Editors Eddie Hamilton, ACE and Paul Rogers, ACE took the top drama and comedy feature honors, respectively, at the 73rd annual ACE Eddie Awards---Hamilton for Top Gun: Maverick, and Rogers for Everything Everywhere All at Once. The gala Eddie Awards ceremony took place on Sunday (3/5) at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles, recognizing outstanding editing in 14 categories of film, TV and documentaries.

Rounding out the theatrical feature Eddie Award winners were: Ken Schretzmann, ACE and Holly Klein for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (best edited animation feature film, theatrical or non-theatrical); and Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput for Fire of Love (best edited documentary).

Oscar prospects
High-profile feature category Eddie winners Hamilton and Rogers may have a leg up for the Best Editing Oscar. Yet while the Eddie Award recipient has often gone on to win the Oscar, it is far from a certainty. Last year for example, King Richard editor Pamela Walker, ACE won the Eddie for dramatic feature and the Oscar went to editor Joe Walker, ACE for Dune. (In addition to Everything Everywhere All at Once and Top Gun: Maverick, the Oscar nominees this year for editing are: Mikkel E.G. Nielsen for The Banshees of Inisherin; Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond for Elvis; and Monika Willi for Tár.)

Both Hamilton and Rogers were profiled in SHOOT’s The Road To Oscar Series this season. In that coverage, Rogers described the nature of his collaboration with writers-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, aka The Daniels, on Everything Everywhere All at Once as a healthy give-and-take, back-and-forth process. “They are super adept editors in their own right,” said Rogers of Kwan and Scheinert. “We were constantly passing video back and forth, idea after idea. It was like making something cool with your friends in your dorm room. Ego flies out the window, It felt in a way at times like ‘how can we make each other laugh.’ We were constantly trading ideas.”

This exchange of ideas was done remotely as editing took place during the throes of the pandemic. And there was a method to the madness. While it sounds like an inspiring lark to swap idea after idea all over the place, Rogers affirmed that he and The Daniels in the big picture had to do justice to the emotional journey of the characters. “You risk this ending up to be a family drama where cool stuff happens around it. But the family drama can’t come off as a gimmick tying all these parts together. The family is the heart of the film, a beautiful story of a mother, daughter, husband, wife, father. That was the focus of the editing.”

Hamilton meanwhile told SHOOT in another installment of The Road To Oscar that the biggest challenge posed by director Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun Maverick was “the pressure we all felt to make a sequel to one of the greatest films of the 1980s [Tony Scott’s Top Gun]. All audiences were sitting with their arms crossed wondering ‘how are you going to screw this up.’ Everyone thinks making a sequel to Top Gun is a terrible idea and you’re going to fail. We felt the weight of the legacy. We had to deliver for the audience. There was the minutiae of building these complex aerial sequences. But the ground story, which is two-thirds of the  movie, is also difficult, meeting characters, getting the balance of the character development, story and action just right.”

Then there was the challenge of meshing pilot cockpit closeups with exterior shots filmed months later, finding the right rhythm to optimize excitement and engagement, part of what Hamilton characterized as “a nonstop rocket ride that puts you on the edge of your seat. You can’t take any shortcuts. You have to go through all the takes and make sure every shot is the best it can be. Editing the final mission was about three months of work, a very slow process every day, shot by shot, chipping away at the sequence, going through mountains of footage.”

Hamilton said that perseverance was key. “The movie wasn’t working for a long time. It came together in the last three months of a two-year process, which is quite common for a lot of [ambitious] movies. The easier it is to watch, the harder it was to make. You put more work into it to make it effortless to watch, to flow.”

Non-theatrical and TV winners
Winning for best edited non-theatrical documentary was Joe Beshenkovsky, ACE for George Carlin’s American Dream. And the best edited non-theatrical feature film honor went to Jamie Kennedy for Weird: the Al Yankovic Story.

