I also remained in touch with my mentors at WB, and after graduating AU in 2016, they were very encouraging about me coming back to work for them. Although nothing was promised on paper, the encouragement was good enough for me! I bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Once I got settled, I set up a meeting at DreamWorks with Jac Karambelas, my editing professor’s former student. Karambelas appreciated my enthusiasm and went above and beyond to answer my questions while showing me the editing process behind an animated movie. Karambelas also told me about the significance of Local 700; how if I ever wanted a job in one of the big animation studios, I had to get on the roster.

Soon after, I started working with the team I had interned with at Warner Bros. this time, my hours in the promo department were helping me get into the Editors Guild. Over the next three years I learned so much and my WB colleagues became a second family. Still, I yearned to work in animation. I reached out to Karambelas to tell her that I’d finally made it onto the union roster. The prospect of a short-term job didn’t faze me — I was eager for any opportunity. So a couple of months later, when a short-term job opened up, I jumped at the chance.

As I drove through the DreamWorks gates on my first day as an assistant editor, I blasted the “How to Train Your Dragon” soundtrack in my car. Everything seemed to come full circle in that moment. I was thrilled and ecstatic to get the dream job I had always wanted, but I couldn’t have done it alone. I learned that it’s not enough to meet someone at a networking event, get their contact information and then expect them to help you. I found that if you genuinely nurture the relationship with them and show your enthusiasm for what you love to do, then you will make an impression and, with the right attitude, they will want to help you. I am forever grateful to everyone who’s helped me achieve my dream and, since my short-term job at DreamWorks was extended, I’ll be living the dream for a while.

Katie Parody is an assistant editor at DreamWorks Animation working on her first feature, “Croods 2.” Originally from New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles after receiving her degree in Film & Media Arts from American University. 

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Strictly Come Editing: How I Found a Career Through UK Reality Shows

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by Andy Thomas

“For Christmas, do you guys want cable TV or a widescreen television?” my dad asked one year when I was a teenager. “We can’t afford both.” Collectively, we all replied, “Widescreen TV!” as we loved watching movies. A lot of movies. While growing up in Four Marks in the United Kingdom, my father instilled in us the movie fandom he had grown up with, since his mum had been an usher at their local movie theatre. Moving images are in our blood, I like to think.

Every time we watched a movie or TV show, there was a lesson about it. Who was the director, the actors, the editor? The more I understood that there were people behind the camera as well as in front of it, the more I wanted to be a part of the industry. Soon, I was making commercials as projects in high school and helping fellow students with their short films. When it came to selecting a subject to study in higher education, I was keen to study something within the field of media, but my parents convinced me to study a dual degree (for backup purposes). So I studied Radio, Film & Television with Natural Science (where I specialized in Medical Physics).

During the twilight period of my degree studies, I began applying for jobs in London at whatever entertainment companies for which I could find public records. I mailed out somewhere in the region of 50 résumés. I didn’t hear back from many places, but I got two interviews: one at a kit-hiring company and one at a post-production facility, both in London. After being told by the first company that I would have to remove my piercings, I was all in on the post facility.

I got the job and immediately fell in love with post-production — how creative it was, how technical it was. Plus it spoke to the inner mathematician in me (thanks, backup plan at university) because of the enormous amount of problems solved. I loved that then and I still adore that now. That love seemed to make an impression on some people and I was hired as an assistant editor at Princess Productions in London.

America’s Got Talent. NBC

While at Princess, I learned a ton. The company had experienced staff heading the shows, but young people were the boots on the ground, so I was entrusted with lots of responsibility early on (for better or worse) and was a full-fledged editor by the time I was 23.

One day, I had edited a package to roll into a live broadcast and there were some last minute changes. I re-recorded onto the tape from about halfway through, I handed off the new version, the machinist spot-checked it, the director gave the go ahead to hit play and we all sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. At the halfway point, the screen went black and it took four seconds before the vision mixer realized what was happening and cut back to the hosts in the studio — much to their confusion. It turns out that someone else had patched black to the deck to which I laid off, but I hadn’t checked it.

