November 29, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of Filmmaking Conversations, host Damien Swaby speaks with Juli Berg, an accomplished film and television editor and post-producer whose creative path began in junior high school and evolved into a decades-long career in documentary, unscripted television, music videos, and independent film.Juli shares the early experiences that shaped her artistic identity, the unexpected moments that led her to the School of Visual Arts (SVA), and the pivotal decision to pursue filmmaking professionally.
She explains how her early academic strengths intersected with her love for art, eventually leading her to earn a BFA in Film/TV from SVA—a choice that set the stage for a distinguished career in post-production.
After graduating from SVA, Juli began her career as an assistant editor in the documentary world, working alongside legendary editors including Larry Silk, Lillian Benson, and Jonathan Oppenheim.
Her first professional editing assignment—ABC’s In Concert—merged two of her passions: music and picture editorial. Over the years, she has:
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and share the podcast. Follow Damien Swaby for more filmmaker interviews and insights into the craft and business of storytelling.
She explains how her early academic strengths intersected with her love for art, eventually leading her to earn a BFA in Film/TV from SVA—a choice that set the stage for a distinguished career in post-production.
After graduating from SVA, Juli began her career as an assistant editor in the documentary world, working alongside legendary editors including Larry Silk, Lillian Benson, and Jonathan Oppenheim.
Her first professional editing assignment—ABC’s In Concert—merged two of her passions: music and picture editorial. Over the years, she has:
- Edited numerous short films screened at domestic and international festivals
- Directed, produced, and edited a wide range of music videos
- Served for two years as an Avid editing instructor at SVA, helping develop the next generation of editors
- Built a reputation as a self-sufficient editor and post-producer capable of managing narrative structure, pacing, and story architecture independently
- Delivered over 80 episodes and specials as Editor/Post-Producer on History Channel’s long-running series American Pickers
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and share the podcast. Follow Damien Swaby for more filmmaker interviews and insights into the craft and business of storytelling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Hi Judy, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm well? How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I'm well. I'm well as well. So it's good having
you on the podcast. I've been meaning to speak to
you for a while. We've been back and forth, so
I'm going to enjoy our conversation today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I know me too. I'm so glad that we have
finally gotten together through our extremely busy and ever changing.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Lives eventful as well, so that's a good thing too.
But before I get into some of the questions and
learning about your process and everything, can you give us
a bit of a rundown on your origin story and
how you became the editor that you are today.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, it actually starts in junior high school, which is
middle school for other people. Basically, I was in advanced
art classes, and when I got to high school, and
I was also like in honors classes, so I was
(01:13):
like a really good student, but I had these art classes,
which I loved. So when it got Yeah, so I
got to high school and they informed me that I
couldn't take art because it was conflicting with Spanish two
that I had to take in order to get into college.
(01:36):
And I was really upset and I went to my
guidance counselor and I was like, why can't I take art?
And she's like, well, if you want to go to college,
you have to have two years of foreign language. And
I said, you know, I'm fourteen years old. I don't
know what I want to do with my life. I
don't know if I want to go to college. And she,
(01:58):
at that point should have said to me, if looking back, uh,
if you you know that you could go to college
for art, because I didn't know that my parents are
blue collars. Yeah, I had no I thought that, you know,
artists just apprenticed with an artist, Like like, how can
(02:18):
you learn art? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Oh? I get that if you're you know, so it's
like a lot of things. If you're not brought up
in a situation where you have been told, or environment
or the proximity of other things, of course you think, ah,
of course I can paint, I can I can sing
or dance or whatever. You know, you're gonna have the
approach some others might have.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right, And you also have to remember this was in
the eighties. It was pre internet, so it's not like
like today. I feel like, you know, you can be
living in some remote country and watch like you know,
America's got talent or whatever, like you know what I mean.
So it's just a different environment now where information is
(03:02):
just at your fingertips. But back then, and that's what
a guidance counselor is supposed to do. But instead she
said to me, well, if you're not going to go
to college, then you can either cut hair or go
to business classes.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
That's what she told me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So I decided to take business classes and I ended
up getting into I got a scholarship to a business
school and I was in there for a year and
then I worked. It was kind of like a secretarial
business thing. I could have gone another year and gotten
an associate's degree, but I decided to start working because
I wanted to make money. And I was working at
(03:40):
Procter and Gamble and I hated it. And I'll never
forget my father's because I had stock options, I had
this job, and my dad's the scariest words I think
I've ever heard, Honestly, he said, you're set for life.
And I was like, you know, I'm like, I'm like nine,
(04:00):
ten years old. I was like, wait, that's it. Wait, No,
this can't be it. And then I happened to meet
this a friend of mine from high school, Ina who
is who is an amazing artist and Ina Scota and
she I saw her at a party at Rutgers and
(04:21):
I was like, Oh, what are you doing And she's like, oh,
I'm going I'm studying fine art. And I said fine art.
I was like what do you mean? And she's like,
you know, painting and school. And I was like, no,
I know what fine art is, but you can go
to college for that. And that's when I found out
when I was nineteen, and so that just exploded in
(04:41):
my head. And I loved New York City. I was
living in Jersey at the time, and I was like,
I want to I want to get out of here
and go to New York City. So I literally this
sounds crazy, but I looked in the Yellow Pages under
art school and it came up School of Visual Arts,
and I sent for a catalog and I read all
(05:03):
through like the and I said to my parents, Oh,
I want to go to college. I know what I
want to go to college because they were disappointed I
didn't go because I had really good grades. I was
super smart and all that, and they're like, oh, you
do What do you want to go for? And I
was like Fine Art And they said, no, we're not
going to help you. I mean if you want to.
(05:24):
And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no,
I want to go for filmmaking. Really, I was like, yeah, filmmaking.
I didn't know anything about film, but it was the
easiest program at that time to get into because you
didn't have to have a film like the Fine Art
you had to have a portfolio. I didn't have a portfolio.
(05:46):
So I wrote a script. You could write a script,
So I wrote like a short kind of like a
Saturday Night Live skit. Yeah, and I and I did that,
and then I interviewed with the guy at SVA, and
I remember he was talking forever. And I went to
(06:07):
business school, so I knew all about interviews, like prepare
questions in your head and like all that kind of stuff. Right,
he kept going on and on and on, and then
he's talking and all of a sudden, he like broke
the arm off of his chair, like you know, the
arm rest.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, he.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Like broke off. He must have been holding it so
tight or something, and he was holding it in his
hand looking at it like and I said, are you okay?
And he said, okay, interview's over. So I left there,
like what but oh? And I also remember he said,
why are you applying in June to go to college
(06:51):
in September? And I said, because I literally just found
out you could go to college for film and art
like a month ago. And he was like, oh, okay,
but anyway, and then and that's the only school I
applied to. And I got the letter, and I remember
I was running up and down my driveway like whoo.
So I went to film school and my whole plan
(07:14):
was that get into the college, the art college, and
then transfer into the program I really want to go for,
which was fine Art. But I'll tell you my first
film class was this film theory class with Scott Bacatman,
and he it was Strangers on a Train was the
(07:35):
film we watched, and it was all about cutting and editing.
And what I realized when he talked about like how
like the time and how like as a viewer, we
know that this is happening at the same time like
the footsteps in the beginning, like the footsteps this way,
the footsteps that way, and you know that they're going
to like meet up. It's like this language. And I realized, wow,
(07:57):
I know because I was a TV baby and so
all that language of film and storytelling I already knew.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
We all knew.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I just didn't know I knew it, you know, yeah, yeah,
And it just like really grabbed me and I ended up.
It was like literally a year later, those sophomore blues
they call it, when I was like ugh, and I
was like, oh, I was supposed to transfer into a
different department and I never did, you know, So it
(08:27):
was kind of like a total fluke how I ended
up in film and TV.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So what was some of the first shows or short
films or speach films that you may have edited, or
reality TV shows that you may have edited, and how
was that experience for you?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
All Right, I edited a lot of short films my
own that I directed. I've also done other people's films.
