On Nov. 7 the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE) held its inaugural awards show at New York’s Chelsea Piers. The AICE named 10 winning spots as being the best edited of 2000-’01. They were culled from a list of 30 finalists; in total, the AICE received some 250 entries for its first annual competition. The 10 winning commercials were not ranked– the honor simply lies in editors being recognized by their peers. Adam Liebowtiz, of Go Robot!, New York, was the only editor to garner multiple wins at the show. Below is a look at the winners of the 2001 AICE Awards.
Adam Liebowitz
When the national president of the AICE, Jeanne Bonansinga, faltered at the podium of the inaugural AICE Editorial Awards, the audience took a breath and waited to exhale. Bonansinga looked down at the card she had pulled from a sealed envelope and declared it a mistake.
"This must be a typo," she said, and looked from side to side as if searching for the right envelope. But in fact there was no typo at all, and Bonansinga smiled to let the audience in on the joke. She proceeded to read Adam Liebowitz’s name for an impressive third time that night, unofficially establishing him as the show-stealer.
Liebowitz was at a loss for words. "This is great," he said from the podium, having already thanked everyone in his two previous trips to the stage. After a few more words, there was little else to say– Liebowitz had won an AICE Award for each of the three finalists attached to him.
"It’s really quite a rush," notes Liebowitz, owner/editor at Go Robot!. "I have won some editing awards before… but this is special because this is the first AICE Awards."
Liebowitz’s first ad to be honored by the AICE was "Manhattan" for American Express, out of Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), New York, and directed by Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA. The spot shows golf champ Tiger Woods turning the isle of Manhattan into a golf course– playing it with the same dexterity as he does the 15th at Augusta. He moves through the streets with caddy in tow, using the city’s subway system as a golf cart.
Liebowitz’s next award was for IBM’s "Harlem Fencer," directed by Lenard Dorfman of bicoastal/international @radical.media for O&M. The spot was part of IBM’s Summer 2000 Olympic Games advertising. "Harlem Fencer" tells the tale of an Olympic-bound fencer from Harlem as told through the eyes of his neighbors and family. He is one of the promised "ten thousand local heroes" on the IBM-powered Olympics.com.
The third award-winning ad edited by Liebowitz was another IBM spot out of O&M. Titled "Supermarket," and helmed by Pytka, the ad shows a man who appears to be shoplifting in a grocery store. As the unsavory subject makes his "escape," he is scanned by what appears to be a metal detector, and a harmless beep is heard. A security guard moving swiftly from behind says, "excuse me" to get the "criminal" ‘s attention. Slowly turning in the direction of the guard, the man is reminded to take his receipt. To cap the spot, IBM promises that checkout lines will soon be a thing of the past.
Liebowitz feels that his winning spots have three things in common: quality film, creative ideas and flexible clients. The ads "have a lot of personality, which a lot of times with commercials gets beaten out of the spot," says the editor. "They are pushed a little bit, and [I am] only able to get away with that because these are the directors and the creatives that I have good relationships with. Ultimately, it’s the client letting you go with it."
Liebowitz notes another similarity. "Each one was cut in one weekend. There is something about playing the music loud and getting into that non-verbal part of your brain and bringing that to the editing," he notes. "A lot of what I did in that first cut is still in those spots. I think that is what lends something special to the editing."
After getting his degree in English Literature at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1989, Liebowitz was recommended by a friend for a job as a runner and assistant at Red Car, Santa Monica. At Red Car he was promoted to assistant editor before leaving to join PYTKA in ’91. At PYTKA, he was promoted again, from assistant editor to editor, and remained there until ’97. After his stay at PYTKA, he became a partner/editor at Crew Cuts, Santa Monica, until ’98. Since most of his clients were New York based, Liebowitz decided three years ago to take a chance and open shop there.
Currently, Liebowitz is working on commercials for American Express Blue and Anderson Consulting, both out of O&M; for MasterCard via McCann-Erickson, New York; and for Sony, through Young & Rubicam, New York.