Even with that black mark against me, I worked hard and it wasn’t long before I was cutting on some of the biggest UK reality shows, including Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars in the US) and The X Factor. My love for editing didn’t fade.

Then, I met a girl. And boy, what a girl. We started dating, but she mentioned she was moving to the US. To this day, I still feel like it was her idea of a break-up line — but I called her bluff and suggested I move with her. So we did.

After a spell in New York City, we moved to Los Angeles, where one of the producers from early in my career wanted to hire me on America’s Got Talent. I needed to join the union…and sharpish. I knew about IATSE since moving to the States, but my only experience with unions was watching news back home of coal miners on strike because of their working conditions.

The thought of joining a union made me a little nervous, as I didn’t want to burn any of my newly made contacts in LA. But my mind was immediately put to rest after meeting National Organizer Rob Callahan and other Editors Guild members. Luckily, I had enough US credits as an editor to get onto the roster without any problems. I was in.

I have now been in the Guild for almost 10 years and during the recent IATSE contract negotiations, I was very proud to be a union member as National Executive Director Cathy Repola was kicking ass — and I love her and the union for that. I look forward to being a union editor for many years to come.

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The Long Journey to Overnight Success

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by Aric Lewis

I don’t remember exactly how I fell in love with storytelling. Perhaps it was because I was read to as a child — a lot. Editing is a different story. I first touched an Avid in 1999 as a summer intern in the creative services department at McDonald’s (yes, that one), and was hooked. I returned to Ball State University and would spend nights in the college editing bays, cutting anything I could, powered by Cherry Coke and Hostess frosted honey buns.

After graduating with a radio/TV/film production degree, I packed my car and moved for the first job in LA that called me to interview. It was a production assistant/runner opening with a post company specializing in advertising for home entertainment. I got the job. They said they liked “my drive.”

During the year-plus that I was a PA, some editors would let me practice cutting and offer feedback. The lesson was twofold: You learn by doing. And you get ahead by doing more. I was also learning about career options for editors — promo/trailer, film/television, union/non-union.

I realized I wasn’t going to be fulfilled by marketing. I wanted to be part of the team that crafts the stories, not the one that sells them, yet I had no idea how to enter the scripted world. I was told it wouldn’t be possible: “You don’t know the right people.” 

I earned a promotion from PA to online editor, then left the company for a non-union reality show and a detour through culinary school. During nights I would assist, and my days were spent honing my knife work. Once I did a staging (essentially an unpaid internship) where a chef told me I would have to make a choice because it takes too much time to master either field. The lesson: Know what you want and work for it. When an opportunity arose to edit promos, I hung up my toque and never looked back.

Around 2007, at that same promo job, I was moonlighting on a film when the director I was working with said, “It takes years to make an overnight success.” (We were talking about ambition.) That always stuck with me. I loved editing promos but wanted to work on films and TV shows as my day job and not my side gig. 

Based on my work experience, I was eligible to join the Editors Guild, and I did. 

It would be years before I landed my first union job, but I was determined to make inroads so that when the opportunity finally came, I could take advantage of it. I started e-mailing editors I aspired to emulate, asking what skills they most sought. The response was that the job was more than technical abilities and hard work; temperament and having a genuine passion for that work was important.

Union work remained elusive, so I just kept at it. I made it a goal not to be outworked. I watched every workflow video available on the Guild’s website and mirrored those project set-ups on both my promo and side gigs. I went to mixers to meet other members and a networking seminar that gave me tools I still apply to this day. I went to ACE’s EditFest LA and found myself surrounded by people who were excited about editing as a craft. It was invigorating at a time when I was hearing “No” a lot.

In 2012, an editor-led non-union commercial house hired me to replace an assistant on a film. It was trial by fire. I’d studied/practiced as best I could, working indie projects, but I still didn’t know what I didn’t know. Finally, an editor at the commercial house, Paul Norling, took me with him to Blumhouse Productions for what became my first union movie, a horror film called The Veil (2016).

