This Article has been reproduced with the permission of the American Cinema Editors and is also printed at their website: http://www.ace-filmeditors.org/newace/intro.html 

At the moment in our forums, there is an interesting discussion taking place about Australian culture and the film industry. This article is interesting because it looks at how editors in the United States are affected by aspects of their film industry.

The Quality of Work

Award season is upon us yet again. Although most of the award shows that are rolled out for us on the television screen are based on the glamour of the stars, somewhere in the obscurity of backstage, awards are also being doled out to the below-the-line individuals. These awards are called ‘technical’, even though the individuals who receive them are honored for their artistic and creative accomplishments in their craft. ACE and the Editors Guild have initiated the annual IA/VAor Invisible Art-Visible Artists seminar where Oscar nominated editors are being interviewed on the day before the big ceremony in front of a live audience in a panel discussion about their art and specifically about the work they’re nominated for. The name of the event Invisible Art-Visible Artists is of course based on the sheer impossibility to pinpoint where the director’s work ends and where the editor’s work begins. The Visible Artists part of the name lets us know that we will be dealing with the fleshand-blood renditions of the people behind the name. The visibility or rather the invisibility of editors has always been a problem that has haunted us. When directors encounter the editor they can work with, it usually becomes a working relationship that lasts through both careers. Although Directors of Photography and Production Designers also have a considerable creative influence on film and TV, their relationship with directors is usually a much looser one. Their work can be seen; the editor’s imprint on film or TVis much harder to point out, so when a director has finally worked with an editor who creatively and socially fits with him/her, he sticks with him/her. These mechanics are understandable, but they also make the marketability of an editor a hard task for the agent or for the editor him/herself when they don’t have representation.

When you’re an artist or in a creative profession you’re not only dependent on the accessibility but also the visibility of your work. The accessibility is the ability for someone already knowledgeable of the work actually seeing it. For a painter this means that his work is exhibited in a museum or gallery. The visibility, however, is a more tenuous issue because it depends on the size and reputation of the museum or gallery, and more even, on the marketing efforts of those institutions. For editors it is unfortunately similar. Sure, we can get a VHS or DVD of our work to an interested party, but to get that party interested in the first place is the challenge because it’s something that is not easily controllable or predictable. A quality film which no one has heard of is less desirable than a total bomb at the box-office, since box-office means advertising and advertising means the film will receive public recognition. When you’re a freelancer your marketability is heavily dependent on the visibility of the projects you’ve worked on, not necessarily on the quality of the projects. When Finding Neverland was shelved for more than a year, it must not have been easy for Matt Chesse the editor, to convince people about his editorial prowess. Now that the movie has earned critical acclaim, all kinds of nominations and awards, he probably is inundated with interesting offers. Mick Audsley who edited the certified bomb The Avengers, a heavily marketed movie, wasn’t affected by that film’s demise. He since edited Dirty Pretty Things and Mona Lisa Smile, both critically acclaimed films. It seems to work both ways; as an editor you never get credit, not for a success but luckily neither for a bomb. A bomb though can give you notoriety, which is not a bad thing when you’re looking for visibility.

It’s frustrating when you’ve given your all to a project and when it’s finished you have to hand it over without having the power to influence what happens to it. It might end up on a shelf because nobody seems to be able to come up with a credible marketing plan. It might end up in litigation because of un-cleared rights. It might be on the slate of a studio boss who was let go, etc. etc. We differ from a lot of other artists and creative jobs because we don’t have control over the final product - we’re depending on the agility and good fortune of some movers and shakers who have a different agenda or different responsibilities. My own resume is a case in point: even though I’ve been working constantly in the last three years, my resume doesn’t list any work done since 2003, and even the last movie on the list is in the safe of a bank in Canada because the producers couldn’t pay back their loan. ACE board member Martin Nicholson, A.C.E. is dealing with this issue, amongst other things, in the Agents Committee. How can we market ourselves better, and how can we assist the agents in connecting us with quality jobs?

So don’t despair if you’re not nominated for an award this year. There’s not much you can do about it. The quality of your work is not measured by the awards you get. It’s measured by the standards you set for yourself.