And what I like about editing as opposed to shooting,
like being on set, is that when you edit, you
already have everything. Whether it's good or bad is another question,
(09:12):
but you have what you have to work with, and
I like that part of it because the beat the
clock is about trying to put that footage together in
the best way possible by the deadline. When you're shooting,
(09:32):
you don't know if you're going to get what you need,
and it's a whole yeah, it's a whole other level
of stress that I don't I'm okay, Like it's fun
to be on a set, but it's it's if you're
the director, it could be very stressful because you or
the producer because you know what you need to get
(09:53):
and the clock is ticking. So that's why I like
editing more than being on set. The first shows that
I cut, I mean like reality shows like the.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
In particular, just trying to get an understanding of your
journey from education into the professional world of editing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, yeah, when I graduated, I actually started assisting on film.
By the way, anyone who's assisted on film knows about,
like you get really good arm muscles because you're reals
and you're constantly like going through footage looking for shots
(10:38):
for the editor, you know. And and I worked with
like the best of the best in documentary, Larry Silk,
and he did Pumping Iron. He did uh, Barbara Copple films,
Lillian Benson, who who is amazing. She she she's doing
(11:00):
TV now. And Jonathan Oppenheim. He was also like and
they were all so giving. And I there was another
editor that I worked with who she said to me,
when the producer comes in, I don't want you to
say anything. I was like, okay, like and she was
(11:23):
and she she wasn't very good at her job. Now
Larry Silk, who was just amazing. We you know, he'd
be talking to the producer and then he turned to me, well,
what do you think, Julie, And I'd be like, oh,
and you know, and he was so and he'd be
he'd go to lunch and you'd say, hey, why don't
you cut this scene while I go to lunch? You know,
he was so Yeah, he was so like and he
(11:47):
was so calm. I was you know what really struck
me about him because we had like this editor that
wasn't that good, and then he came in and basically
solved this documentary I worked on, And I was like,
is he doing anything? He was so because the other
editor was chopping and chopping and you know, and just
(12:07):
cutting herself into a hole and he would watch and
he would just make the cut and that was like
the best. You know, as an editor, there is one
place between two shots that is the absolute best place
to cut those two shots together. Now, now today, you know,
(12:30):
when you're in trim mood, you could be like trim three,
trim back to trim five. I mean you could go
back and forth like a million times. Back then you're
cutting on a work picture, so it's actual film. So
if you do that, then you would have taped together
all of these like frames and they'd go through the
thing like because they're all taped, you know. And even
(12:54):
when Avid came around along and then I helped all
these older editors transition, he would still edit the same way.
He would just like make that cut and that would
be the place and then he'd move on. Like he
didn't use trim mode. Like how you see people using
trim mode you know today.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
That's that's amazing. Even with Avid, he would still do that. Wow,
like so many digital edits himself where that's available, and
he would he would go through that process. Well that's
its uses. How did the producers he worked through the
feed about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh? They loved him. He totally took the story that
was a mess and transformed it. And yeah, the whole
because just because someone's cutting a bunch doesn't mean they're
you know, doing anything that's worth it, you know, but
I'm saying and so he really watched and then he's like,
(13:59):
this is where I'm going to cut. It was just
because his brain was so trained on filmmaker on the
on the old old film, you know, cutting work picture
and taping the two pieces together. Like when he went
to Avid, he just kept that. I mean, look, he
used trim mode obviously, but it was it just always
(14:19):
struck me when like editors would be like, I'm really fast,
and I'm like, you know what, it doesn't mean anything
if you're really fast getting time to say yeah, it's
like do you are you telling the story the best
way can be told, you know? And uh, That's what
I learned from him. And also just to be I've
(14:44):
always tried to, uh, you know, welcome younger people that
would come in as like PA's or assistants or whatever
they were. You know, I'd always introduce myself, Hi, if
you have any questions. You know, I'm here if you
need anything, because you know, back when I was starting
(15:10):
out and I worked at HBO a lot as an
assistant and also as a supervising editor on Real Sex.
I worked on Real Sex for a long time, which
was all women. We were all wing yeah yeah, I
mean not the people that went out and shop, but
all in post like. I worked with two other women,
(15:31):
Katie small here and Patty Kaplan and Sheila Evans, who
was the and we would just laugh and that was
the only way I could work on that show because
it was just so over the top. But now, but
I remember like walking around the halls of HBO and
there would be these other women. They were older, and
(15:54):
I'd always try to be like hi, you know, and
they just kind of ignore me.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm like okay.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And then one day I was in the elevator and
it was like September, and one of those women was
in the elevator with me, and she's like, shouldn't you
be back in college now? And uh, I said no,
I'm actually twenty seven years old and I'm an assistant editor.
And she's like oh, and then she started talking to me.
(16:21):
But I found that to be really weird, how you know,
she wouldn't even acknowledge my presence walking down a hall
when she thought I was like a PA or some
college kid doing like an internship, you know. But also
in those times women were there weren't a lot of
(16:43):
women in the industry either.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, could imagine.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, so there, I think there was like this just
for her because she was also older, so for her
even more so, I think there was just this automatic competition,
you know, because no because it's like the token woman.
It's kind of like it kind of reminds me of
just so out there. But like Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks.
(17:09):
Tyra Banks came on the scene, Naomi Campbell didn't like
her because she was like, I'm the black model, you know,
because there wasn't enough room in her mind for another
black model. And I know she's since apologized about all that,
but it's kind of like that, like women used to
be kind of pitted against each other because there wasn't
(17:30):
a lot of slots for for or positions like Okay,
we have our woman in the now, let's you know,
so as I'm sure you can understand too.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, subdainly, I can certainly understand that.
Funny enough, Yesterday I watched Being Eddie documentary Eddie Muff.
He's got a documentary at the moment on Netflix, and
our senior Hole spoke about at one point in time,
it felt like it had to be Eddie Murphy or
(18:03):
Richard Pryor in terms of a lot of people's eyes
for film star leading roles, and after that situation, it
felt like there could be more than one, and there
were other comedians getting a lot of work is as
leading men in films. So these type of situations, I
(18:25):
think go across all kinds of diverse backgrounds that have
those challenges where sometimes some people may think they can
only be one. But luckily this podcast, for example, has
allowed me to speak to more than one female editor,
which is great. And I'm sure the generational podcast is
(18:46):
after me. I'm hoping I shouldn't say I'm sure. I'm
hoping they won't be even having such discussion because the
boord will change and there will be many, many, many
people in many different roles in the film industry. And
you yourself have cut over eighty episodes of American Pickers.
(19:07):
What's the technical backbone of your editing workflow on a
long running unscripted series?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Watch all the footage.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, you have the outs.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You have to watch the footage like well, you know
sometimes you know, anyway, watch all the footage, which takes
a long time to do, but you have to do
it because you have to know what's there. And as
I go through the footage on the first run, you know,
(19:39):
I'll use markers as notes about like especially the audio,
a lot of audio notes about like if they go, oh,
no way or whatever, like I could use that anywhere, right,
the audio, Like you know, you you do that and
you go through and basically my process is that I
(20:03):
just whittle it down, you know, I watch everything, and
then the next day I'll start the edit and I'll
already know, like you know, it's really good to sleep
on things. I think that's another important thing. I can't
tell you how many times I've been editing something and
it's like, ugh, I just can't get it where I
want it. And it's usually late in the day and
(20:26):
I say, you know what, I'm just going to like
hang this up, and in the morning I'll come back
to it and it's like boom boom boom. Yeah. You
know it's crazy how it's just because my brain was
saying I'm tired, it's time to go to sleep. But yeah,
and then I I just whittle it down. And uh,
(20:48):
I believe that every edit and unscripted is a sound
edit because it's you know, TV, you don't have a
lot of time for silence. It's always moving, always going.