— Adam Remson
Marty Bernstein
When you watch Hallmark Hall of Fame’s "Hooper," the last thing you think about is the editing– which is exactly how cutter Marty Bernstein of Machete Edit & Design, Chicago, intended it.
"If the film is the fabric, then I am the weaver," observes Bernstein, who copped an AICE Award. He won on the strength of "Hooper," a rare 120-second spot, which was directed by Pytka for Leo Burnett USA, Chicago.
The spot opens on the academic office of an old-time college professor who is packing up his books. The mood is quiet and the room has that dusty feeling. A woman walks in and introduces herself as Beth Hooper, a former student of his. "I heard you were retiring," she says. At first their exchange is strained, as the professor does not remember who she is. She hands him a card and he asks her to read it to him. She obliges. "Who in their life hasn’t planted a seed just hoping that somehow something would grow," she reads. "You may not remember all the things that you’ve done, but everywhere around you seeds are growing and people are blooming. I know. I’m one of them."
The professor’s face softens as he remembers a paper that Ms. Hooper wrote on birth order and early childhood development. As she turns to leave, he asks her what she had become– investment banker? Internet guru? "No," she replies. "I’m a teacher."
According to Bernstein, the editing in "Hooper" may seem less obvious to a mainstream audience, but the spot bears the kind of cutting that other editors respect– the type that appears invisible. "When I was thinking about what to submit [for the AICE’s consideration], I knew this was the one because of what it does to me every time I watch it," he explains. "I get the chills. It’s much harder to edit a dialogue piece with characters than it is to cut to a track; and in this case, the editing needed to completely disappear and bring to life what was intended, which is the story."
Interestingly, it was Bernstein’s first version– with a few slight revisions– that ended up on the air. "I had done the first cut and then put it aside to do a few more," he notes. "Then the agency came in and we tried some more things and somehow nothing was working. Finally, Pytka stepped in and asked, ‘What happened to the first version you did?’ and when we looked at it, everyone in the room just sort of sat up and went, ‘Whoa.’ "
At press time he had just finished cutting a spot for Sears called "Boxes," out of Ogilvy & Mather Chicago, directed by Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood. The ad is a tie-in for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Every time someone buys a KitchenAid appliance at Sears, a portion of the proceeds goes to the Foundation.
Bernstein is also preparing to cut five :30s featuring New York City firefighters, police officers, and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey workers, talking about the friends and colleagues they lost during the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The project is being done pro bono by a company called Intersport Television, Chicago, and director Scott Thor.
Bernstein started his career at Sedelmaier Film Productions, Chicago, in 1980. In ’81, he left Sedelmaier to work independently, becoming what he called "a director’s editor," working with many of Chicago’s production companies and directors.
In ’88, he opened his own Chicago shop called Fine Cut. Bernstein closed Fine Cut in ’91, moved over to now defunct Cutaways, and later did a stint at Spots BME, Chicago, before opening Machete Edit two years ago. "It’s been a really satisfying first two years [in business]," says Bernstein. "I’ve built a good reputation as a dialogue, storytelling editor– and though you tend to get pigeonholed, if I’m going to get pigeonholed, I’d rather be right where I am."
— Sandra Garcia
Gordon Carey
In a business where editors are often typecast according to their style, Gordon Carey says being "pigeon-holed" as a dialogue/comedy specialist hasn’t been too bad.
Carey’s style earned him an award from the AICE. He scored the honor for EDS’ "Cat Herders," directed by John O’Hagan of bicoastal/ international hungry man. "Cat Herders" is just the latest example of Carey’s comedy style.
Indeed, Carey has since been enlisted to cut an abundance of high-profile commercials that use comedy to deliver their message. This includes the recent series of Isuzu ads from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, that re-introduced the iconic Joe Isuzu character; and a series of Holiday Inn ads out Fallon Minneapolis, featuring an adult son haplessly trying to mooch off his parents. And Carey just finished two Chrysler spots– "Forbidden" and "Share the Love"– via PentaMark, Southfield, Mich., directed by hungry man’s Bryan Buckley.
