As evidenced by the lead story in this week’s special report on editors, grooming the next generation of cutters requires skill, talent and a certain amount of luck. The following is a look at three editors making their mark in the editing world. While each editor is experienced, all are relatively new to the U.S. spot market—and already establishing reputations as great talent.
Dave Herman
"I love comedy," says Dave Herman, who signed with Version2. Editing (V2), New York, in November 2002. "I think, in general, advertising that makes you laugh is more palatable than anything else."
As the editor of such spots as the Game Show Network’s "Botulism," Levi’s "Karaoke" campaign and "Subway," for Dentyne Ice, Herman has been making viewers laugh for more than five years—four of which were spent on the agency side.
Herman’s editing career began in ’97 when, after several years as a production assistant and production manager, he decided to make a director’s reel. "I couldn’t really find good people who were willing to cut [the spec spots] for nothing," he says. "So, I learned myself. The director’s reel became an editor’s reel."
On the basis of that reel, Herman got a job as an in-house editor at ad shop Kovel, Kresser & Partners, Los Angeles (now Kovel/Fuller, Culver City, Calif.). "I faked my way onto my own Avid and got a lot of experience," recalls Herman.
In ’99, Herman moved to TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, where he cut the humorous "Karaoke" campaign (directed by Chuck McBride, executive creative director at the San Francisco office of TBWA/Chiat/Day) and "Botulism," which was helmed by Roman Coppola of bicoastal The Directors Bureau.
"Botulism" featured quick cuts of game show fans shouting the correct answer at a clueless contestant. That spot garnered a Silver Lion at the 2001 Cannes International Advertising Festival, as well as a Silver Clio. "I always like a challenge, so that was a great job," Herman says. "It was tough, and it was editorially driven and it was a tight time constraint."
Though Herman calls McBride and other creatives "amazing," he opted out of the agency world in early ’01, and moved to the San Francisco office of Crew Cuts, which also maintains shops in Santa Monica (Crew Cuts West) and New York. "Basically, I don’t function well in corporate environments," he explains. "I butted heads with administration-type people."
After Crew Cuts’ San Francisco office closed in June ’01 (it reopened the following September), Herman worked out of its Santa Monica office for a brief period before relocating to V2, noting at the time that "great things were happening in New York." His most recent projects include "Subway," directed by Bob Giraldi of bicoastal CaseGiraldi Media via Bates Worldwide, New York. In the ad, a man waiting for a subway enjoys a casual flirtation with an attractive woman. As she gets on the train, she pops a piece of Dentyne Ice in her mouth, breathes onto the window and writes her phone number in the condensation. Without a pen and paper, he is unable to get the digits—but several other would-be suitors do get her number in the process. "That was a case where the director’s cut got sold to the client," relates Herman. "It was a great lesson for me because most of the time you do the director’s cut as an afterthought."
Though he’d like to eventually cut and direct feature films, Herman says, "Right now, I’m very focused on editing spots. I want to come to the top of this mountain first. Later, I can peer down at other options."
Jason Macdonald
Editor Jason Macdonald recalls that when he began cutting "Nelly" for ESPN, he thought, "I’ve done this before."
A former music video editor who had worked with clip directors such as LITTLE x, of bicoastal HSI Productions, Canadian-born Macdonald could easily relate to the spot, which was directed by David Palmer of bicoastal/international Partizan, and features the eponymous hip-hop artist and his backup singers performing in sports gear. Part of the "Without Sports" campaign done via Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), New York, the spot includes the tag, "Without sports, there would be nothing to wear."
Though Palmer had done a cut with his editor "to give us an idea," says Macdonald, he and the W+K creatives decided to go in a different direction. "The big thing in the hip-hop videos these days is quick cuts on the beat or on scratching, or cuts within the same lens, and that’s how [Palmer’s] video was cut," Macdonald explains. "I didn’t think it read well enough that the people were wearing sports clothes. We needed to slow it down a bit."