(21:11):
So I remember, like, like one time when I worked
on Room Raiders, an editor who was just starting out,
he asked me to come in and watch his cut. Now,
the show was supposed to be, oh gosh, it was
a half hour show. It had to be like twenty
minutes or something like that, and his cut was like
forty minutes. And I watched it, and I was like,
this is what you need to do. Close your eyes
(21:31):
and listen, and wherever you hear silence, cut it. Like
cut the sound the audio, I mean, the video, don't
worry about that. Edit the sound, and then cover the
video wherever there's jump cuts like you know, E roll
or whatever. So I think, like my process, and especially
(21:57):
in TV, the biggest challenge is always getting it to time.
Like there's been so many times I would say, because
I would also post produce, but then they would bring
a producer in once we got it kind of together,
Thank goodness, because I like to collaborate and I like
to bounce stuff off people, and and I'd be like,
(22:24):
I don't know how we are going to get this
show to time. There's no way can we make it
like a single pick episode? You know, the picks out
like you know, But somehow you find a way to
do it in the end.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, And how has your approach to media management proxeason
storage evolved over the last fifteen years as footage sizes
and formats have exploded.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, well, an average you have to transcode the footage.
I mean, you can work AMA if you want to,
but not on something that's so long format. And we
had so much footage because they shot for fifteen years
that we were actually working in a really low resolution
(23:15):
and that and then the shows would get onlined.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Do you remember what resolution?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh god, no, I don't. I don't remember, because they
would everything would be it was like, I don't want
to give you the wrong information on that, So no,
I don't remember. But we had like people who would
load all this footage in and then we had people
that would organize the footage so and then I would
(23:43):
get the raw it would not be edited, but it
would be organized, you know, like grouped, like the audio
would be grouped because everyone had their mics and all that.
But it was the only way. There was no way
that they could like keep that it like you know
four k as as four k kim along or like
(24:04):
we had to do it that way because we had
like so much b roll. I mean, think about fifteen
years of just shooting every state every time they went
out and they shot be right, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And that's the use of bee roll in it. Sorry
it to interrupted. I did love I love that. And
how funny enough you saying what you said about the
audio and using b roll because it's making me think
about what I've seen on the show even more now
and having a deeper and further understanding of hack may
have all come together, so that that's great for me
for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah. I mean you have to remember that a lot
of the all of the people that have been on
the show, unless it was like a special celebrity or something,
they've never been in front of the camera. And a
lot of them are from you know, the middle of America. Yeah,
so a lot of them would talk like well uh
yeah and uh and a lot of that, which I'm
(25:01):
sure you're familiar with yes, and so we you know,
cut it down. And actually Jersey John, who was uh
one of the guys that came on later and on
the later seasons, he said to he said to us,
you guys make me sound so good, could you know?
(25:23):
And and I'll tell you one of the hardest things
is when you get when you get a new uh
pick and you're looking at they called them picks because
they would they would pick through these people's stuff. So
so we called them picks. But but if you know,
if we got a new pick and then the contributor
had some sort of weird speech thing where they said
(25:47):
like like a lot of arms like well, and then
I am, I'm I'm I'd be like, oh no, because
I knew this is going to be time consuming. But
got to cut those arms out because no know, that'll
come out to be like two minutes extra, you know,
So yeah, sound at it. That's the way to go.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And you've toought Avia at SBA. What makes Avid composed
your stick? Sorry? Avid Media Composer's still the industry standard
for television, despite Adolbe Premiere and the Vinci Resolve gaining ground.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think it's the media management. Honestly, I think it's
a really stable platform and uh once you transcode everything
to the same format, it's just it's just easier, like
I think for TV shows and stuff like that. It's
the industry standard because of the media management. You know,
(26:47):
it's just so stable as opposed to like you know,
Premiere or I remember back in the day Final Cut too.
I mean you know, yeah, you could plug your your
footage into I mean your your computer into your eye
phone and download stuff. But then it would allow you
to work in different formats. But then you if you
changed anything that then you would have to render. I mean,
(27:08):
how how many hours wasted re rendering re rendering? You know?
And I do think that that's really the main reason.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And for yourself for example, or any tools or plugins
you rely on the most in Avid when you have
shape in a story, uh.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well we had to do uh I use the I
can't remember the name of it. It's when you uh
I reversed a lot of shots, the motion of a
lot of shots. Like that's what I relied on the most,
(27:53):
because when you're searching to cover and you need shots
and sometimes you know, they were rolling along and they
couldn't get a lot of stuff. I'm trying to think
of what it's called. It's not transform I'll think of it.
(28:16):
I'll think of the name. I'm not in front of
my computer right now, but I think the motion effects
is really what I use the most because I wasn't finishing,
so the finishing process went up to Toronto they and
that's where they would finish it. So yeah, it was
(28:36):
mostly that. I mean when I work on music videos,
which I also do a lot of music videos, I mean,
I use all sorts of effects, you know, But.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, I can imagine you've directed and edited music videos.
How that the technical demands differ between a fast cut,
music driven project and a standard unscripted TV show.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think that I grew up playing piano and I
and I also yeah, and I also play guitar, and
I love Yeah. Music has like saved my life. I mean,
I love like Without music, I don't know where I
would be. I'm a huge music file. Like I just
go see bands. One of my favorite things to do
is to see live music. So I'm very musical musicality,
(29:31):
I guess you could say. And so for me, it's
not it's just faster, it's more crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Sorry, what you said I found quite impactful. So I'm
interjecting here. Sorry, why is happening to music saying your life?
And what bands do you listen to and go and
see that resonate with you in such a personal and
emotional way.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
God, Well, I had oh CD since I was five.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Oh, sorry to say that.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, it's okay. It's actually makes for a great editor
to have OCD. But I always felt a little not
I didn't know what I had. I wasn't diagnosed with
that until I was twenty four. Okay, So I went
through my whole childhood thinking I was nuts because I was.
I do the counting inside my head of words and
(30:25):
syllable like crazy stuff. So it's not as bad now,
but as a child, and so I think that music
allowed me to escape, you know, because you go into
like these other worlds. So as so music for me,
especially like in high school and college and just going
through you know, you go into you put the headphones on,
(30:50):
and you could just go into this other other world.
And I actually, I mean I like so many different
types of music, you know. I love like Marvin Gay,
I love Prince, I love Led Zeppelin, you know, but
I would say, like my the the music that really
(31:12):
grabbed me and I stuck with for a really long
time is like Sound Garden, Alice in Chains, all that.
They call it grunge, but you know it's my generation.
They're all like my age, all those guys. And I
like depressing music. I love Amy Man. I don't know
(31:32):
if you've ever listened to Amy Man. I think it
because it just music brings out emotions and feelings and
kind of resonates, and you could go to this place
of like sadness and then and then you can be
(31:53):
like okay and you take off the headphones and then
you feel like, oh, let me get on with my life.
It's almost like a like a couraging of stuff. It's
like and you feel so like a good song. It
just it's like God, they're like in my head, like
how do they you know what I mean? It just
(32:15):
it just like anything like a good movie.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So aware of the chord structures or the chords in
particular those bands would use, so maybe thinking they are
four chord grooves in the verse and maybe three chords
and choruses, and they might use power chords. And you
said depressing a music, so maybe a lot of minor
chords rather than major chords or major sevenths. With all
(32:42):
the theory and skill and technique that goes into being
a guitarist as you are, how do you compare being
a guitar player to an editor and do your skills
as a musician help inform your decisions as an editor?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yes, And let me say one thing, I consider myself
way more a piano player than a guitar player, just
just just because I've been playing piano since I was
like eight or seven or eight, and guitar I picked
up when I went to college because I needed to
have an instrument, and guitars you could just around with you.