"Cat Herders" debuted during the 2000 Super Bowl as a sort of send-up of the sweeping Hollywood Old West epic. The commercial takes romanticized documentary-style interviews with cowboys, complete with majestic Old West backdrops and sweeping musical score, and mixes them with scenes of these horsemen trying to coral herds of fast-moving housecats. The housecat metaphor illustrates that EDS can corral a company’s data. "Anybody can herd cattle, but holding together ten thousand half-wild short-hairs is another thing all together," explains one cowpoke, managing to keep an arrow-straight face. The EDS campaign also includes "Running With the Squirrels" and "Airplane."
The Los Angeles native didn’t even study film in college, graduating instead with a marketing degree from San Diego State University. If he does have any solid roots in comedy, Carey says they came from his days serving as a page for ABC in the late ’70s. He segued into commercial work in ’83, joining now defunct Film Place as a runner, working his way up to an assistant editor position before joining FilmCore in ’88.
As to the success of "Cat Herders," Carey cites the fact that he’d already worked extensively with the Fallon team of creative director David Lubars, writer Greg Hahn, art director Dean Hanson and producer Marty Wetherall. "I have a very good relationship with these guys," Carey notes. "And as a result, [the spot] came together quickly and went through the approval process very quickly, especially considering all the options we had during editing."
Carey also credits O’Hagan for providing him with a wide variety of options once the editing process began. Carey relates that O’Hagan shot "tens of thousands of feet of film." This included plenty of motion control sequences of cats and horses running across the plains and through water– enough so that the animals, filmed separately so as not to trigger an inter-species war, could be digitally blended together in postproduction by Sight Effects, Venice, Calif.
More important, however, was O’Hagan’s ability to elicit a lot of funny, ironic dialogue from the actors, some of whom were real cowboys. "He understood what the key moments were," Carey says. "He did a tremendous job of capturing the funny moments."
— Daniel Frankel
Russell Icke
You might say that editor Russell Icke of The Whitehouse, which has offices in London, Santa Monica, and Chicago– the firm is also set to open shop in New York– lives his life at the same pace as a spot that’s been cut to a frenetic techno beat. On any given day he might wake up in Los Angeles, then find himself in London the following evening. So perhaps this is just one reason why he was the perfect man to edit Nike’s "Tag," an action-filled spot that chronicles one man’s effort to lose his "It-ness."
The :90 "Tag," directed by Frank Budgen of Gorgeous Enterprises, London, and bicoastal Anonymous Content, out of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., opens on a busy urban street where an unsuspecting young man is silently declared, in tag terms, "It," The viewer quickly sees that it is normal for the entire city to take part in this game, as people run for their lives to get away from him. The man futilely tries to tag the people around him, chasing a woman into her car and going two rounds with a guy in a revolving glass door. The commercial continues in this vein, and just when it seems that everyone has successfully fled from this pariah of It-ness, he spies his lone victim on a subway platform. Their eyes meet and the chase is on. The frame freezes and the word "Tag" appears. The action resumes as the Nike swoosh and the tagline "Play" appear on the screen.
The spot was part of a campaign that W+K billed as Nike’s "Summer Play Initiative." Two other ads in the series– "Racing" and "Shade Runner"– were also helmed by Budgen and edited by Icke. But it was "Tag" that won the honor at the AICE Awards ceremony. SHOOT caught up with Icke in London to talk about the spot and to see how he felt about receiving an award that is exclusively for editors.
"I think [editors] are overlooked in the world, so an editor’s award is great," states Icke. "As well, I think it’s fantastic that the awards were judged by other editors. It’s really hard to judge editing, so it’s great that they did it this way. I’m glad I won, but I was surprised."
