When the best commercial director of 2000 award is announced by the Directors Guild of America (DGA), on March 10, the winning spot helmer will have a number of people to thank for helping him attain the honor. First, there will be the agency, for coming up with the concept, then the various production house employees and crew members who helped bring the spot together. Other people likely to be thanked are the editors of the spots for which the helmer earned his nomination.
Below is a look at some of the editors who contributed to this year’s DGA nominees’ entry cards.
David Lee
"David Cornell is a great guy and a real team player," says editor David Lee, who works out of Crew Cuts West, Santa Monica. (Crew Cuts also has offices in New York and San Francisco.) "When somebody is truly such a good person, then, when good things happen to them, you’re happy."
Lee was quite happy, then, when he found out that two of the spots he’d edited for Cornell—Visa’s "Synchronized Commercialism" and "I Enjoy Being a Girl," both out of BBDO New York—helped score a DGA nomination for the director, who had previously won in ’89. "The film was so beautiful that [the nomination] was almost predestined," Lee says. (Cornell’s other submitted ads—Visa’s "Tattoo" and Charles Schwab’s "Ringo" and "Retirement"—were also done out of BBDO.)
Although the Olympic-themed "Synchronized Commercialism" was one of the first spots that Lee edited for Cornell, it certainly hasn’t been the last. "I’ve probably done more than a dozen with him now," says Lee, who met Cornell through David Frankel, BBDO’s senior VP/associate director of TV production. "The great thing about working with David is that you’re dealing with a real person. You’re not dealing with some ego. He’s got good ideas, and if he doesn’t agree with you, occasionally he’ll turn around later on. He’s willing to change his mind, which is rare."
When it comes to his own career, Lee, too, has been willing to change his mind. A graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., with a degree in theatre, he initially wanted to direct plays. Later, he shifted his focus to documentary filmmaking before ultimately becoming a commercial editor.
In ’89, he moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, where he freelanced for several post houses, including Venice Beach Editorial (the in-house editing arm of TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles) and 2POP, Hollywood. He signed with Gayle Grant Editing, Manhattan Beach, Calif., seven years ago, and later moved to the now defunct US2. When he joined Crew Cuts in ’99, Lee says, "I started to have some visibility for the first time in my career."
His visibility continues to grow, and so does his love of editing. Working with such directors as Cornell, and David Kellogg of bicoastal Anonymous, for whom he recently finished a Pepsi International package, Lee has been finding his job more fulfilling than ever. "I consider myself really lucky," he says. "I still have a small group of clients, but they’re all good people. I have a really good time with all of them. And I think my ability to work locally in New York [out of the Crew Cuts office there] has caused them to work with me more."
Lee says most of the directors he edits for are, like Cornell, highly collaborative. "It’s odd that that would happen," he notes. "You hear all the time about people who come into [the editing process] with their own agenda, trying to take over. Fortunately, I find that I rarely have clients who have any kind of an agenda, other than trying to do something good."
While he’s content to keep doing good work within the advertising business, Lee says he wouldn’t mind trying his hand at longform projects. "I would consider doing feature films under the right circumstances," he relates. "I’d also love to do some music videos again. It’s nice to stretch out and do something longer, even if you don’t make any money doing it."
Adam Liebowitz
Adam Liebowitz, president/ owner/editor at Go Robot!, New York, was gratified to learn that the spots he had edited—IBM’s "Harlem Fencer" and "Senegal Women’s Basketball," out of Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), New York—had helped garner the first DGA nomination for director Lenard Dorfman of bicoastal/international @radical. media. (Dorfman’s other submitted spots were Excite.com’s "Camped Out," out of Amstar Yard, New York, and "DJ" for Contentville, out of O&M.)
Liebowitz was also a bit surprised. "They’re not classical spots," he explains. "It wasn’t the kind of stuff that the DGA usually responds to. It seems they normally nominate [commercials] that feel very big. And I think Lenny’s stuff is a little more intimate."