I shuffled through different Blumhouse projects and met writer/director Joe Carnahan and editor Jason Hellmann as an assistant on the crime comedy Stretch (2014). I followed them to NBC for my first scripted television show, State of Affairs (2014-2015). In Carnahan, I got to see a top-notch writer/director work, and in Hellmann, an incredibly inventive editor open to all the assistants. I can’t say enough about how fantastic it was to work with that crew.

It’s been said that work begets work. I can trace every job I’ve had since to the two-year period beginning in 2012. Even my current role as a visual effects editor on the Netflix series Raising Dion (2019) is a job I never could have done without the tutelage of Kevin Jolly, a fantastic effects editor I initially met during my Blumhouse stint.

I’m still learning this business and am fortunate to do something I love. I’m appreciative of the many mentors — both formal and informal — who fostered my growth and championed me thus far. My hope is that I’m able to be the same teacher, connector and source of guidance to others.

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From KEM Rolls to ‘Lost Souls’ – My Life in Post

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by Christopher Kroll

I grew up in Santa Clarita during the 1970s. In my early teens, I’d go to work with my dad, Leonard Kroll, who, at the time, was the head of post-production at 20th Century-Fox. My favorite thing was accompanying him to QC-check 35mm release prints. I never knew what I was going to see — it’d be anything from Alien to Norma Rae (both 1979). Getting lost in a story with no previous expectations is something I’ve never been able to re-create. But because of that experience, I enjoy all kinds of movies whether or not I fit the intended demographic.

My uncle, Bob Wyman, was an editor (Rosemary’s Baby, 1968; Logan’s Run, 1976, among others), so growing up around post-production I felt drawn to it though I didn’t know exactly where I would land. My first job in the business was as a PA in accounting on the film Star 80 (1983). Delivering the weekly paychecks gave me the opportunity to look behind the scenes of every department, and I liked how editorial was separate from the chaos of production.

Upon high school graduation, I got an interview for an apprentice editor position on the non-union show Doin’ Time (1985) and was fortunate to get hired. My first task was to reconstitute KEM rolls. That meant restoring the film the editor didn’t use back into a linear order based on sequential numbers stamped at every foot (code numbers). Then break apart and spool each take into Moviola rolls. I learned how to splice and read a codebook. When the production company folded, Warner Bros. picked up the show for completion. Because Warner was union, I got my 30 days and was able to join the Editors Guild.

I apprenticed for a few years before moving up to assisting. When a film I was on previewed poorly, A-list editor Lou Lombardo was brought in to do a fix. I watched him untangle the story and give it pace. One shot panned from one character all the way around a room full of people to another character. It took forever but we were tied to the start and stop of the shot. Lombardo made a cut in the middle that flowed seamlessly, trimming the shot by two-thirds. My favorite response ever was when I asked him how he did it, he said, “You think you’re playing with kids?” He gave me my foundation for visual storytelling.

I could foresee that digital editing would replace film so I took an Avid class and was soon hired by editor Anne Goursaud, ACE, to assist her on Lost Souls (2000). One day, her friend needed help editing a directing reel. Goursaud took random footage and creatively made it haunting and beautiful. I learned how an editor could be an artist.

In 2005, I made a push to become an editor. I set up Avid Xpress Pro on my laptop with an external gigabyte drive, a second monitor and a bookshelf stereo for sound — ready to take on any editing project to build my credits. My first gig was Good Dick (2008) with Jason Ritter. I sat with the director every day for months. Our heads exploded when we got into Sundance.

Unfortunately, our success didn’t help my career, mainly because that was 2008. The economy was in a severe recession — the whole industry downsized! Everyone in entertainment was struggling to keep afloat. Opportunities to move up seemed scarcer than before.

I started alternating — assisting one for them, then editing one indie for me. Editing opportunities in features were shrinking, so I focused on a move to television and found a niche with editors who would let me practice cutting. Sometimes I’d get bumped up, but more often, the show would get canceled and I’d have to start over.

I spent the next few years assisting on shows that promised to move me up to editor if they got picked up (they didn’t) and then hooked up with editor Larry Maddox, ACE. He took me under his wing and introduced me to his agent who started putting my name out there.

