Zoe Schack has been promoted to editor at Final Cut where she began working as an assistant editor three years ago. She is based in the company’s L.A. office.
Schack honed her craft under the mentorship of Final Cut editors Crispin Struthers, Joe Guest, Jeff Buchanan, and Rick Russell. Schack has edited branded content and commercials for Audi, Infiniti, Doritos, and Dollar Shave Club as well as music videos for Swae Lee and Whitney Woerz. Schack has already worked with leading directors including Dougal Wilson, Ava DuVernay, Michel Gondry, Craig Gillespie, and Steve Ayson.
“It’s been amazing watching Zoe’s growth the last few years,” said Final Cut executive producer Suzy Ramirez. “She’s so meticulous, always doing a deep dive into the footage. Clients love working with her because she makes the process fun. She’s grown here at Final Cut so much already under the guidance of our editors, and her craft keeps evolving.”
Originally from a small hamlet north of New York, Schack studied film at RISD and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her love for documentaries led her to intern with renowned filmmaker Albert Maysles and then on to produce the Bicycle Film Festival in Portland, Oregon. She edited several short documentaries and a pilot series that were featured in many film festivals.
Final Cut maintains offices in London, New York and L.A.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More