(33:19):
I think, I think that music and knowing how to
play music has been invaluable to editing because it's all
about rhythm, chasing right, moving along and where to slow down.
(33:40):
And also I score, I mean everything I edit for
unscripted I score, and so knowing music and understanding just
the basic structure of the songs and also you get
the stand where you just have like the percussion or
(34:02):
just the guitar or whatever you know, it allows you
to play with all that stuff to make the scenes
a little bit more poignant of where you want them
to go. I remember when I I've had a lot
of assistants in my life, and i've I'm happy to
say that all of them, I think went on to
(34:24):
become editors because I'm very giving again because I think
about Larry Silk and how he was and so giving
and stuff. And I got this one editor assistant one time,
and he was so great, and I said, hey, just
score this score the scene tonight because they would work
at night because the whole dynamic changed right the assistance,
(34:47):
there'd be a little overlap. I felt always felt bad
about that because I was in the room with the editor,
you know, when I assisted, because it was on film.
But anyway, I came back the next day and I
was like, hmmm. So when he came in, I I
was like, you don't play in a musical instrument to you?
And He's like no, And I was like, Okay, come
here and sit down. I'm going to teach us some stuff.
(35:08):
And I just taught him like real because he was
so good, like the with the storytelling, but the scoring,
and so I just taught him like the basics. He
picked it up like so so quick. You know, and
but I think music definitely has helped me a lot,
(35:30):
like knowing growing up, playing music has helped me a
great deal in editing absolutely one.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, has there been an occasion where you worked on
a show or short film where music has been licensed
or you've been allowed to use a licensed song and
that has helped drive the edit fully? And if so,
what song was that? And if you haven't, would there
be a song in particular that you like to have
(35:57):
used for one of your shows or short films.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I remember, back in the day at MTV, because I've
cut a lot of stuff for MTV, we were allowed
to use the real songs for a long time until
until the artist caught on, hey you're using my music
and all your like you know shows And I cut
(36:26):
this one? Uh made I cut one maid. It was
actually a horrible job for me. It was just there
was a lot of things going on with other I
don't want to get into all that, but anyway, on
this on this one show I did, it was about
(36:48):
this band and they were going to the stage and
I remember someone suggested, hey, what if we use because
it just came out, what if we use audio slave song? Coaches?
You know, I don't know if you know that song,
but in the beginning, it's like done, it's like this
(37:08):
whole like build up, you know, and then it just
like explodes and so like they're walking and we did
like slow motion like they're getting up on the stage,
and it was like this big build up. So I
remember that, and then I remember when I was working
on Room Readers. I don't know if you're familiar with
(37:28):
that show. That was an MTV show. We were allowed
to use the artist songs, and then that was the
year gosh, when was that, maybe two thousand and two
or three, somewhere probably two thousand and three. That's when
it all switched, and then we had to use like
(37:48):
library like you know, music library songs. By the way,
Room Raiders was when people would go into like three
people would get quote unquote abducted and oh no, no, no,
I'm sorry. A person would get abducted, and then three
people would go into their bedroom and and use all
(38:13):
these like tools to find things. So they had like
a black light that they would use on the bed,
you know, and like they would wind names like sex
toys and stuff like that. Do you remember, yeah, now,
do you remember Justine too well. When Janet Jackson and
(38:35):
Justin Timberlake did yeah nipplegate as they called it, everything
changed on our show the next day. No more black
light used on the bed, no more sex, like all
of that just went shoot right out the window, which
you know it should have when I think about it,
because it was like for kids, really what we were doing,
(38:58):
you know.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Okay, and you've compared editing to writing, how do you
balance the technical position of editing with narrative demands of story?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Well, editing, When when I start to edit something, it's
always about what is the story you have to look at?
Like for instance, on American Pickers, when they would go
somewhere like what is the big fine?
Speaker 1 (39:28):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And that would be like the arc, like you know,
and also interweaving with the contributor's personal story, like there's
a lot of you know, you always want to try
to like introduce and then build up to like you know,
in the second act and like the and then like
the the third act of coming down off of that.
(39:50):
So a lot of times, even though in the in
the how the footage was shot during the day, like
sometimes they would find and something that was amazing, like
like in the very beginning, so we you know, so
you have to kind of take that and make it
feel like it was at the end of the day,
(40:10):
you know, and mess up with the order. I mean,
we were constantly messing with the order of where they went.
But sometimes it was hard because they would go to
different locations on the property, yeah, to look at things.
So sometimes like this barn or whatever. Like, people have
(40:31):
so much stuff. It's crazy. Especially in like the middle
of America. They have outbuildings, they have big properties. You know,
I look like a Jersey We don't. I mean, unless
you're like a ka billionaire, you don't have like a
giant property. But out in the Midwest, you know, it's
a way spread out. And when you have big properties
and you have a lot of outbuildings, some people tend
(40:53):
to fill them up with crazy stuff, you know. So
so it was you know, so I guess I look
at it as you know, I can't when you get footage.
You didn't write it, but you could still kind of
organize it into a more dramatic way that is more
(41:15):
satisfying and also keeps the viewer engaged, because you don't
want to, like, you know, show all the best stuff
in the in the very first act. You know you
want you know, that's why you do coming up and
you get people more involved, like waiting, Oh, what's that
going to be? Kind of thing?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know when you took edits in, what technical concepts
did students struggle with the most and how did you
help them get over such situations?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
The technical part they all had down. I think it
was more about the language of film, like how a
like like if you have two shots, two shots together
can create a whole new meaning, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah,
(42:00):
it's kind of like that was a koolish off with
the uh in the in the nineteen twenties, and he
had that experiment where he just shot a woman standing
there and then he intercut it with like there was
a bowl of soup, and then there was a baby,
and then there was a man, and so it was
(42:21):
like the woman in the soup, the woman, the baby,
the woman, the man, And then would ask people, Okay,
so what happened and they were like, oh, she was
hungry and then she she like looked like like lovingly,
like maternal at her baby, and then she was like
lustful for the man. But the whole time. It was
(42:43):
just like the shot of the woman. So it's it's
how like they creates how like how That's what I
love about about film is that it's like a language.
And and so I think instilling that into them about
(43:05):
the power of images and how they are arranged, Like
you can take five shots or ten shots and cut
them three different ways and then it'll be a different
story each time.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You know what concept did the struggle with the most,
and the.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I think like the storytelling part of it was was
probably the the you know you can have someone saying
because you want it to be filmmaking isn't just telling
a story with words, It's it's with the images. And
(43:48):
so I you know, it was kind of like the
story like how to make their storytelling envision like not
just a character walk walking down a street, but you know,
maybe like show like a bus going by, to show
that they're stressed out, you know what I mean, like
(44:10):
noises like the city sounds coming in, like not just
show someone looking stressed. Like there's so many layers that
you can add in there without saying a word, you know.
So but you know, they were first year film students
that I taught and god, they were all so good though.
(44:30):
I was really pretty amazed by how how advanced a
lot of them were, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Oh that's right to hear it. Yeah, And it had
to design the perfect post production curriculum today. What tools
and technologies would be non negotiable.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We already fought to have AVID be taught because at
the time they were going to change change it to
like learning final cut and premiere and only if you
were an editing major would you learn AVID. And I thought,
but have it's the industry standard, and if you're paying
(45:11):
a much money to go to college, you should be
learning the industry standard, like you know, I mean, yeah,
so that you know, you know, having just having like
the updated equipment, which I taught at SVA and they
had all the best equipment there, you know, and just
(45:33):
have qualified people teaching, you know. I mean, but I
mean it's weird editing because half of it's technical and
then the other half is kind of more artistry and
storytelling techniques and stuff like that, so it's like a
full gambit of of things. But non negotiable would be
(45:59):
just the best equip meant, you know, you have to
have like what's out there, right now. I mean, they
should honestly be teaching AI right now, I believe, even
though I'll tell you what I hate the most about AI,
besides the jobs that it takes away from people, is
the it pollutes the planet. It's so polluting. That's why
(46:26):
it's really hard for me to wrap my head around
using it for things that aren't just essential like science.