Icke certainly earned the honor. At the time Budgen was shooting "Shade Runner" in Toronto, the weather was so bad that he decided to film portions of "Tag" while simultaneously waiting for sunlight. As a result, every time Icke received the dailies, they would contain bits and pieces of two different spots. "In terms of continuity, it was all over the place," recalls Icke, who first worked on "Tag" out of a Toronto editing facility called Third Floor Editing. He later finished the ad at The Whitehouse, Santa Monica. "I’d cut sequences of ‘Tag,’ and then I’d do a little bit of work on the other film and try to edit the bits that I had, but it was very hard to get an overall feeling of the whole spot," relates Icke.
Adding to Icke’s troubles was the fact that the music for "Tag" was, in his words, "a nightmare." "We cut to a track initially and people sort of fell for the track," explains the editor. "And because obviously we couldn’t buy it, trying to find something else was very difficult. We had many, many music houses trying to do the music." Eventually, composer David Wittman of bicoastal music house Elias Associates came up with the perfect track– a techno beat that worked perfectly with the picture.
After 10 days of cutting about 20 hours of footage among the three spots in the campaign, Icke ended up with an award-winning piece. In total, he spent 29 days creating the three spots.
Icke has now worked at The Whitehouse, London, for 10 years. His first three years there were spent assisting editor Rick Lawley, one of The Whitehouse owners; Icke then became a full-fledged editor.
Awards aside, perhaps one of Icke’s greatest accomplishments as an editor was cutting Michel Gondry’s first feature film, Human Nature. (Gondry is represented for commercials by bicoastal/international Partizan.) "I’ve done many things in my life mentally and physically, and that tops them all," states Icke. "It’s a roller-coaster experience. You love it; you hate it. It’s fantastic."
At press time, Icke was well entrenched in editing a Pepsi spot out BBDO New York, called "Kung-Fu," directed by Tarsem of @radical.media. In addition, Icke recently cut a Reebok ad directed by Budgen– titled "Sofa," out of Lowe Lintas, London.
— Sandra Garcia
J.J. Lask
To gauge the dedication with which J.J. Lask worked on the IBM ad "Senegal Women’s Basketball," for which he won an AICE Award, just ask the cabdrivers of New York City. Wanting to steep himself in the world of the commercial’s star– Senegalese basketball star Mamaty Mbengue– he chatted up every cabbie with a remotely African-sounding name and grilled them about her. "I was so just so enamored of her," notes Lask. "It really opened my eyes to what I was doing; it made it really special."
His excellence in editing the spot put him alongside fellow Go Robot! editor– and company owner– Adam Liebowitz in earning AICE honors for IBM’s Olympic campaign, out of O&M. While IBM’s "Harlem Fencer" was one of three commercials for which Liebowitz was honored, Lask took one of the AICE’s 10 awards for his dazzling cut of the sights and sounds of Senegal. Lenard Dorfman of @radical.media directed "Senegal Women’s Basketball."
Capturing the world of Mbengue– the female equivalent of Michael Jordan in her native country– required a delicate mix of footage. Shots of Senegalese culture were swirled together with images of Mbengue playing ball and interview snippets of the locals touting her greatness. The task couldn’t have been any tougher for Lask, who was handed five and a half hours of footage from a shoot that had taken place about a month before the spot was scheduled to air. In addition, many of the interviews that had been taped were unusable because of language barriers or unintelligible accents. "In six years of being an assistant or an editor, this was the hardest job I’d ever been on," he states.
During June, Lask managed to edit the hours of footage into a five-minute clip. Cutting any more seemed impossible at first. "I was stuck with this five-minute thing that I couldn’t cut down because I was in love with it," he recalls. The rest of the creative team members were still traveling around the world shooting for the campaign. So he had just a week to consult with them upon their return and to shave an additional four minutes to create the :60.