Indeed, all three spots take a personal, documentary-like approach to their disparate subjects—an Olympic fencer from Harlem and an Olympic team from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Liebowitz says Dorfman gave him a range of footage to choose from, particularly for the two IBM spots. "Lenny is pretty fearless in the way he goes out there and gathers stuff," says the editor. "He gave us about four or five hours worth of [footage] for those spots—all these amazing little moments," relates Liebowitz. "Working with him, we had a lot of freedom, post-wise, to find a sense of the story. It wasn’t just finding a track for it or working on the graphics, but really finding arcs to the stories. That’s probably the most interesting thing to do as an editor."
Although he majored in English literature at UC Santa Barbara, from which he graduated in ’89, Liebowitz says that he’s always been interested in film editing. His first job was as a runner in the now shuttered Hollywood office of Red Car—which has since moved to Santa Monica, and also maintains shops in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Toronto—where the primary focus was advertising. Eventually, he went to work as an in-house editor for Joe Pytka at the Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA. "I guess you could say my real film school was the Joe Pytka School," states Liebowitz.
His education there proved both challenging and worthwhile. "Joe is a lot more collaborative than he may seem," observes Liebowitz, who remained at PYTKA for six years and continues to edit Pytka’s spots today. (He recently completed work on an IBM package for the director.) "He’s not Kubrick, asking for things to the frame. But he’s one of the most demanding directors in this business. Working for him was a hell of a good way to learn what’s good and what’s not."
While at PYTKA, Liebowitz was responsible for putting the first blue bands on the letterboxed IBM spots. "It was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done," he says. "We had been looking for something new to do with the campaign. Joe wanted it black and white and letter-boxed. On a lark, I tried putting color bands [around the black and white, letter-boxed images] and Joe liked it, and it stuck. That was four years ago."
Shortly after, Liebowitz became a partner in the Santa Monica office of bicoastal Crew Cuts. He relocated to New York and started up Go, Robot! two years later. These days, the company cuts ads for such clients as Mercedes, Coca-Cola, UPS and Motorola. And creatively speaking, Liebowitz still likes to contribute as much as he can. "No editor wants to just be thought of as just a pair of hands," he states.
Ian MAcKenzie
After cutting ads helmed by director Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/ international hungry man, for over five years, Ian MacKenzie, owner/ editor of MacKenzie/Cutler, New York, still considers cutting Buckley’s work to be a uniquely satisfying experience. "Bryan is a director who makes a spot better at every stage of the process—from concept and the boards to casting, right through shooting and all the way through editing," says MacKenzie. "I always try to send him early cuts, usually before I show anything to the agency, just to get his input. I try to do that with a lot of my projects, but especially with Bryan’s. He just understands advertising very well."
That understanding has not gone unrewarded. Buckley, who was named top commercial director of 1999 by the DGA, has been nominated in the category yet again on the basis of four commercials. MacKenzie edited one of them: E*trade’s humorous ER spoof, "Wazoo," which made its debut during the 2000 Super Bowl. ("Wazoo" was one of three ads for E*Trade that earned Buckley his DGA nomination; "Monkey" and "Basketball" were the other two, and all three were via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. The forth spot on his entry card was Federal Express’s "Action Figures," out of BBDO.)
Though Buckley played a typically active role in the editing process for "Wazoo," he also gave MacKenzie some freedom. "He doesn’t get too involved in the nuts and bolts," the editor explains. "Usually his input is more along the lines of specific moments that maybe aren’t in the [first] cut, but that he thinks would work really well. He tends to trust me to choose the right angles. And, in a shoot like ‘Wazoo,’ where I think there were two cameras, I make a lot of judgments about whether to play the closer camera or the wider shot. He usually seems to like the way I do it."
