Editorial and postproduction house Final Cut has added independent feature film editor Jim Helton to its international roster for commercial, branded and long-form work. Helton is a longtime friend, collaborator and editor for independent filmmaker and Radical Media director Derek Cianfrance, known for his features Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond The Pines and The Light Between Oceans. Those three features were cut by Jim Helton and Ron Patane. (Cianfrance also earlier this year won the DGA Award for Commercials.)
Helton met Cianfrance when they were both filmmaking students at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The two became fast friends and frequent collaborators over the subsequent 20-plus years. “I was living in my parents’ basement working at a video store, and teaching myself Avid cutting low-budget trailers at night until Derek called and said, ‘You need to quit and you need to come to New York’,” recalled Helton. Once in New York, Helton made a living, and increasingly, a name for himself as an editor of independent documentaries, television shows and in his first professional collaborations with Cianfrance since college, Brother Tied and Shots In The Dark.
“As an editor, it’s my job to serve the work, find the structure, but I also have to read the room, the collaborators, and act as a partner, counselor and an advisor, to help them birth their creative vision. It’s a lot of fun,” said Helton of his role in the edit suite. “I’ve always wanted to make films,” Helton went on to say, “and as an editor, I’ve found a place, a way to do that.”
Stephanie Apt, president of Final Cut, cited Helton’s “ability to understand a narrative and tease out the beats of a story…His love of film and the craft is infectious; it was clear that his energy and joy would be a wonderful presence at Final Cut. We’re really looking forward to being able to bring that talent and passion to our clients, agencies and other incredible directors.”
Final Cut is represented by Denise Blate Roederer’s RHODA on the East Coast, Doug Stephen & Partners in the Midwest, and by Lisa Sabatino Lange’s Ready Set on the West Coast.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More