Lask credits his close collaboration with director Dorfman and O&M senior partner/executive creative director Chris Wall– a team he has also worked on for campaigns including SAP.com and Contentville.com. "The team at O&M dreams up the magic," Lask explains, "and Lenny Dorfman makes it even better. My job is to just put it all together."
Not only did Lask thank the duo in his acceptance speech upon winning AICE honors; he thanked all the editors he ever worked with while climbing up the ladder. "Those editors taught me the value of working hard," he notes.
Lask began his career in editing as a messenger in the New York office of bicoastal Crew Cuts. There he worked his way up to assisting the edits of some of the professionals that he considered personal mentors, including Crew Cuts partners/editors Chuck Willis and Sherri Margulies, and editor Gary Hernandez. Two years ago, the opportunity to work at Go Robot! came about, and he knew couldn’t pass it up. "I needed that challenge that comes with starting somewhere new," he observes.
If his assignments are any indication, he’s since become a valued member of the Go Robot! team. He recently cut a spot for the American Stock Exchange, directed by Dewey Nicks of bicoastal Epoch Films, out of DDB New York. He also completed work on a quartet of Snickers spots for BBDO New York, which were directed by John O’Hagan of hungry man. "He’s a hard man to please, but that ups the ante," says Lask of O’Hagan. "He’s a great director, and so you want to be great."
After six years in the editing business, Lask has come to the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that a job well done doesn’t have to call attention to itself. "With a great editor, you shouldn’t notice the cuts," he points out. "A lot of people like to edit the crap out of something, and that can sometimes take away from the magic."
— Andrew Wallenstein
Paul Norling
"I accept this for the unsung heroes of editing who are cutting Clorox commercials and will never get recognized," says editor Paul Norling of the AICE Award bestowed upon him for his work on Nike’s "Horror."
He isn’t being flippant. Norling, who cuts out of FilmCore Santa Monica– and also directs spots through hungry man– is certainly flattered by the honor from his peers. But he maintains that the talents of a lot of editors go unappreciated because they aren’t working on the kind of high-profile ads that garner critical attention.
If anything, Norling says, he– or any other editor– couldn’t go wrong cutting "Horror," given that the creatives at W+K, came up with a clever concept, and director Phil Joanou of bicoastal Villains executed it perfectly.
"Phil is to be credited as much or more than anybody on that spot," Norling stresses. "He did an amazing job." A spoof on slasher films, Nike’s "Horror" is set at night at a remote mountain cabin. An attractive young woman– home alone, except for her cat– is in the bathroom undressing as she fills the tub with water. She strips down to her sports bra and shorts, although she is still wearing her Nikes.
Looking into the medicine-cabinet mirror, she combs her hair. When finished, she opens the cabinet and places the comb inside. As she closes the door, she is confronted by the terrifying reflection of a madman wearing a hockey mask, standing right behind her. The heroine turns around and screams, and the chainsaw-wielding attacker lunges toward her, smashing into the mirror after she jumps out of the way and starts running for her life.
As she bolts out the front door of the cabin, he cuts his way through the door to pursue his prey. When she trips over a lawn chair and falls, it looks like she might not make it. But then she scrambles back to her feet and sets a fast pace, running briskly through the dark woods, leaping over fallen tree limbs.
The psycho just can’t keep up with her. He stops and bends over, hardly able to catch his breath. The words "Why sport?" pop up on the screen. Cut to a shot of the woman dashing away and another caption that reads, "You’ll live longer." While our heroine continues to run, her would-be attacker gives up and turns around, wheezing and holding his back as he walks away in defeat.
The spot is scary with ample humor. "It’s done tongue-in-cheek," Norling explains. "All of the cliches of that type of horror film are there: the girl alone in the cabin out in the woods, this Jason-esque character chasing her with a chainsaw."
While some directors provide him with way more footage than he needs, Norling notes that Joanou "is a little more spare because he knows what he wants. That makes my job a lot more fun. When you’re dealing with more limited amounts of film, then you can focus more on the craft of editing and the best way to tell the story."
