Editor Richard Rosenbaum, a principal in New York-based spot editorial house Invisible Dog, is determined to extend the company’s scope to include short and feature-length films. The diversification began when Rosenbaum edited the recent independent feature Everything for a Reason.
According to Rosenbaum, the house’s non-spot work (editors Mike Huetz and JP Morgan have also been moonlighting on non-commercial pieces) came in handy during the six-month-long strike by the actors’ unions against the ad industry. "I think that because we took on these projects, we were able to weather the strike in a better way than if we’d been totally dependent on advertising," Rosenbaum observed. "We worked on spots over the summer, but the strike did have an impact.
"In a way," he continued, "we were kind of forced to do work on non-spot projects because of the strike, but non-spot work also opened a window of creativity that we can all bring to bear on our commercial projects. It gives all of us an added perspective that I think is invaluable for advertising." He added, "Our antennae had been out for these sorts of projects before the strike, and we’re interested in taking on more longer-format projects."
To date Rosenbaum has edited the independent romantic comedy Everything for a Reason, written and directed by Vlas ("Vlasi") Parlapanides. This came to him "about a year and a half ago," Rosenbaum recalled, when "a young director called our place and asked if I would be interested in working on a movie. I said I would, but that I’d have to work around my commercial schedule."
Rosenbaum believes that Oren Sarch of The Blue Rock Editing Company, New York, helped to turn the indie filmmaking industry on to the prospect of commercial editors cutting films. In 1998, Sarch edited Darren Aronofsky’s acclaimed p. "I think that opened people’s eyesflespecially in the independent film communityflto working with commercial editors on features," said Rosenbaum. "Vlasi was one of the many young, independent filmmakers who realized that they could work with commercial editors if they were willing to work around the editors’ commercial projects." Rosenbaum observed that feature directors "get a different vibe or attitude towards film
coming from commercial editors. I think commercial editors are very fast, and they have a certain aesthetic that’s been built up by working in a visual shorthand, because you need to work in a visual shorthand when you’re cutting a :30. You take that same kind of grammar and apply it to filmfland you get interesting results." Parlapanides was determined to get that vibe, so, "he went through the MPE Directory [the Motion Picture TV and Theatre Directory, which lists production and postproduction companies], calling every commercial house he could find."
According to Parlapanides, after he’d trawled alphabetically through the Directory, "Three editorial houses wanted to edit the film, and I felt most comfortable with Richard." He added, "We [he and producer Charley Parlapanides] feel very, very lucky to have had someone with as much experience as Richard edit the film."
Rosenbaum agreed to take on the project after reading the script and looking at the dailies. "The fact that the director wanted to let me just go at it and do my thing made it an exciting project. Most exciting was that I didn’t have to sell something in 30 seconds. I had the freedom to tell a story over 90 minutes; I wasn’t worried about the clock." He enthused, "I was able to think about character arcs, and about how something that happened in ‘chapter one’ worked with something in ‘chapter 12’. It was like rewriting a novel."
Nonetheless, the process was not without difficulties, reported Rosenbaum: "Because of Vlasi’s budget limitations, I never had more than three or four takes per scene. With commercials, you’re used to having five times that. Some sections that I spent a month [editing] ended up on the cutting room floor because they didn’t advance the story, or presented the character in the wrong light … these were subtleties that I’d never really had to deal with before. It was a tremendous learning experience for me."
Although there wasn’t much money in editing Everything for a Reason, Rosenbaum doesn’t mind: "I wanted to get a movie under my belt. Hopefully the money will improve if I edit more features." Since Rosenbaum and Invisible Dog put so much time into editing Everything for a Reason, the company is credited as one of the executive producers. "And we have a point stake in it, so if it gets distributed, we hopefully will make a little money," Rosenbaum noted. Everything for a Reason was shown at the AFI (American Film Institute) International Film Festival in October and will be seen at Cinequest 11, The San Jose (Calif.) Film Festival. Currently, Everything for a Reason is in consideration for several other festivals while Vlas and Charley Parlapanides seek distribution for the feature.
Though Rosenbaum plans to cut more films, he doesn’t want to give up commercials—"not just for financial reasons, but because I like doing them. And actually I appreciated working on them more when I was deep into the movie. It was then that I really welcomed working on a spot." (His recent spot credits include Canon’s "Pulse" and "Home Movie," both through DCA Advertising, New York.)
However, Rosenbaum declared, "I would definitely like to do more film editing. Since the movie premiered, people have called, and I’ve read scripts. They [film people] just have to be willing to work around my schedule." Rosenbaum is currently cutting high-speed Internet access company Optimum Online’s "New Computer," "Internet in a Box" and "Blah Blah Blah," all though FCB, New York. For the latter spot, "The stand-up comic is just saying, "Optimum Online, blah blah blah …" and then we make all the copy points through titles," Rosenbaum laughed. "I can’t think of too many commercials where the dialogue is ‘Blah blah blah’ for 30 seconds. That’s the kind of commercial I love cutting: It’s all about timing. I would never give up the opportunity to work on a commercial like that."
Invisible Dog’s Morgan and Huetz have been branching out in similar directions. Both contributed to the editing of the short film Juju. Huetz also edited the 22-minute film Surplus, as well as the footage for the play Crave, which ran Off-Broadway from mid-November until mid-December. For more about Invisible Dog and Juju, check out Crossover at https://www.shootonline.com/thisweekonline/ columns.