Soon, I got a call for an interview on the ABC sitcom American Housewife (2016-present). I wanted this editing job so badly that I cross-referenced every producer on the show to anyone with whom I had worked and found a connection, Tad Quill. He said he’d put in a good word for me. At the interview, not only had Quill called, but Eric Garcia (another producer with whom I’d worked) had also recommended me. I got the gig!

I’ve worked with some brilliant editors and tried to learn something from them all. What I like most about post-production is that it’s where all the pieces come together; it’s where the show is made.

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A ‘Stagecoach’ Ride to a Film Career

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by Kim S. Ketelsen

In 1966, there were worse places to grow up than Iowa. My hometown, Marion, was a ten-minute bus ride from Cedar Rapids with its department stores, book and record shops, and three movie houses. The sweetest theatre was the Paramount, a fading 1928 vaudeville palace fashioned after the Palace of Versailles. The screen was big. The sound was big. And the movies were immense, sweeping you away to adventures in exotic places.

One summer day, family friends were visiting from Nevada. The parents dropped us kids at the Paramount to see the Stagecoach remake with Ann-Margret, Bing Crosby and other stars. We watched it once, ate our popcorn, sat through previews and the cartoon again, then re-watched it. You could stay all day.

In one big action sequence, hostile natives on horseback chased the stagecoach for miles. The second time, I noted 16 Native Americans in pursuit, yet counted 48 killed. I didn’t know it then, but that hooked me on film. Instead of feeling cheated, I was intrigued by the storytelling sleight of hand. A curtain had parted, showing me that moviemaking was a thing done by working people, not celestial beings.

In light of today’s historical sensitivities, that Western was fraught with issues. But the kid I was didn’t see those actors onscreen as actual villains or heroes. To me, they all were cool people play-acting in a costume drama. I felt part of the action, even though I knew it wasn’t real. I loved that about movies, just as I loved the same thing about books.

We weren’t a hardcore filmgoing family, but we often saw them, sometimes after eating at Bishop’s Buffeteria on First Avenue near the tracks. And my sister and I had a tradition of seeing a movie every Christmas day. Greats from Charade to Dr. Zhivago to Bonnie and Clyde filled my head. But I also reveled in B-movies and even cheesy, old black-and-white serials. 

Later, I admired the original Stagecoach (1939) in a film history class at the University of Iowa. I was drawn to classics and European films as much as to the wild creativity in 1970s American cinema. At the same time, I pursued my love of writing and felt duty-bound to write the Great American Novel. With its Writers Workshop, UI was the spearhead of the college fiction-writing world, long before the tsunami of screenwriting majors arrived. 

I chewed through writing classes. John Irving and John Cheever roamed the English-Philosophy Building. Budding novelist T.C. Boyle critiqued my stuff. Poet Larry Levis cautioned me to find steady work because creative writing was no sure thing.

Heeding his advice, I veered off my creative course and did two semesters of law school in Oklahoma, then nose-dived into more personal drama and tragedy than you’d need for one great novel. I worked for an artsy theatre magazine in San Francisco, managed a laid-back restaurant in Marin, tried acting, crewed on a boat delivery through the Panama Canal — whatever was interesting. Then I veered again and became an advertising writer-producer in Iowa. A few years later, I headed to LA to write the Great American Screenplay; the novel was still on my to-do list as well.

En route to California, I re-read On the Road. Its author Jack Kerouac once made money for rent and wine by writing synopses for a publishing house. Hmmm… When I got to LA, I obsessed over screenwriting. But thinking I’d need a day job for a year, I took a story analyst class from an industry veteran who became my screenwriting partner for a while. She steered me to a reader job at Weintraub Entertainment Group in West LA, which segued into reading for other companies. 

In 1989, my Weintraub story editor moved to Disney’s new Hollywood Pictures and hired me as a story analyst. After working there 30 days, I joined the Story Analysts Local of IATSE. Steady pay, insurance, pension — the whole schmear. I had my day job and vowed to read a thousand scripts in my quest to write that screenplay. And I did write screenplays, some even for money. Agents, pitches, contracts, WGA… But thankfully, I kept reading.