Joanou, who likes to be involved in every aspect of the spots he works on, was on hand in the editing room to share his thoughts to Norling. The two men work well together. "We both have a great respect for each other’s opinions," observes Norling. "So when he comes in to work, he is there to see a cut. We don’t sit and cut it together. I’ll show him my first cut, and then we’ll start working on it from there."
Knowing that Norling has had a long and successful working relationship with Joanou, the creatives at W+K actually called the editor before they hired Joanou. They wanted to get Norling’s take on the director because they had never worked with him before.
And what did Norling tell them? "I said, ‘You’re about to work with an amazing director, and you’re going to have a great time,’ " he recalls. "And my suggestion to them was, ‘Bring your tennis shoes, because he moves quickly, and he knows what he wants.’ "
— Christine Champagne
Adam Pertofsky
"There was never a huge spotlight on it until after we cut it and we started to see it was special," says editor Adam Pertofsky of Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles, of Nike’s "Freestyle." The ad, out of W+K, Portland, Ore., and directed by Paul Hunter of bicoastal HSI Productions, recently won the editor an award at the AICE competition.
"It’s always a nice felling to win something, especially from your peers," notes Pertofsky of his AICE accolade. "After that project– because it was so much fun to work on, and to work with such great people– it’s kind of a nice closure for the project."
Additionally, Pertofsky adds that having an award specifically for the craft of editing is a good idea. "I think it’s fantastic that the AICE is doing an awards show," he states. "It’s a nice thing that we are just stepping back and looking at the editorial as part of the process."
Freestyle" features five NBA pros displaying their virtuoso dribbling and passing talents. The athletes mesmerize viewers with their graceful style and deadpan stares, but what really grabs attention is the ad’s soundtrack. The score is made up of the sounds of a basketball game– bouncing balls, squeaking sneakers– layered to create funky, polyrhythmic patterns. Pertofsky’s editing adds another rhythmic dimension.
"I always look back on ‘Freestyle’ and have a little smile [on my face]," says Pertosfky. "It’s a fun spot to watch. I have such clear memories of what the process was to work on it. … The process was kind of easy and fun."
The editor says that Hunter provided him with an abundance of excellent material to work with. "Paul did a great job; he was shooting with two cameras and getting tons of coverage," recalls Pertofsky. He points out that some of the footage was shot on the fly, adding, "They wanted to see what the best bits were and really build it in the edit."
During shooting, award-winning dancer and choreographer Savion Glover coached the players. On set, the athletes timed their flashy moves to Afrika Bambaataa’s 1982 hip-hop classic "Planet Rock," as well as to a couple of other tracks.
In the cutting room, Pertofsky took his rhythmic cues from "Planet Rock." Additional tracks by co-writer Bambaataa and Jeff Elmassian of Digihearit? (now Endless Noise), Los Angeles– who was co-writer/ producer/sound designer on the spot– served as sonic guideposts during the sessions, too. Also credited with composing elements of the track is composer/producer Steven Brown of Breakthru Productions, New York.
The editor and Elmassian worked together closely during the edit of the spot, and Pertofsky says it was a very back-and-forth collaboration. "I cut image to beat the whole time," relates Pertofsky. "We built the music little by little. I put shots in that didn’t have any beats and then we’d build to that. Then [Elmassian] would create a music track to go with the picture. … Jeff then went on and produced the track and replaced all the sounds with basketball sounds."
Pertofsky says that there was a good sense of creative balance on the project. "[Hunter] was the driving creative force behind the spot, [but] it was equal all around," says Pertofsky. "Paul would give some great suggestions, and it was the same with the other guys. They would also let me go and do my thing, which was great fun. It never got down to ‘messing with frames,’ as they say."
"Freestyle" is the first spot that Pertofsky and Hunter have collaborated on, but the two worked together on several music videos a few years ago. Pertofsky, who started editing commercials in ’95, has frequently worked with W+K. He previously collaborated with "Freestyle" creative director Hal Curtis on several Nike spots. Other W+K credits include ads for Diet Coke and Miller Genuine Draft.