You know, use AI to figure out cold fusion, and
then maybe we could go hog wild with it because
we'll have cold fusion and we won't have to worry about, like,
(46:47):
you know, polluting the world so much.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
That's understandable. I can suddenly understand that. So Judy, thanks
so much for coming on the podcast. So really joy
speaking to you. And I really appreciate you enough the time,
that's for sure, and I hope to speak to you soon.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Okay, Yeah, let's let's keep in touch when you come
to New York.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
That I mean next year, I'll be there again
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Hi Judy, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm well? How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I'm well. I'm well as well. So it's good having
you on the podcast. I've been meaning to speak to
you for a while. We've been back and forth, so
I'm going to enjoy our conversation today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I know me too. I'm so glad that we have
finally gotten together through our extremely busy and ever changing.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Lives eventful as well, so that's a good thing too.
But before I get into some of the questions and
learning about your process and everything, can you give us
a bit of a rundown on your origin story and
how you became the editor that you are today.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, it actually starts in junior high school, which is
middle school for other people. Basically, I was in advanced
art classes, and when I got to high school, and
I was also like in honors classes, so I was
(01:13):
like a really good student, but I had these art classes,
which I loved. So when it got Yeah, so I
got to high school and they informed me that I
couldn't take art because it was conflicting with Spanish two
that I had to take in order to get into college.
(01:36):
And I was really upset and I went to my
guidance counselor and I was like, why can't I take art?
And she's like, well, if you want to go to college,
you have to have two years of foreign language. And
I said, you know, I'm fourteen years old. I don't
know what I want to do with my life. I
don't know if I want to go to college. And she,
(01:58):
at that point should have said to me, if looking back, uh,
if you you know that you could go to college
for art, because I didn't know that my parents are
blue collars. Yeah, I had no I thought that, you know,
artists just apprenticed with an artist, Like like, how can
(02:18):
you learn art? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Oh? I get that if you're you know, so it's
like a lot of things. If you're not brought up
in a situation where you have been told, or environment
or the proximity of other things, of course you think, ah,
of course I can paint, I can I can sing
or dance or whatever. You know, you're gonna have the
approach some others might have.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right, And you also have to remember this was in
the eighties. It was pre internet, so it's not like
like today. I feel like, you know, you can be
living in some remote country and watch like you know,
America's got talent or whatever, like you know what I mean.
So it's just a different environment now where information is
(03:02):
just at your fingertips. But back then, and that's what
a guidance counselor is supposed to do. But instead she
said to me, well, if you're not going to go
to college, then you can either cut hair or go
to business classes.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
That's what she told me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So I decided to take business classes and I ended
up getting into I got a scholarship to a business
school and I was in there for a year and
then I worked. It was kind of like a secretarial
business thing. I could have gone another year and gotten
an associate's degree, but I decided to start working because
I wanted to make money. And I was working at
(03:40):
Procter and Gamble and I hated it. And I'll never
forget my father's because I had stock options, I had
this job, and my dad's the scariest words I think
I've ever heard, Honestly, he said, you're set for life.
And I was like, you know, I'm like, I'm like nine,
(04:00):
ten years old. I was like, wait, that's it. Wait, No,
this can't be it. And then I happened to meet
this a friend of mine from high school, Ina who
is who is an amazing artist and Ina Scota and
she I saw her at a party at Rutgers and
(04:21):
I was like, Oh, what are you doing And she's like, oh,
I'm going I'm studying fine art. And I said fine art.
I was like what do you mean? And she's like,
you know, painting and school. And I was like, no,
I know what fine art is, but you can go
to college for that. And that's when I found out
when I was nineteen, and so that just exploded in
(04:41):
my head. And I loved New York City. I was
living in Jersey at the time, and I was like,
I want to I want to get out of here
and go to New York City. So I literally this
sounds crazy, but I looked in the Yellow Pages under
art school and it came up School of Visual Arts,
and I sent for a catalog and I read all
(05:03):
through like the and I said to my parents, Oh,
I want to go to college. I know what I
want to go to college because they were disappointed I
didn't go because I had really good grades. I was
super smart and all that, and they're like, oh, you
do What do you want to go for? And I
was like Fine Art And they said, no, we're not
going to help you. I mean if you want to.
(05:24):
And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no,
I want to go for filmmaking. Really, I was like, yeah, filmmaking.
I didn't know anything about film, but it was the
easiest program at that time to get into because you
didn't have to have a film like the Fine Art
you had to have a portfolio. I didn't have a portfolio.
(05:46):
So I wrote a script. You could write a script,
So I wrote like a short kind of like a
Saturday Night Live skit. Yeah, and I and I did that,
and then I interviewed with the guy at SVA, and
I remember he was talking forever. And I went to
(06:07):
business school, so I knew all about interviews, like prepare
questions in your head and like all that kind of stuff. Right,
he kept going on and on and on, and then
he's talking and all of a sudden, he like broke
the arm off of his chair, like you know, the
arm rest.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, he.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Like broke off. He must have been holding it so
tight or something, and he was holding it in his
hand looking at it like and I said, are you okay?
And he said, okay, interview's over. So I left there,
like what but oh? And I also remember he said,
why are you applying in June to go to college
(06:51):
in September? And I said, because I literally just found
out you could go to college for film and art
like a month ago. And he was like, oh, okay,
but anyway, and then and that's the only school I
applied to. And I got the letter, and I remember
I was running up and down my driveway like whoo.
So I went to film school and my whole plan
(07:14):
was that get into the college, the art college, and
then transfer into the program I really want to go for,
which was fine Art. But I'll tell you my first
film class was this film theory class with Scott Bacatman,
and he it was Strangers on a Train was the
(07:35):
film we watched, and it was all about cutting and editing.
And what I realized when he talked about like how
like the time and how like as a viewer, we
know that this is happening at the same time like
the footsteps in the beginning, like the footsteps this way,
the footsteps that way, and you know that they're going
to like meet up. It's like this language. And I realized, wow,
(07:57):
I know because I was a TV baby and so
all that language of film and storytelling I already knew.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
We all knew.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I just didn't know I knew it, you know, yeah, yeah,
And it just like really grabbed me and I ended up.
It was like literally a year later, those sophomore blues
they call it, when I was like ugh, and I
was like, oh, I was supposed to transfer into a
different department and I never did, you know, So it
(08:27):
was kind of like a total fluke how I ended
up in film and TV.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So what was some of the first shows or short
films or speach films that you may have edited, or
reality TV shows that you may have edited, and how
was that experience for you?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
All Right, I edited a lot of short films my
own that I directed. I've also done other people's films.
And what I like about editing as opposed to shooting,
like being on set, is that when you edit, you
already have everything. Whether it's good or bad is another question,
(09:12):
but you have what you have to work with, and
I like that part of it because the beat the
clock is about trying to put that footage together in
the best way possible by the deadline. When you're shooting,
(09:32):
you don't know if you're going to get what you need,
and it's a whole yeah, it's a whole other level
of stress that I don't I'm okay, Like it's fun
to be on a set, but it's it's if you're
the director, it could be very stressful because you or
the producer because you know what you need to get
(09:53):
and the clock is ticking. So that's why I like
editing more than being on set. The first shows that
I cut, I mean like reality shows like the.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
In particular, just trying to get an understanding of your
journey from education into the professional world of editing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, yeah, when I graduated, I actually started assisting on film.