Time passed. I didn’t get younger. As Norma Desmond and Larry Levis cautioned us, the glow is ephemeral. The Great American Screenplay and Novel haven’t happened…yet. But I’ve read 10,000 scripts. I’ll have 30 years in IATSE next spring, all at Disney. I’ve done development work on Sweet Home Alabama, The Count of Monte Cristo, Cinderella, Christopher Robin and many others. I’ve made a living in show biz.

And I’m proud to be in the Editors Guild, pre-production stepchildren though we story analysts may be. Thank you, Stagecoach editor Hugh S. Fowler — and all the editors and readers who helped shape my life.

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End Credits Start a Television Career

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by Daniel R. Esparza

Growing up in the small California towns of Norco and Corona, my days were filled with staying active outdoors — hiking, road trips, camping, roller skating and bike rides with my younger siblings. My parents provided an exceptional upbringing, telling us how important education was. However, nothing moved me and captured my attention like television. I remember having an unbreakable curiosity when the credits rolled, asking myself, “Who are all those people whose names appeared on the screen?” I imagined myself operating the camera in a studio and being part of the production. I wondered what those people did and how they got the chance to work on TV shows. I wasn’t able to answer those questions for many years.

Back then, I talked to everyone about my desire to work in television, and they all said the same thing: “It is a closed business, you have to be related to someone or know someone to get into Hollywood.” Oh, how I was so discouraged, thinking I had no chance to work on television shows! I gave up on seriously pursuing it any further.

My dad encouraged me to work in the electronics and technology industry. So right out of high school, I began working full time as an electronics assembler at the same company where my dad worked, McDonnell Douglas in Irvine, California. I attended night classes nearby with aspirations to acquire a computer engineering degree. Eventually, I was promoted to computer technician. However, after dedicating nine years to this company, I was laid off when it closed that location. When the path you are on suddenly ends, it forces you to look in new directions, to look inside and figure out what really makes you happy.

Electronics really wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I decided to explore new career possibilities by attending college full time. There I was, sitting in orientation at Riverside Community College, thinking about what classes to take, when the welcome video started and a segment caught my attention: Television Production! Without hesitation I enrolled.

Through this program, I learned about the many positions at a live television studio. It was exciting, but what I really enjoyed most was working on video projects — collaborating with classmates on creative writing, production, animation, video and audio recording, and editing comedy segments. These classes offered a new perspective for me.

I was now confidently able to answer my childhood question of what all those people listed in the television credits did! Soon, I had to decide on what position to focus. Initially, camera was my choice because capturing images had always fascinated me. But once I discovered editing, I was hooked. Putting multiple elements together and enhancing them with graphics and special effects was extremely satisfying to me. I couldn’t believe I was earning a degree while having so much fun.

As the only assistant editor on the show, all responsibilities of the position were on my shoulders.

I moved on to Loyola Marymount University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in communication arts. There I seized an opportunity to intern at Sony Digital Picture Editorial, where engineers Eric Rigney and Dale Jones introduced me to Avid Media Composer. It is also where I began to network and truly get some exposure to the business. One month after graduation, I acquired my first job as an assistant editor on Bunim-Murray Productions’ Class Reunion (1996) through a fellow alumna. When that TV movie aired, I watched it in my parents’ living room and was so excited to share this experience with my entire family. When the end credits rolled, I saw my name. Wow! I had tears in my eyes. I was eager to finally start my career in television.

Over the next seven years, I worked on many non-union shows, some for only a few weeks. Enduring the many months of unemployment was tough. One day, I got a call for the feature Titanic because Rigney had highly recommended me. But I was not in the union since I hadn’t yet worked on any one show for more than three months, so the associate producer hired someone else. A missed opportunity! Two years later, I finally satisfied the requirements to join the Editors Guild. But I had to wait another four years before I would get my first big break.

Post associate producer Megan Murphy and editor Steven Rasch, ACE, interviewed me for the fourth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2004. I landed the position, my first union series. As the only assistant editor on the show, all responsibilities of the position were on my shoulders. This was also the first time that I didn’t work long hours for a flat rate.

