Story is everything.
I believe in the power of storytelling. It helps us understand ourselves and has the power to change minds, to reconnect our fractured world and show us how similar our humanity makes us, which is something we need now more than ever.
As an editor, it’s my job to find the show. Once I have all of the dailies, the script is dead, what we have now is the footage and what we have to find in it is the truth and the story we want to tell together. I love this process and the one that follows as I begin to collaborate with directors and producers to find the shades of the story that they want to highlight or dig out. It’s a process of invention and discovery that I thrive on.
I love cutting action and dance scenes - there’s a visceral quality to a well crafted physical sequence like that. My other favorite scenes to cut are deeply emotional ones, which I think are actually quite similar to fight or dance sequences, they are just a slowed down version. It’s an emotional dance as one character says something to another and we see the words crash onto their face. I have an innate, instinctual talent for the timing of these kinds of scenes that can’t be taught.
Editing comedy is also a real joy. Not only is it a pleasure just watching through the dailies, but finding the right timing to land the joke and crack up your audience is so rewarding. Also the clarity is nice, laugh or no laugh. It’s great to be able to get feedback from your audience so quickly - whether that’s at a test screening or working with your director or producers.
I am super empathetic and sentimental, which informs my performance selections and ability to edit along the fine lines of emotional stories. I’ve loved movies and television all my life, I’m deeply connected to the forms and all the ways we can play within those forms. I have a great sense of rhythm which is imperative to editing as a craft, but also enhances my music editing and my fight scenes. My well-managed anxiety is one of my super powers – I think of things that might go wrong ahead of time and already have solutions and I always stay ahead of the game when it comes to deadlines.