MacKenzie first met Buckley in ’95. At the time, the New York-based editor worked out of Ian MacKenzie Editorial, a small post house he had founded in ’92. "Bryan and Frank Todaro were a directing team [Buckley/Todaro of @radical.media] at the time," MacKenzie recalls. "We started doing the Snickers campaign out of BBDO." (Todaro continues to direct via @radical.media.)
Before starting his own company, MacKenzie was a freelancer. A graduate of Boston’s Hampshire College and London International Film School, he had started out in advertising. "After film school, my first job was in New York as an assistant editor at Billy Williams Enterprises, now Moondog Edit, New York," MacKenzie remembers. "I was there for about two years, and learned a lot about commercials. Then I became a freelance editor in New York."
After a brief stint cutting spots in Mexico City ("they were like Mentos commercials—wholesome little stories that looked like first-year student films"), MacKenzie returned to Manhattan, where he edited for several companies, including Colossal East, the New York office of now defunct (Colossal) Pictures. "Somehow, through Colossal I got hooked up with Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York," continues MacKenzie, "and started editing a lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza Commercials. I was able to start my own company, based on that one account."
In ’97, he paired up with fellow editor Gavin Cutler to form MacKenzie/Cutler, which currently employs five editors. Lately, MacKenzie’s schedule has been busier than ever. "Right now, I’m finishing up two Snapple spots for Deutsch, New York," he relates. "Last week, we did a spot for MasterCard that Bryan shot out of McCann-Erickson, New York. Prior to that, I finished up the E*Trade campaign for the 2001 Super Bowl, including ‘Monkey II,’ which Bryan shot. Things have been going really well."
Keith Salmon
"Over the years, Leslie [Dektor] and I have developed a level of trust," says Keith Salmon, owner/ editor at Hyena Editorial, Santa Monica, who edited Pocketcard’s "The Check," which Dektor helmed out of Dektor Film, Hollywood, via FCB Chicago. "He clues me in on the compositions that he really likes, what he was shooting for. I see those, and I try to make them work within the story."
"The Check," a subtly funny spot involving a young boy who takes a girl out on a date for the first time, was one of three commercials that resulted in Dektor’s 12th DGA nomination; he won the award in ’92. (The other two spots on Dektor’s entry card were Idea Exchange’s "New Eyes" and "The Run Home," which were done out of Publicis & Hal Riney, Chicago, in conjunction with independent marketing director Lynn Dangell.)
Salmon, who has known Dektor for more than a decade, and has edited several dozen spots for him, couldn’t have been more pleased with the nomination. "I thought it was great," says the editor. "A nice, real story was given some attention."
The spot features a teenage couple on a big date. When the check arrives, the young man says he’s got it covered. When he sees the damage, he’s taken aback, and his date offers to split the check, but the boy says no and heads for a payphone. Panicked, he calls his dad and tells him that he’s short on cash. Sitting at his computer, the sympathetic father calmly deposits money into an online Pocketcard account to cover the dinner tab.
For his part, Salmon says he enjoyed working on the ad, and credits Dektor and FCB creatives with giving him first rate material. "Leslie nailed it from the casting, to the location, to the quality and the look of the film," the editor observes. "And, coming from the agency, it was well written for the time frame. It wasn’t underwritten, yet it had enough room so you could have some pauses and make it very real. Sometimes a moment where there’s really nothing other than a pause and a look is much more valuable than words."
Shortly after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, in ’85, with a radio/TV/film degree, Salmon headed out to Los Angeles. He soon began working at the now defunct postproduction house Ace & Edie2, as an assistant to editor Jim Edwards. Since most of Edwards’ projects were spots, Salmon became quickly immersed in the advertising business. "I loved the variety that you can get, from job to job, with commercials," states Salmon. "You work on so many projects, and no two jobs are exactly the same. So you learn a lot."
Salmon learned fast. It wasn’t long before he became a full-fledged editor, collaborating with a variety of spot helmers, including Dektor. Salmon left Ace & Edie2 in ’91 and co-founded the Santa Monica office of bicoastal Lost Planet with fellow editor Hank Corwin, remaining there for eight years. In ’99, Salmon took 10 months off from ad work when he was hired as one of a team of editors working on the Oliver Stone film Any Given Sunday.