It has been 15 years since that big break! Looking back on being a kid who wanted to work in television, how I wish there had been someone then to give me hope. Little did I know that when the opportunity finally arose, I would seize it and follow my childhood dreams.

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From Mudbound to Movie Town

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by Aaron I. Butler, ACE

I grew up in a little town in the middle of California called Atascadero, which loosely translates to “mud hole.” My hippie parents and I lived on a small ranch where my chores were feeding the sheep, pigs and chickens we raised. This was not a job I enjoyed. But what I did love was spending hours weaving tales of adventure in my mind—my only companions the sheep and my trusty dog Boonie.

For holidays, we always visited my grandparents, who lived in a beautiful mansion in glamorous Los Angeles. Spending time there made it clear that feeding sheep would never be enough for me. So at a young age, I decided I would be a lawyer. That way I could live the good life of my relatives.

Fast-forward to high school. One weekend, I was watching music videos on MTV and suddenly thought, “I could do better than that!” My dad loved filming everything we did as a family, so I asked to borrow his video camera. There was no consumer editing software in the early ’90s, so I had to do all the editing in-camera. It was challenging, but I fell in love with the process of capturing and ordering images. Of course, I still planned on becoming a lawyer, because it was the practical thing to do.

I went to UC Berkeley for my pre-law studies but spent all my spare time making videos, which became quite popular on campus. During my senior year, my roommate Scott Bonds said, “You obviously love making videos; why don’t you go to film school?” It had never once occurred to me that I could earn a living making movies. So, I decided to try and get some “real” film experience my senior year.

I applied to 20 different production companies in the Bay Area and didn’t hear back from a single one! But there was one film studio right in Berkeley, the Saul Zaentz Film Center, and by luck, the secretary was out and one of the producers answered the phone. We seemed to hit it off and, a few days later, I got an interview with Bill Jersey, two-time Oscar-nominated documentary director. I showed him a few of my videos and he liked my visual style. He asked if I would like to help on a new short documentary he was making; I said, “Yes!”

I went to UC Berkeley for my pre-law studies but spent all my spare time making videos, which became quite popular on campus. During my senior year, my roommate said, “You obviously love making videos; why don’t you go to film school?”

The film was about a man who always dreamed of flying on the trapeze but had never pursued his dream until his 60s, when he decided to go to circus school. We would document his journey, and I would edit it. I didn’t tell him I’d never seen an Avid before! I came in on the weekends and pored over the massive Media Composer manual that was thicker than a phone book.

Finally, I had put together the first cut and it was time to screen it with Jersey and his producer. I was extremely nervous—did I have what it took to be a professional editor, or was it only supposed to be a hobby for me? I hit play and sat back as they watched my first full cut of Learning to Fly (1999). When the movie finished, there was dead silence in the room. Jersey stood up, walked over to me and gave me a huge hug; he loved it. The film ended up winning first place at both the New York Festivals and the US International Film & Video Festival.

Within a year, Jersey’s lead editor moved to the East Coast and I took his place. I graduated from Berkeley and now had a full-time job in the film industry. Jersey became an incredible mentor to me. He taught me how to tell a story, shoot, direct and edit. Needless to say, I never went to law—or film—school.

After four years, I moved to Los Angeles—the magical land from my childhood. I climbed the film industry ladder, starting on a reality show, then returning to documentaries. My next big break came with a documentary feature that I produced and edited called American Winter (2015), about the fall of the middle class in America. The film was acquired by HBO and garnered me Emmy and ACE Eddie Award nominations.

This was the moment in my career when things shifted. I had been eligible to join the union and now was offered my first union feature, I am Michael. Since then, I have cut three more union features and I’m so grateful for all the benefits that being in the Editors Guild provides.

There are many paths to ending up in film and TV, and each person’s career begins in a unique way. I’m excited to celebrate my 20th anniversary of working in the industry this year, and I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years bring.

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ColumnsUnion Made

Cartoons Created a Career Choice

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written by uncredited 4 minutes read

by Michael Ferdie

Growing up in Tucson in the late ’70s and ’80s, I enjoyed cartoons. Some I learned were originally Japanese produced and were re-picture-edited, re-dubbed and re-marketed to US audiences. Later, I got an idea that I wanted to be a part of this — and create better-sounding — animation.

