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Is Remote Editing Too Remote?
March 11, 2019
Last week I spoke with a few directors who each asked about a growing trend, “How does remote editing work?” For the record, eighty percent of our editors now work remotely. Our six doc editors are based in LA, Portland, NY, and the Bay Area. We often work with directors who live thousands of miles away. At stake for these directors is the quality of the director/editor relationship—generally regarded as the most important creative relationship in documentary filmmaking! If that bond is not strong, then how can the editor understand the director’s vision, much less abet it? Of course, some…
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Two Talented Editors + Storytelling Article
March 6, 2019
We currently have two talented documentary editors available soon! Both work remotely, as well as in person. Our Bay Area editor is one of the most kind, conscientious cutters I’ve met. Graduating summa cum laude from a top film school, he’s now a mid-career professional with award-winning titles under his belt. Another West Coast editor continues to astound me with his brilliance. We met working together on a documentary that won a top award at Sundance. He’s slightly introverted (in a creative way) and excels at listening to your vision and bringing it to life. Want to meet one of…
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Should You Break Documentary Convention?
February 22, 2019
One of the most exciting documentaries to emerge from Sundance this year is The Infiltrators, a narrative experiment which won the festival’s Audience Award and Innovator Award. Breaking the conventional filmmaker/subject wall, the directors enlisted undocumented Americans as co-conspirators to voluntarily get themselves detained. Their mission: release themselves and their fellow detainees. Mixing verite scenes with scripted re-enactment, this thriller expands the documentary genre “in exciting new ways,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Once we freed ourselves from conventional documentary ethics,” said the directors, “we entered into a realm of possibilities”. While many directors love the idea of “freeing themselves…
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Oscar For Best Documentary Goes To….?!
February 15, 2019
Recently a director whose film we cut asked me who I thought would win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. “RGB,” I replied without much thought. Now, before ABC’s live coverage of the Oscars on February 24th, it’s time to go out on a limb and make my case for this inspiring documentary about octogenarian Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But first, two disclaimers! The other four nominees are phenomenal. Go see these films: Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Minding the Gap; Of Fathers and Sons; and Free Solo (which recently surpassed RGB as the second-highest grossing documentary of…
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Editor Available + Tips on Personal Documentaries
February 12, 2019
First a little business news, then some tips! We’re currently working on four documentaries, and one will wrap in two weeks. Email me if you need an experienced editor soon! Of the four, three films came to us at Assembly or Rough Cut stage, requiring 4-9 weeks of editing rather than our usual 10-week Accelerated Post schedule. I mention this because it’s one way for directors to save money. And now…since some of the films are personal docs, I’m passing on two important tips for directors who bravely put themselves in front of the camera. First, show your face as…
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Sundance Winners Focus on Character Journeys
February 5, 2019
Most of the award-winning docs coming out of Sundance this year have one thing in common: they are riveting character-driven journeys. While it could easily have been a wonky essay doc, One Child Nation (U.S. Grand Jury Prize) examines China’s one-child policy through the eyes of director Nanfu Wang. The inciting incident? Wang gets pregnant. The journey? To return to China. The central question? What were the consequences of this population experiment? (Spoiler alert: tragic!) Midnight Traveler, which received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award, is another personal documentary. The catalyst? The Taliban puts a bounty on director Hassan…
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Two Experienced Editors Available
January 21, 2019
I currently have four experienced editors on staff, and two are available within a few weeks. I don’t give out names and credentials until we talk, but I can assure you these award-winning cutters are talented storytellers! If you have a budget for post, please email to find out more. Here’s a recent testimonial from director Mary Umans, who just learned that her film Displaced was accepted at the London International Filmmaker Festival for 2019. Congratulations! Mary worked with us in our Accelerated Post schedule: “With insight and grace, Karen Everett helped orchestrate the completion of my film, Displaced. She…
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How We Edit Quickly
January 14, 2019
One of the things we do best is edit great documentaries quickly—making the cost of finishing a film within reach for many producers. What’s our secret sauce? First, we get you to sift the chaff. By helping you see the narrative arc and major themes, we guide you or your assistants to cull the best 30 hours from your footage. This saves our editor time. Second, we drive fast because we know the terrain. With our Accelerated Post schedule, we’ll fast-track the industry’s conventional journey through Assembly Cut, Rough Cut(s), Fine Cut and Locked Picture. Normally these cuts can take…
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Documentaries Are Not Encyclopedias
January 6, 2019
If you haven’t yet seen the recently released Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, check it out! Directed by my former graduate student Alexis Bloom, this biography of the founder of Fox News exemplifies a powerful storytelling principle. Bloom and her producer Alex Gibney had to decide which events in Ailes’s life were important to include and which juicy stories could be cut. Check out the Build series interview in which Bloom and Gibney discuss making the film. At 29:20, a member of the audience asks, “How did you choose specifically which moments to specifically focus on?” Bloom…
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Finish Your Film in 2019
January 1, 2019
Happy New Year! One of my saddest moments in 2018 was seeing a filmmaker who had the makings of a great documentary give up on it after years of procrastination. Wanting to help her through post-production, her father gave her the gift of a story consultation with me. She was inspired during out session, but afterwards she couldn’t sustain enthusiasm to finish the film. That’s not unusual. Working alone, many indie filmmakers falter while editing because they’ve lost perspective. I created Accelerated Post to solve that problem. In our fast-track and affordable editing program, you’ll work with one of our…
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