By the way, anyone who's assisted on film knows about,
like you get really good arm muscles because you're reals
and you're constantly like going through footage looking for shots
(10:38):
for the editor, you know. And and I worked with
like the best of the best in documentary, Larry Silk,
and he did Pumping Iron. He did uh, Barbara Copple films,
Lillian Benson, who who is amazing. She she she's doing
(11:00):
TV now. And Jonathan Oppenheim. He was also like and
they were all so giving. And I there was another
editor that I worked with who she said to me,
when the producer comes in, I don't want you to
say anything. I was like, okay, like and she was
(11:23):
and she she wasn't very good at her job. Now
Larry Silk, who was just amazing. We you know, he'd
be talking to the producer and then he turned to me, well,
what do you think, Julie, And I'd be like, oh,
and you know, and he was so and he'd be
he'd go to lunch and you'd say, hey, why don't
you cut this scene while I go to lunch? You know,
he was so Yeah, he was so like and he
(11:47):
was so calm. I was you know what really struck
me about him because we had like this editor that
wasn't that good, and then he came in and basically
solved this documentary I worked on, And I was like,
is he doing anything? He was so because the other
editor was chopping and chopping and you know, and just
(12:07):
cutting herself into a hole and he would watch and
he would just make the cut and that was like
the best. You know, as an editor, there is one
place between two shots that is the absolute best place
to cut those two shots together. Now, now today, you know,
(12:30):
when you're in trim mood, you could be like trim three,
trim back to trim five. I mean you could go
back and forth like a million times. Back then you're
cutting on a work picture, so it's actual film. So
if you do that, then you would have taped together
all of these like frames and they'd go through the
thing like because they're all taped, you know. And even
(12:54):
when Avid came around along and then I helped all
these older editors transition, he would still edit the same way.
He would just like make that cut and that would
be the place and then he'd move on. Like he
didn't use trim mode. Like how you see people using
trim mode you know today.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
That's that's amazing. Even with Avid, he would still do that. Wow,
like so many digital edits himself where that's available, and
he would he would go through that process. Well that's
its uses. How did the producers he worked through the
feed about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh? They loved him. He totally took the story that
was a mess and transformed it. And yeah, the whole
because just because someone's cutting a bunch doesn't mean they're
you know, doing anything that's worth it, you know, but
I'm saying and so he really watched and then he's like,
(13:59):
this is where I'm going to cut. It was just
because his brain was so trained on filmmaker on the
on the old old film, you know, cutting work picture
and taping the two pieces together. Like when he went
to Avid, he just kept that. I mean, look, he
used trim mode obviously, but it was it just always
(14:19):
struck me when like editors would be like, I'm really fast,
and I'm like, you know what, it doesn't mean anything
if you're really fast getting time to say yeah, it's
like do you are you telling the story the best
way can be told, you know? And uh, That's what
I learned from him. And also just to be I've
(14:44):
always tried to, uh, you know, welcome younger people that
would come in as like PA's or assistants or whatever
they were. You know, I'd always introduce myself, Hi, if
you have any questions. You know, I'm here if you
need anything, because you know, back when I was starting
(15:10):
out and I worked at HBO a lot as an
assistant and also as a supervising editor on Real Sex.
I worked on Real Sex for a long time, which
was all women. We were all wing yeah yeah, I
mean not the people that went out and shop, but
all in post like. I worked with two other women,
(15:31):
Katie small here and Patty Kaplan and Sheila Evans, who
was the and we would just laugh and that was
the only way I could work on that show because
it was just so over the top. But now, but
I remember like walking around the halls of HBO and
there would be these other women. They were older, and
(15:54):
I'd always try to be like hi, you know, and
they just kind of ignore me.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm like okay.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And then one day I was in the elevator and
it was like September, and one of those women was
in the elevator with me, and she's like, shouldn't you
be back in college now? And uh, I said no,
I'm actually twenty seven years old and I'm an assistant editor.
And she's like oh, and then she started talking to me.
(16:21):
But I found that to be really weird, how you know,
she wouldn't even acknowledge my presence walking down a hall
when she thought I was like a PA or some
college kid doing like an internship, you know. But also
in those times women were there weren't a lot of
(16:43):
women in the industry either.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, could imagine.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, so there, I think there was like this just
for her because she was also older, so for her
even more so, I think there was just this automatic competition,
you know, because no because it's like the token woman.
It's kind of like it kind of reminds me of
just so out there. But like Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks.
(17:09):
Tyra Banks came on the scene, Naomi Campbell didn't like
her because she was like, I'm the black model, you know,
because there wasn't enough room in her mind for another
black model. And I know she's since apologized about all that,
but it's kind of like that, like women used to
be kind of pitted against each other because there wasn't
(17:30):
a lot of slots for for or positions like Okay,
we have our woman in the now, let's you know,
so as I'm sure you can understand too.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, subdainly, I can certainly understand that.
Funny enough, Yesterday I watched Being Eddie documentary Eddie Muff.
He's got a documentary at the moment on Netflix, and
our senior Hole spoke about at one point in time,
it felt like it had to be Eddie Murphy or
(18:03):
Richard Pryor in terms of a lot of people's eyes
for film star leading roles, and after that situation, it
felt like there could be more than one, and there
were other comedians getting a lot of work is as
leading men in films. So these type of situations, I
(18:25):
think go across all kinds of diverse backgrounds that have
those challenges where sometimes some people may think they can
only be one. But luckily this podcast, for example, has
allowed me to speak to more than one female editor,
which is great. And I'm sure the generational podcast is
(18:46):
after me. I'm hoping I shouldn't say I'm sure. I'm
hoping they won't be even having such discussion because the
boord will change and there will be many, many, many
people in many different roles in the film industry. And
you yourself have cut over eighty episodes of American Pickers.
(19:07):
What's the technical backbone of your editing workflow on a
long running unscripted series?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Watch all the footage.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, you have the outs.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You have to watch the footage like well, you know
sometimes you know, anyway, watch all the footage, which takes
a long time to do, but you have to do
it because you have to know what's there. And as
I go through the footage on the first run, you know,
(19:39):
I'll use markers as notes about like especially the audio,
a lot of audio notes about like if they go, oh,
no way or whatever, like I could use that anywhere, right,
the audio, Like you know, you you do that and
you go through and basically my process is that I
(20:03):
just whittle it down, you know, I watch everything, and
then the next day I'll start the edit and I'll
already know, like you know, it's really good to sleep
on things. I think that's another important thing. I can't
tell you how many times I've been editing something and
it's like, ugh, I just can't get it where I
want it. And it's usually late in the day and
(20:26):
I say, you know what, I'm just going to like
hang this up, and in the morning I'll come back
to it and it's like boom boom boom. Yeah. You
know it's crazy how it's just because my brain was
saying I'm tired, it's time to go to sleep. But yeah,
and then I I just whittle it down. And uh,
(20:48):
I believe that every edit and unscripted is a sound
edit because it's you know, TV, you don't have a
lot of time for silence. It's always moving, always going.
(21:11):
So I remember, like, like one time when I worked
on Room Raiders, an editor who was just starting out,
he asked me to come in and watch his cut. Now,
the show was supposed to be, oh gosh, it was
a half hour show. It had to be like twenty
minutes or something like that, and his cut was like
forty minutes. And I watched it, and I was like,
this is what you need to do. Close your eyes
(21:31):
and listen, and wherever you hear silence, cut it. Like
cut the sound the audio, I mean, the video, don't
worry about that. Edit the sound, and then cover the
video wherever there's jump cuts like you know, E roll
or whatever. So I think, like my process, and especially
(21:57):
in TV, the biggest challenge is always getting it to time.