Attending college at the University of Arizona, I became interested in music composition and recording, and found a passion in the school’s recording studio. Fortunately, I befriended a great talent there, my mentor Wiley Ross. Not having a background in engineering, I found the learning curve as an intern at the studio daunting. However, it was a welcome challenge and inspiring at the same time. After many months, the barriers started falling. While it wasn’t easy, I eventually found a fulfilling creative energy to it — still to this day.

Among many aspects, critical listening skills were essential. Using the mixing board, Ross would feed pink noise through a channel, assign it some random EQ and obscure those settings. Then, I would use a separate channel with pink noise to make my own EQ’d creation — I’d keep A-B’ing both channels until I matched his. I worked on both analog and digital equipment there, learned mic’ing techniques, signal flow, how to operate mixing consoles and how to conduct oneself with a variety of clientele with challenging schedules. I recorded multi-track or live-to-two-track and learned extensively on a Mac running Sound Tools (the two-channel predecessor to Pro Tools).

While I minored in music, one of my majors was in entrepreneurship. During that year-long program, I made my proposal project an automated dialogue replacement (ADR) recording and post studio devoted to dubbing English language for Japanese animation. I found a way to combine two aspects I really enjoyed into a potential career.

After graduation, I moved to Los Angeles. Though I had made a connection with a Canadian-based animation company, Nelvana, a simultaneous break at Paramount Pictures landed me employment that I felt would more quickly boost my income. I did not understand the concept of working union, but I met a helpful woman on the lot, Stephanie Murray, director of the scoring stage, who referred me to a non-union facility in Glendale, JB & Associates.

I began work on films and paired up with my colleague-and-friend-to-this-day Walter Spencer. I worked two jobs, one in Marketing and Paralegal for Paramount Home Video, and my evening/weekend job as a dialogue assistant and editor. I worked on both analog (pulling code from a delivered work print) and digital (digitizing and assembling audio dailies into a DAW), and Spencer and I would edit the material.

After assisting on a few features, I began cutting dialogue and collaborating with ADR supervisors. Interestingly, Spencer focused on editing using all production sound. We scoured sound dailies on each feature and, essentially, would extensively embellish the production sound effects tracks — not just filling tone for ADR. It was fantastic to work with Spencer, who strives for quality.

In 1996, Spencer’s incredibly supportive and generous friend, Charlie Crutcher, was instrumental in our successful application to the Editors Guild and finding work at Universal Pictures in the feature sound department. I assisted and edited dialogue and Foley there, while paying close attention to the work of my friends Harry Snodgrass, Bill Hooper and Dave Grimaldi, who were the staff sound effects editors.

In addition to helping maintain their library and provide IT support, I routinely pored over and learned from their edited sessions. Each was extremely gracious in reviewing his sessions with me. The information I gleaned was exceedingly helpful in providing a clear vision of what a final sound effects, design and background delivery should be.

Crutcher later referred me to Mark Server, who headed the editorial department at Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix for Don Bluth. This design work on animated features was challenging, creative and typically heavy. Our department was a hybrid of production and post-production since we edited and mixed to in-progress animatics while working toward finalizing the film alongside two picture editors. I worked multiple Pro Tools systems, running sound effects and backgrounds slaved to feed 5.1 channels into an OmniMix console in our small theatre. We dubbed each week, delivering to Fox execs and playing back for our entire in-house artist crew.

Concurrently, I made connections with a colleague at Paramount to pitch story concepts for the Star Trek: Voyager series. Over three years, I pitched about 20 story ideas, with one bought and produced in 1999. This led to an opportunity to pitch animated feature concepts to Fox.

When Fox Animation closed in May 2000, I returned to Los Angeles. Focusing on sound design, I also began supervising, initially on video games and animation. I’ve continued working at numerous studios including Disney, Technicolor, Universal, Warner Bros. and Larson.

I continue to educate myself, avoid becoming complacent, and feel fortunate to collaborate with so many phenomenal creators and engineers.

