Women-owned, bicoastal edit house The Den has added Aaron Tompkins to its roster of editors. Tompkins, who is based in NYC, is joining as a partner.
Tompkins fell in love with editing while watching hip-hop videos as a kid in the 1990s. After having the distinction of being one of two students in his high school’s “film class,” Tompkins went on to study film and graphic design at the University of Arizona. During the summers, he honed his skills at Silvercup Studios in NYC, on HBO megahits including The Sopranos and Sex in the City.
As an editor, Tompkins enjoys working across all genres–from comedy to more fast-paced visual pieces. He has worked on Emmy and Lion-winning global ad campaigns for brands like Google, Budweiser, Nike, and many more throughout his career. In addition to commercial work, Tompkins has also worked on long-form Netflix documentaries. Tompkins also cut Lauren Sick’s atmospheric short for Ford out Wieden+Kennedy which transports the viewer to the driver’s seat as the new Raptor R navigates the nighttime desert landscape with pulse-racing footage and edgy cinematic imagery.
Christjan Jordan, co-founder/editor at The Den, said, “Aaron has an amazingly versatile style that you see in his editing. His ability to shift between any genre–whether enthralling and emotional storytelling or dynamic, stylized work–shows his tremendous level of craft.”
Tompkins said, “The Den has an incredibly talented group of editors that excel in a wide range of genres. I had already had the pleasure of working with Christjan before, so it is nice to have the chance to work alongside him again. I also really like how The Den has such a creative and collaborative way of working, so I’m just happy to be a part of their very talented team.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More