Slower proved to be better. Macdonald recently spoke to Palmer and reports that the director was, "incredibly happy about the way the ESPN ad came out." While Macdonald enjoyed returning to his music video roots, it was a desire to try new styles that brought him from Toronto to the New York office of Mad River Post last year. "I’d learned a lot about visual imagery and cutting to music, but not about storytelling and dialogue," says Macdonald, a former DJ who had edited out of Toronto production houses Rage and Generator Films. "That was my inspiration."
Though he had worked on some spots at Generator, they mostly resembled music videos, like the hilarious spoof, "Tiny Sparrow of Love," for Canadian candy company Sugar Mountain, directed by Zach Math via Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto. What’s more, spotwork was far more available in the states. "There’s no comparison between the two markets," Macdonald relates.
Macdonald assisted Mad River editor Dick Gordon for a year, working on several high profile ads for NFL/United Way via Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York, before branching out on his own. "I guess I’d still say that my style is geared more towards imagery and fast cuts, but I do like storytelling as well," he says.
With "California Big News," the recently completed AT&T spot directed by Albert Watson through cYclops Productions, New York, for Y&R, Macdonald tried his hand at yet another editing style. "It was for local phone service in California, so it had all these vignettes—beautiful images of people doing things in California," he says. "It was like music videos because I was cutting images together, but the feeling is different than the stuff I usually do. It was very peaceful."
JD Smyth
JD Smyth has worked in the United States and in his native Britain. He’s cut music videos, documentaries, short films and an eclectic array of spots for clients such as BMW and Sony. "I like variety," says Smyth, who signed with his stateside roost, Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles, in ’02. "I’m interested in it all, whether it’s comedy, visual effects-based stuff, drama or whatever."
Still, Smyth says, "my first love is basic storytelling." He returned to that love with "Awestruck," a recent spot for BMW directed by John Dolan of bicoastal Anonymous Content, via Fallon Minneapolis. Quietly humorous, the spot depicts a group of men admiring a BMW. At the end of the spot, they reluctantly return to work on what’s presumably a less impressive piece of machinery—a rocket at NASA. "It had that little joke at the end, but the main aim was to try and not be too furious with the cut," explains Smyth. "It’s nice, calm, quiet. It’s all about dead space almost—the pauses and the silences. For me, it was a good change of pace."
Other recent spot credits include four client-direct ads for Jody Maroni, a restaurant chain. Smyth also cut a trio of spots—"Space Needle 1," "Space Needle 2" and "Space Needle 3"—for the Washington State Lottery out of Publicis, Seattle, and directed by Neil Harris of bicoastal Smuggler. The final spot in that campaign, "Space Needle 3," made it into SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See Gallery" (SHOOT, 12/6/02, p. 11).
Smyth got his start as a runner at RSA Films, London. (The company also maintains bicoastal RSA USA.) "RSA really was my film school," notes Smyth. "It was a fantastic place to train up, because we had a chance to dabble in everything. About five or six years ago, they got their own Avid. So I put my hand up for that."
At RSA, he edited a range of projects, including the Radiohead videos "Pull Pulk" and "Revolving Doors—Like Spinning Plates" for director Johnny Hardstaff, who helmed the clips through Black Dog Films, Los Angeles and London; Black is RSA’s music video division. He also cut Sony Handicam’s "Store" (directed by RSA’s Carl Erik Rinsch via Saatchi & Saatchi, London)—a spot he actually appeared in. In it, a man and woman magically change a store from an ice cream parlor to a tattoo shop to a gas station, with the help of a Handicam. "I’m the guy behind the counter," Smyth relates. "The character had to be this guy who looked like he’d spent a large amount of time in a darkened room. The first day of having to deal with the selects was very unusual, staring back at myself like that."
After a decade at RSA, Smyth moved to Rock Paper Scissors—and the U.S. commercial market. "It’s different here, but not quite as different as I expected," says Smyth, whose recent projects include the documentary, Center As You Enter, produced by Jennifer Golub (executive producer at TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco), and a recently completed corporate spot for Motorola via Ogilvy & Mather, New York, that was directed in-house. "When I came here, a lot of people said, ‘Oh you’ll never see the director,’" Smyth relates. "There’s an element of that, but at the same time, I think that a lot of the creatives I’ve worked with are more hands-on. It’s a trade-off."