Like there's been so many times I would say, because
I would also post produce, but then they would bring
a producer in once we got it kind of together,
Thank goodness, because I like to collaborate and I like
to bounce stuff off people, and and I'd be like,
(22:24):
I don't know how we are going to get this
show to time. There's no way can we make it
like a single pick episode? You know, the picks out
like you know, But somehow you find a way to
do it in the end.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, And how has your approach to media management proxeason
storage evolved over the last fifteen years as footage sizes
and formats have exploded.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, well, an average you have to transcode the footage.
I mean, you can work AMA if you want to,
but not on something that's so long format. And we
had so much footage because they shot for fifteen years
that we were actually working in a really low resolution
(23:15):
and that and then the shows would get onlined.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Do you remember what resolution?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh god, no, I don't. I don't remember, because they
would everything would be it was like, I don't want
to give you the wrong information on that, So no,
I don't remember. But we had like people who would
load all this footage in and then we had people
that would organize the footage so and then I would
(23:43):
get the raw it would not be edited, but it
would be organized, you know, like grouped, like the audio
would be grouped because everyone had their mics and all that.
But it was the only way. There was no way
that they could like keep that it like you know
four k as as four k kim along or like
(24:04):
we had to do it that way because we had
like so much b roll. I mean, think about fifteen
years of just shooting every state every time they went
out and they shot be right, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And that's the use of bee roll in it. Sorry
it to interrupted. I did love I love that. And
how funny enough you saying what you said about the
audio and using b roll because it's making me think
about what I've seen on the show even more now
and having a deeper and further understanding of hack may
have all come together, so that that's great for me
for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah. I mean you have to remember that a lot
of the all of the people that have been on
the show, unless it was like a special celebrity or something,
they've never been in front of the camera. And a
lot of them are from you know, the middle of America. Yeah,
so a lot of them would talk like well uh
yeah and uh and a lot of that, which I'm
(25:01):
sure you're familiar with yes, and so we you know,
cut it down. And actually Jersey John, who was uh
one of the guys that came on later and on
the later seasons, he said to he said to us,
you guys make me sound so good, could you know?
(25:23):
And and I'll tell you one of the hardest things
is when you get when you get a new uh
pick and you're looking at they called them picks because
they would they would pick through these people's stuff. So
so we called them picks. But but if you know,
if we got a new pick and then the contributor
had some sort of weird speech thing where they said
(25:47):
like like a lot of arms like well, and then
I am, I'm I'm I'd be like, oh no, because
I knew this is going to be time consuming. But
got to cut those arms out because no know, that'll
come out to be like two minutes extra, you know,
So yeah, sound at it. That's the way to go.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And you've toought Avia at SBA. What makes Avid composed
your stick? Sorry? Avid Media Composer's still the industry standard
for television, despite Adolbe Premiere and the Vinci Resolve gaining ground.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think it's the media management. Honestly, I think it's
a really stable platform and uh once you transcode everything
to the same format, it's just it's just easier, like
I think for TV shows and stuff like that. It's
the industry standard because of the media management. You know,
(26:47):
it's just so stable as opposed to like you know,
Premiere or I remember back in the day Final Cut too.
I mean you know, yeah, you could plug your your
footage into I mean your your computer into your eye
phone and download stuff. But then it would allow you
to work in different formats. But then you if you
changed anything that then you would have to render. I mean,
(27:08):
how how many hours wasted re rendering re rendering? You know?
And I do think that that's really the main reason.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And for yourself for example, or any tools or plugins
you rely on the most in Avid when you have
shape in a story, uh.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well we had to do uh I use the I
can't remember the name of it. It's when you uh
I reversed a lot of shots, the motion of a
lot of shots. Like that's what I relied on the most,
(27:53):
because when you're searching to cover and you need shots
and sometimes you know, they were rolling along and they
couldn't get a lot of stuff. I'm trying to think
of what it's called. It's not transform I'll think of it.
(28:16):
I'll think of the name. I'm not in front of
my computer right now, but I think the motion effects
is really what I use the most because I wasn't finishing,
so the finishing process went up to Toronto they and
that's where they would finish it. So yeah, it was
(28:36):
mostly that. I mean when I work on music videos,
which I also do a lot of music videos, I mean,
I use all sorts of effects, you know, But.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, I can imagine you've directed and edited music videos.
How that the technical demands differ between a fast cut,
music driven project and a standard unscripted TV show.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think that I grew up playing piano and I
and I also yeah, and I also play guitar, and
I love Yeah. Music has like saved my life. I mean,
I love like Without music, I don't know where I
would be. I'm a huge music file. Like I just
go see bands. One of my favorite things to do
is to see live music. So I'm very musical musicality,
(29:31):
I guess you could say. And so for me, it's
not it's just faster, it's more crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Sorry, what you said I found quite impactful. So I'm
interjecting here. Sorry, why is happening to music saying your life?
And what bands do you listen to and go and
see that resonate with you in such a personal and
emotional way.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
God, Well, I had oh CD since I was five.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Oh, sorry to say that.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, it's okay. It's actually makes for a great editor
to have OCD. But I always felt a little not
I didn't know what I had. I wasn't diagnosed with
that until I was twenty four. Okay, So I went
through my whole childhood thinking I was nuts because I was.
I do the counting inside my head of words and
(30:25):
syllable like crazy stuff. So it's not as bad now,
but as a child, and so I think that music
allowed me to escape, you know, because you go into
like these other worlds. So as so music for me,
especially like in high school and college and just going
through you know, you go into you put the headphones on,
(30:50):
and you could just go into this other other world.
And I actually, I mean I like so many different
types of music, you know. I love like Marvin Gay,
I love Prince, I love Led Zeppelin, you know, but
I would say, like my the the music that really
(31:12):
grabbed me and I stuck with for a really long
time is like Sound Garden, Alice in Chains, all that.
They call it grunge, but you know it's my generation.
They're all like my age, all those guys. And I
like depressing music. I love Amy Man. I don't know
(31:32):
if you've ever listened to Amy Man. I think it
because it just music brings out emotions and feelings and
kind of resonates, and you could go to this place
of like sadness and then and then you can be
(31:53):
like okay and you take off the headphones and then
you feel like, oh, let me get on with my life.
It's almost like a like a couraging of stuff. It's
like and you feel so like a good song. It
just it's like God, they're like in my head, like
how do they you know what I mean? It just
(32:15):
it just like anything like a good movie.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So aware of the chord structures or the chords in
particular those bands would use, so maybe thinking they are
four chord grooves in the verse and maybe three chords
and choruses, and they might use power chords. And you
said depressing a music, so maybe a lot of minor
chords rather than major chords or major sevenths. With all
(32:42):
the theory and skill and technique that goes into being
a guitarist as you are, how do you compare being
a guitar player to an editor and do your skills
as a musician help inform your decisions as an editor?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yes, And let me say one thing, I consider myself
way more a piano player than a guitar player, just
just just because I've been playing piano since I was
like eight or seven or eight, and guitar I picked
up when I went to college because I needed to
have an instrument, and guitars you could just around with you.
(33:19):
I think, I think that music and knowing how to
play music has been invaluable to editing because it's all
about rhythm, chasing right, moving along and where to slow down.
(33:40):
And also I score, I mean everything I edit for
unscripted I score, and so knowing music and understanding just
the basic structure of the songs and also you get
the stand where you just have like the percussion or
(34:02):
just the guitar or whatever you know, it allows you
to play with all that stuff to make the scenes
a little bit more poignant of where you want them
to go. I remember when I I've had a lot
of assistants in my life, and i've I'm happy to
say that all of them, I think went on to
(34:24):
become editors because I'm very giving again because I think
about Larry Silk and how he was and so giving
and stuff. And I got this one editor assistant one time,
and he was so great, and I said, hey, just
score this score the scene tonight because they would work
at night because the whole dynamic changed right the assistance,
(34:47):
there'd be a little overlap. I felt always felt bad
about that because I was in the room with the editor,
you know, when I assisted, because it was on film.