Topping the TV series categories were Simon Smith for the “One Way Out” episode of Andor (best edited drama series); Chris Poulos for the “Welcome to the Art of Negotiation” episode of The Neighborhood (multi-camera comedy series); Joanna Naugle for the “System” episode of The Bear (single-camera comedy series); John M. Valerio, ACE for the “Arrivederci” episode of The White Lotus (limited series); Paula Salhany, Brandon Kieffer, Andrew Pattison, Catherine Lee and Victoria Lesiw for the “Killing for Success & Marcos Returns” installment of Vice (non-scripted series); Stephanie Filo, ACE, Bradinn French, Taylor Joy Mason and S. Robyn Wilson for “Save My Edges, I’m A Donor!” episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show (variety/talk, sketch show or special); and Kirk Baxter, ACE for the “Bad Travelling” episode of Love, Death & Robots (animated series).

And the Anne V. Coates Award for Student Editing went to Jazmin Jamias of the American Film Institute.

In addition to the announcement of winners in competitive categories, Gina Prince-Bythewood accepted the ACE Golden Eddie Award in recognition of an artist or company for distinguished achievement in film. And film editors Lynne Willingham, ACE and Don Zimmerman, ACE received Career Achievement Awards for their outstanding contributions to film editing. 

Prince-Bythewood in her acceptance remarks noted that this was “a full-circle moment” for her in that she went to film school at UCLA and is now being presented the Golden Eddie during a ceremony on the campus of her alma mater. Particularly gratifying about the Golden Eddie, she noted, is that the recognition of her work also honors whom Prince-Bythewood described as her “forever editor,” Terilyn A. Shropshire. (Shropshire also was a nominee this year in the best edited dramatic feature category for Prince-Bythewood’s acclaimed The Woman King.) Prince-Bythewood was also recognized by ACE for opening up crewing and industry employment for women and people of color. On that front, Prince-Bythewood said that women and ethnic minorities find themselves “locked out not by lack of talent but lack of opportunity.” She thus has “to look beyond the resume” to help level the playing field for qualified artists.

The Eddie Awards ceremony was emceed by Ashley Nicole Black and presided over by ACE president Kevin Tent, ACE.

A full list of winners for the 73rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards follows:

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Drama, Theatrical):
Top Gun: Maverick
Eddie Hamilton, ACE

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Comedy, Theatrical):
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Paul Rogers

BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM (Theatrical or Non-Theatrical):
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Ken Schretzmann, ACE
Holly Klein

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (Theatrical):
Fire of Love
Erin Casper
Jocelyne Chaput

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (Non-Theatrical):
George Carlin’s American Dream
Joe Beshenkovsky, ACE

BEST EDITED MULTI-CAMERA COMEDY SERIES:
The Neighborhood: “Welcome to the Art of Negotiation”
Chris Poulos

BEST EDITED SINGLE CAMERA COMEDY SERIES:
The Bear: “System”
Joanna Naugle

BEST EDITED DRAMA SERIES:
Andor: “One Way Out”
Simon Smith

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (NON-THEATRICAL):
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Jamie Kennedy

BEST EDITED LIMITED SERIES:
The White Lotus: “Arrivederci”
John M. Valerio ACE

BEST EDITED NON-SCRIPTED SERIES:
Vice: “Killing for Success & Marcos Returns”
Paula Salhany
Brandon Kieffer
Andrew Pattison
Catherine Lee
Victoria Lesiw

BEST EDITED VARIETY TALK/SKETCH SHOW OR SPECIAL:
A Black Lady Sketch Show: “Save My Edges, I’m A Donor!”
Stephanie Filo, ACE
Bradinn French
Taylor Joy Mason
S. Robyn Wilson

BEST EDITED ANIMATED SERIES:
Love, Death & Robots: “Bad Travelling”
Kirk Baxter, ACE

ANNE V. COATES AWARD FOR STUDENT EDITING:
Jazmin Jamias - American Film Institute