After completing the film, Salmon recounts, "I decided to start my own thing," and founded Hyena. While he enjoys the highly collaborative relationships he shares with directors like Dektor, he points out that every job is different. "It sometimes depends on the director’s availability," notes Salmon, who has recently edited spots, such as "Closer World" for AT&T, directed by Samuel Bayer of bicoastal Mars Media, via FCB San Francisco. "But I always welcome input. It’s part of the filmmaking process."
Eric Zumbrunnen
When Eric Zumbrunnen began editing "Taxi" and "Tickets," he had never met director Dante Ariola. And by the time Zumbrunnen had finished these two Hewlett-Packard spots—which Ariola, of bicoastal/ international Propaganda Films, helmed for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco—he still hadn’t met him.
During postproduction on the ads, "Dante was in Brazil, shooting his next job," explains Zumbrunnen, who works out of Venice, Calif.-based Spot Welders. "We would make quick times of the cuts and put them up on the FTP site, and he would access them when he could. He’d phone in comments from abroad."
It was a collaboration that could only happen in the Information Age. ("I’ve still never actually physically met him," Zumbrunnen relates.) And it certainly proved successful. Together with Nike’s "Elephant," out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., the two spots earned Ariola a nomination—his first—for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) best commercial director of 2000 award. "When I picked up SHOOT magazine, and saw that he had been nominated, and that those two spots were among the ones they had submitted for his nomination, I was very pleased," says the editor. "I’d also heard that he’d put them on his reel. That made me feel good, too, because any time someone puts something on his reel, you know they’re proud of it."
Zumbrunnen says he was drawn to the project from the moment GS&P creatives showed him the boards. "I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do them,’" he recalls. "I had heard a lot of good things about Dante, and had seen some of the spots he had done. I thought they were funny, and he seemed to really know what he was doing."
The same can be said for director Spike Jonze, with whom Zumbrunnen has shared his longest working relationship. "His first few commercials were my first few commercials," Zumbrunnen says of Jonze, who helms spots out of bicoastal/international Satellite. Some of the Jonze-directed spots cut by Zumbrunnen include the high-profile "Chair" for Nissan, out of TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles; and Lee Jeans’ "Car," via Fallon Minneapolis.
An ’86 graduate of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, with a degree in journalism, Zumbrunnen began working as a runner at an online facility, the Los Angeles office of Varitel (now EDS Digital Studios), shortly after graduation Eventually, "I worked my way into the tape room," he relates. "I was very interested in music, and people were doing music videos there, so I got interested in editing."
Later, he became a freelancer, branching out into offline editing at 525 Studios in Santa Monica, among "various places, doing mostly music videos. At some point, I hooked up with Spike."
Zumbrunnen edited out of Superior Assembly Editing Company and then Nomad Editing Company—both in Santa Monica— before shifting over to Spot Welders in ’97. He continued to work frequently with Jonze. And when the director began helming his first feature film, the acclaimed Being John Malkovich, he brought Zumbrunnen on as his editor. "It was an eye-opener," Zumbrunnen remembers. "I definitely learned a lot."
He learned well. Being John Malkovich earned the 1999 America Cinema Editors Award for best edited comedy. Editing a feature "was nice to take a crack at," he says, "and then to have a bunch of feature editors decide that that was the best one that year."
Zumbrunnen is about to start work on his—and Jonze’s—second feature film, Adaptation. While he’s looking forward to the project, the editor is already anxious to return to spots. "I like to be able to do a movie and then come back and do advertising," explains Zumbrunnen, whose recent work includes the Levi’s spots "Badger" and "Jeans Donor," directed by Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan, via TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco. "It’s fun, and I like that you can start something and finish it in three weeks." iy