"Every now and then a commercial breaks into pop culture," notes Pertofsky. "To me, more than any award you can win, that’s the biggest reward– when kids on the street or someone you talk to gets excited that you worked on a commercial that they love. It’s such a rarity that a commercial transcends advertising and actually almost becomes art."
— Fred Cisterna
Stewart Shevin
Stewart Shevin, who recently joined the newly formed Detroit office of Mad River Post, which is located in interim space in Troy, Mich., received an AICE Award for his work on Mazda’s "Zoom Zoom/ All Children," directed by Ken Arlidge of bicoastal Flying Tiger Films, out of Doner, Southfield, Mich. Shevin cut the spot while at his former roost, Griot Editorial, Southfield, Mich.
Shevin happened to be working in New York when he heard about the honor. "I was trying to make a deadline," he recalls. "I finished cutting with the agency at about 7:30, and ran over to the Chelsea Piers. A half hour later I was up at the podium saying thanks." He had been editing a Club Med spot directed by George Jecel of bicoastal Believe Media, through Publicis, New York. Shevin cut the ad through wild(child) editorial, New York, with which he had a relationship for certain assignments while at Griot.
"Zoom Zoom/All Children" opens with a young boy walking along a road in a parched landscape. A close-up shows the kid, sporting a suit and tie, looking into the camera with big eyes, as he whispers, "Zoom, zoom." A beat later, the commercial’s chant-like song (courtesy of Spank! Music and Sound Design, Chicago) kicks in as we watch a montage of little boys riding around on toys, accompanied by the text, "All children know it."
Cut to an adult male cruising across a parking lot on a shopping cart, as the text proclaims, "Some adults remember it." Gleeful shots of an older man spinning in a barber’s chair and a guy riding an office chair follow. Then the phrase, "One car company refuses to outgrow it," appears on the screen. Shots of people driving Mazdas are intercut with images of kids playing, as the text touts the Mazda RX-7 and the Miata, and hints at more models to come. The commercial returns to the first kid as he watches a Mazda drive through the arid landscape. "Get in. Be moved," is the spot’s tag.
"All of these car ads out there talk about the sophistication of the car," notes Shevin. "This spot was all about the experience of movement."
The editor says when he cuts spots, he often puts a note on the wall to remind him and everyone else what the concept and objective of an ad is. "During the course of editorial, we always deviate from [the concept]," explains Shevin. "Every now and then, I’ll point at the wall and say, ‘Serve the story.’ Ultimately, if the ad doesn’t get the story across, then we haven’t done the clients a service. The words [on the note] for ["Zoom Zoom/All Children"] was ‘the emotion of motion.’ That was the guide."
Shevin says cutting "Zoom Zoom/All Children" was an unusual experience. Generally speaking, he notes, during the course of the editorial process, a commercial’s quality goes up and down, "like a sine wave. [But] on this project, the more people that got involved and the more time that went on, it kept getting better and better," he says, adding that Sheldon Cohn, Doner senior VP/director of broadcast production, was a big part of the creative process and was intimately involved in editorial.
Shevin got his start in editing at Image Express, Detroit. He had previously been a still photographer and a film processor at a film lab. After leaving the editorial shop, he turned to directing spots and documentaries for about five years– first as a freelancer, and later through Luna Pier Films, Detroit.
In ’93 he returned to editing when he accepted an offer at Postique, a post house in Southfield, Mich. Shevin helped the company launch a creative editorial division, Griot Editorial, and also served as Postique’s VP. He remained at Griot until he left to join Mad River Post earlier this month.
When asked if his documentary experience informs his commercial editing, Shevin points out that documentaries tell tales just like spots do. "Spots are a great discipline because you’re trying to tell a story in a short period of time," states Shevin. "What’s more important in editing spots is not what you put in, but what you leave out."
