They love Raymond. They hate Chris. So how do they feel about Der Fuehrer?
That’s the premise behind a sitcom called Everybody Hates Hitler, which also happens to be the winning entry in the AICE Toronto Camp Kuleshov trailer-editing competition for assistant editors. Submitted by Lauren Horn from School Editing, the :60 promo–which promotes Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds as a network TV sitcom–was the top choice of the Camp Kuleshov jury.
Horn was rewarded for her efforts with a cash prize of $1,000, which was presented at the Toronto Camp Kuleshov judging and awards bash, held last week at The Rivoli bar and nightclub in Toronto.
Second place went to assistant editor Laura Dunn of Relish Editing for her comic take on The King’s Speech titled “How I !#$%?! Your Queen Mother,” in which Oscar-winner Colin Firth plays a royal who’s having problems more common with Viagra users than with those battling speech impediments. Dunn won an iPad 2 in recognition of her work.
Third place went to assistant editor Jason Cook of Panic & Bob Editing, who also chose to re-frame The King’s Speech. His entry, “The King’s Pad,” recasts the film as a comedy about two men–Firth and co-star Geoffrey Rush–who play apartment roommates with a somewhat ambiguous relationship. Cook was rewarded with a $250 Visa gift certificate for his efforts.
To view the Toronto winners, click on the AICE Camp Kuleshov Toronto web page here.
The assignment for the competition called for assistant editors to select one of a dozen films and cut a 60-second commercial that promotes the film as a situation comedy. The list of films ran the gamut from smash hits to cult favorites. In addition to Inglorious Basterds and The King’s Speech, it included The Social Network, Slum Dog Millionaire, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, The Blind Side, The Fighter, The Shawshank Redemption, Twilight, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas and Drag Me to Hell.
In a departure from other AICE Camp Kuleshov competitions–in which the entries were judged several days before the awards presentation–the Toronto Chapter screened and judged the work in the style of a reality TV show like So You Think You Can Dance or The X-Factor. The event was even subtitled “So You Think You Can Edit, Toronto?”
Each entry was screened at the Rivoli event and judged right there on the spot, with the jury offering its critiques of each promo. The judges then scored them on a scale from 1 to 25, and the entries with the top point totals were the winners.
The jury included Michelle Orlando, a producer at John St. Advertising; Dan Ford, executive producer at production company Sons and Daughters; Tom Feiler, a director with Code Film; freelance agency creative Ian Kiar; and Jackie Roda, an editor at School Editing.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More