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ColumnsUnion Made

Blame It on the Beatles
The Launch of an All-Around Sound Career

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written by uncredited 4 minutes read

by Mark Server

When I was born and raised in the west San Fernando Valley in the late 1950s; television was black-and-white, radio was mono and AM radio channel KHJ with The Real Don Steele was the coolest thing. My first interest in sound began when stereo radio was introduced. Hearing the early stereo imaging tracks of the Beatles sparked an interest in me to learn how they were recorded and broadcast.

By the early ’70s, after finishing high school, I had aspirations of playing professional golf. Unfortunately, this goal was cut short due to injuries in college, and I became unsure of what career to pursue. Then, in early 1975, a wonderful lady, Dorothy Carmen, introduced me to Janet Kennedy, the head of the Sound department at Universal Studios. I started by loading and recording magnetic audio tracks for soon-to-be-Oscar-winning mixer Bob Hoyt on Stage One at Universal Studios, worked as a recordist and, after 90 days, was able to get in the sound union, IA Local 695.

Most dubbing and recording in the ’70s was on 35mm full-coat mag — film coated with magnetic oxide for editing and recording — mostly with three-track, until six-track recorders came along. The entire process of sound editing and mixing was much different then; sound elements were built on 35mm reels and played back on what we called “dummies.” The re-recording mixer’s job was intense as there was no automation for any of the processes of EQ, filters or fader moves. Good note-taking was a must! I wanted to explore more of the sound process so, during my lunch breaks, I would play with all the equipment in the sound shop. Back then, we didn’t have radio mics; all of the sound recorded on the set came from hard-wired microphones.

Mic’ing a scene was an art. I still feel the boom operator has one of the most challenging jobs in filmmaking because he or she has to be proficient in many fields: script, lighting, camera angles, lenses and, most of all, physical strength. I was lucky to have the opportunity to fill in as boom operator and record production with Jim Alexander, one of the finest production mixers ever. I learned all the best techniques of sound recording, working on such films as Jaws (1975), Ghost Story (1981), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (1982) and Terms of Endearment (1983).

My years working in production gave me a better understanding of how important quality on-set sound recording is to filmmaking. In the early 1980s, an actors strike caused film production to come to a halt. I read a story in the trades about a young businessman, Rick Larson, who was going to start a new post audio facility. I was intrigued. Larson was the President of Glen Glenn Sound at the time and was (and still is) a pioneer in the digital world of audio.

With my past experience in post audio, Larson gave me a chance, and I had the good fortune to start on the ground floor with Larson Sound Center. I expanded my talents into sound editing, learning new editing systems along the way. Larson and his team of engineers developed many new editing systems, notably his LarTec ADR/Foley system — a computer-based audio triggering system. The remake of the TV series Mission Impossible (1989-1990) was my first show editing sound effects and, to my surprise, we received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a series! After that, I became the sound supervisor for the show. I loved the satisfaction and the creative part of sound preparation. With the new digital editing systems, the process had become much better and faster.

After seven years of supervising with Larson, a golfing friend, Mike Post, asked me to be the production sound mixer on a new musical series called Cop Rock (1990) for Stephen Bochco Productions. This was quite an honor and opportunity.

For the next six years, I was a production sound mixer, including episodes of Civil Wars (1991-1993) and NYPD Blue (1993-2005) until I lost the personal direction of my home life. I made some bad decisions and wanted to restart my life and career. As luck would have it, I was offered the position of head of Editorial for Fox Animation. In animation, sound drives production so my experience in working with actors and editing sound made me a good match for the position. I gave it a go and spent the next five years based in Arizona supervising Anastasia (1997), Bartok the Magnificent (1999) and Titan A.E. (2000).

By late 2001, Fox decided to close its animation studio. I was ready to come back to Hollywood and was hoping to mix post-production. In my search for work, I luckily again came across Rick Larson, who was thinking of starting a new sound studio. One thing led to another and, for the last 15 years, I have been a re-recording mixer for Larson Studios, and a member of Local 700. I am very grateful for the people who have guided me throughout my career.

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