But anyway, I came back the next day and I
was like, hmmm. So when he came in, I I
was like, you don't play in a musical instrument to you?
And He's like no, And I was like, Okay, come
here and sit down. I'm going to teach us some stuff.
(35:08):
And I just taught him like real because he was
so good, like the with the storytelling, but the scoring,
and so I just taught him like the basics. He
picked it up like so so quick. You know, and
but I think music definitely has helped me a lot,
(35:30):
like knowing growing up, playing music has helped me a
great deal in editing absolutely one.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, has there been an occasion where you worked on
a show or short film where music has been licensed
or you've been allowed to use a licensed song and
that has helped drive the edit fully? And if so,
what song was that? And if you haven't, would there
be a song in particular that you like to have
(35:57):
used for one of your shows or short films.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I remember, back in the day at MTV, because I've
cut a lot of stuff for MTV, we were allowed
to use the real songs for a long time until
until the artist caught on, hey you're using my music
and all your like you know shows And I cut
(36:26):
this one? Uh made I cut one maid. It was
actually a horrible job for me. It was just there
was a lot of things going on with other I
don't want to get into all that, but anyway, on
this on this one show I did, it was about
(36:48):
this band and they were going to the stage and
I remember someone suggested, hey, what if we use because
it just came out, what if we use audio slave song? Coaches?
You know, I don't know if you know that song,
but in the beginning, it's like done, it's like this
(37:08):
whole like build up, you know, and then it just
like explodes and so like they're walking and we did
like slow motion like they're getting up on the stage,
and it was like this big build up. So I
remember that, and then I remember when I was working
on Room Readers. I don't know if you're familiar with
(37:28):
that show. That was an MTV show. We were allowed
to use the artist songs, and then that was the
year gosh, when was that, maybe two thousand and two
or three, somewhere probably two thousand and three. That's when
it all switched, and then we had to use like
(37:48):
library like you know, music library songs. By the way,
Room Raiders was when people would go into like three
people would get quote unquote abducted and oh no, no, no,
I'm sorry. A person would get abducted, and then three
people would go into their bedroom and and use all
(38:13):
these like tools to find things. So they had like
a black light that they would use on the bed,
you know, and like they would wind names like sex
toys and stuff like that. Do you remember, yeah, now,
do you remember Justine too well. When Janet Jackson and
(38:35):
Justin Timberlake did yeah nipplegate as they called it, everything
changed on our show the next day. No more black
light used on the bed, no more sex, like all
of that just went shoot right out the window, which
you know it should have when I think about it,
because it was like for kids, really what we were doing,
(38:58):
you know.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Okay, and you've compared editing to writing, how do you
balance the technical position of editing with narrative demands of story?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Well, editing, When when I start to edit something, it's
always about what is the story you have to look at?
Like for instance, on American Pickers, when they would go
somewhere like what is the big fine?
Speaker 1 (39:28):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And that would be like the arc, like you know,
and also interweaving with the contributor's personal story, like there's
a lot of you know, you always want to try
to like introduce and then build up to like you know,
in the second act and like the and then like
the the third act of coming down off of that.
(39:50):
So a lot of times, even though in the in
the how the footage was shot during the day, like
sometimes they would find and something that was amazing, like
like in the very beginning, so we you know, so
you have to kind of take that and make it
feel like it was at the end of the day,
(40:10):
you know, and mess up with the order. I mean,
we were constantly messing with the order of where they went.
But sometimes it was hard because they would go to
different locations on the property, yeah, to look at things.
So sometimes like this barn or whatever. Like, people have
(40:31):
so much stuff. It's crazy. Especially in like the middle
of America. They have outbuildings, they have big properties. You know,
I look like a Jersey We don't. I mean, unless
you're like a ka billionaire, you don't have like a
giant property. But out in the Midwest, you know, it's
a way spread out. And when you have big properties
and you have a lot of outbuildings, some people tend
(40:53):
to fill them up with crazy stuff, you know. So
so it was you know, so I guess I look
at it as you know, I can't when you get footage.
You didn't write it, but you could still kind of
organize it into a more dramatic way that is more
(41:15):
satisfying and also keeps the viewer engaged, because you don't
want to, like, you know, show all the best stuff
in the in the very first act. You know you
want you know, that's why you do coming up and
you get people more involved, like waiting, Oh, what's that
going to be? Kind of thing?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know when you took edits in, what technical concepts
did students struggle with the most and how did you
help them get over such situations?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
The technical part they all had down. I think it
was more about the language of film, like how a
like like if you have two shots, two shots together
can create a whole new meaning, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah,
(42:00):
it's kind of like that was a koolish off with
the uh in the in the nineteen twenties, and he
had that experiment where he just shot a woman standing
there and then he intercut it with like there was
a bowl of soup, and then there was a baby,
and then there was a man, and so it was
(42:21):
like the woman in the soup, the woman, the baby,
the woman, the man, And then would ask people, Okay,
so what happened and they were like, oh, she was
hungry and then she she like looked like like lovingly,
like maternal at her baby, and then she was like
lustful for the man. But the whole time. It was
(42:43):
just like the shot of the woman. So it's it's
how like they creates how like how That's what I
love about about film is that it's like a language.
And and so I think instilling that into them about
(43:05):
the power of images and how they are arranged, Like
you can take five shots or ten shots and cut
them three different ways and then it'll be a different
story each time.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You know what concept did the struggle with the most,
and the.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I think like the storytelling part of it was was
probably the the you know you can have someone saying
because you want it to be filmmaking isn't just telling
a story with words, It's it's with the images. And
(43:48):
so I you know, it was kind of like the
story like how to make their storytelling envision like not
just a character walk walking down a street, but you know,
maybe like show like a bus going by, to show
that they're stressed out, you know what I mean, like
(44:10):
noises like the city sounds coming in, like not just
show someone looking stressed. Like there's so many layers that
you can add in there without saying a word, you know.
So but you know, they were first year film students
that I taught and god, they were all so good though.
(44:30):
I was really pretty amazed by how how advanced a
lot of them were, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Oh that's right to hear it. Yeah, And it had
to design the perfect post production curriculum today. What tools
and technologies would be non negotiable.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We already fought to have AVID be taught because at
the time they were going to change change it to
like learning final cut and premiere and only if you
were an editing major would you learn AVID. And I thought,
but have it's the industry standard, and if you're paying
(45:11):
a much money to go to college, you should be
learning the industry standard, like you know, I mean, yeah,
so that you know, you know, having just having like
the updated equipment, which I taught at SVA and they
had all the best equipment there, you know, and just
(45:33):
have qualified people teaching, you know. I mean, but I
mean it's weird editing because half of it's technical and
then the other half is kind of more artistry and
storytelling techniques and stuff like that, so it's like a
full gambit of of things. But non negotiable would be
(45:59):
just the best equip meant, you know, you have to
have like what's out there, right now. I mean, they
should honestly be teaching AI right now, I believe, even
though I'll tell you what I hate the most about AI,
besides the jobs that it takes away from people, is
the it pollutes the planet. It's so polluting. That's why
(46:26):
it's really hard for me to wrap my head around
using it for things that aren't just essential like science.
You know, use AI to figure out cold fusion, and
then maybe we could go hog wild with it because
we'll have cold fusion and we won't have to worry about, like,
(46:47):
you know, polluting the world so much.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
That's understandable. I can suddenly understand that. So Judy, thanks
so much for coming on the podcast. So really joy
speaking to you. And I really appreciate you enough the time,
that's for sure, and I hope to speak to you soon.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Okay, Yeah, let's let's keep in touch when you come
to New York.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
That I mean next year, I'll be there again
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