Editor Sloane Klevin’s desire to teach has moved her from the West Coast to the East Coast and into one of America’s most prestigious universities. Since 2002, she has been teaching one class a semester as an adjunct assistant professor of film editing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts Graduate Film Division in New York City. In an interview with SHOOT, she explains how and why she began teaching as well has how she balances her academic pursuits with cutting at The Blue Rock Editing Company, the New York house she has been with since August ’02.
During her career, Klevin has cut at such editorial houses as Miller/Wishengrad/Peacock, Santa Monica, and Mad River Post, Santa Monica. She later freelanced and has cut everything from trailers and spots to feature films including Pumpkin and Real Women Have Curves. She most recently cut Heights, which stars Glenn Close, Isabella Rossellini and James Marsden; it debuted at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and is scheduled for release in June.
SHOOT: How did Columbia approach you to teach? Is this your first teaching job?
Klevin: Well, not really, I had been a mentor in L.A. for years through IFP Project: Involve. [IFP stands for Independent Feature Project, a nonprofit organization] This woman that I went to UCLA with, Pam Tom, started this program at IFP to promote diversity in the film business. And basically they take applicants–aspiring or emerging filmmakers who are either from a minority, of color, or gay or lesbian–and they find out what they want to do. They then hook them up with a mentor who’s a professional in the film business from the field they want to be in. I had been doing that for years in L.A. and just loved it. Every year I’d have some film student who was my mentoree and they would come and hang out with me at work, or intern for me on a movie, or come to sets, or ADR, or whatever, and I would advise them on their student films.
I just really enjoyed it so I wanted to teach and I had applied to UCLA and they wouldn’t let me teach there because I didn’t have a master’s degree. Then I was in New York freelancing for Blue Rock cutting some commercials and I met a friend of a friend who was the chair of the Columbia Film School. One of their editing professors had just died–They were looking for a replacement and she met me at this cocktail party and we talked for a while and she offered me the job. She just said, “I think you are going to be perfect for this,” and I had really always wanted to teach so I thought, “I’m just going to structure my life so I can do it.” I teach at night.
SHOOT: What class are you teaching now?
Klevin: In the fall I teach editing to second-year graduate students [who are editing their own films which they shot in the spring].
In the spring semester I teach an advanced editing class, which I sort of created [for students in their third year], where as a group the whole class edits another student’s thesis film….The class edits the scenes over a certain period of time and we wind up with a first assembly. Then we invite the director in to see the first assembly and give notes and the class comes up with a set of notes too. We revise the film and it is sort of a class where they get to go through the entire editing process from dailies to hopefully locking picture.
SHOOT: What are the challenges of trying to manage this dual life of editor and teacher?
Klevin: I taught last night. I managed to get out of work at 6:30 p.m. and go to start teaching at 7. I was really tired when I left [the office], but the work the students are all doing is so exciting and the process of coming up with ideas of how they can improve their films sort of invigorates me. So by the time I leave there, I’m wired instead of exhausted because it’s exciting. But I couldn’t do more than one class a semester.
In commercials there’s a lot of downtime when you’re waiting for changes, you’re waiting for a response. Maybe your cuts are approved but you’re not going to conform right away, you’re waiting for effects or something, so it’s not hard to find a day every couple of weeks or every few weeks when I can go up to school and meet students. There’s always a morning or an afternoon you can break away, or I have students come here [to Blue Rock] if I can’t break away.
SHOOT: How does teaching influence your professional practice and vice versa?
Klevin: I think teaching–especially the way that the Columbia program is set up–is really good practice for being on your toes and coming up with solutions to problems quickly.
I never know what a student is going to bring in, what the film is going to look like, how well it’s going to be working, what the problems are going to be. When the lights go up after they screen it, everybody looks at me and they expect me to have ideas and notes about how they can make the film work better and make suggestions. Editing is all about coming up with solutions of how to make something better. And I guess it works the other way as well. The more I edit, the better I get at it. So the more ideas I have when I go and meet with my students, the more I can offer them in terms of inspiration.
SHOOT: They must be thrilled to have a working professional right there at their disposal to learn from.
Klevin: I think so. A lot of times, rather than talking about their projects, they want to talk about, “What is it like in the real world? How did you break in? How do you break into commercials? How do you break into features? What are my chances of getting a job? What are the politics involved? What are the most important skills I need to work on?” Because they’re all graduate students, they’re eager to get out there and start making a living. They don’t want a teacher who doesn’t really work in the business. They want to know what it is really like out there and what are the professional challenges….
They want to have as many options as possible. And I think people are realistic with them about their chances of getting out of school and immediately getting work as a director or an editor of features. That’s a long-term goal. They would all love to break into commercials. And some of them have internships at commercial production companies or commercial postproduction companies.
SHOOT: Do you help them get internships or jobs?
Klevin: Yes, I do actually. One of my students last year actually was my intern on my last movie, and now she’s working as an apprentice over at MacKenzie Cutler [a New York editing house]. And I have some students who have been cutting short films. When I get phone calls to do very low-budget features or shorts that I don’t have time to do, I’ll pass on the names of my students and often times they’ll take the job. It depends on what their interests are.
SHOOT: So what do you see in this new generation of talent? Is it different from when you were in school?
Klevin: Yes, they have so much more technical knowledge. When I was in school, there was no digital video, no high-def, no Avid or Final Cut Pro. From all of this readily available equipment, students today have much more hands-on experience. They all have laptops with Final Cut Pro. They are much more skilled in shooting, editing and graphics because of the whole computer-based workflow and all the programs they have at home.
SHOOT: You’ve told me how you got into teaching, basically through the mentoring program in Los Angeles. But what drives you to continue to teach, to take a path that most people don’t pursue?
Klevin: First of all, a lot of people helped me when I started out and I feel like the whole film business is based on personal connections and people helping each other out and recommending each other. I had help from people along the way and it [teaching] is a way to sort of give back and continue that. I also get really inspired by my students, by their enthusiasm and their creativity, their talent and intelligence–and it’s fun. Also, they’re the commercial and film directors of the future and I’m sort of meeting them now which is really exciting for me, to sort of watch them throughout their careers. Right now I’m actually cutting a short film on the side for one of my ex-students. It’s just a great way to meet really talented people and it’s fun to watch them grow.
