My ongoing personal quest to become a media scholar/practitioner began as a child. I was born in 1963 and grew up on an era-appropriate pop-media-rich diet. I was teethed on rock & roll music and cult-classic television of the 1960s and 70s. Watching TV in the afternoons and on late-night weekends, my parents taught me about the movies of their childhood, the films of the Classic Hollywood era of the 1940s and 50s. On summer nights, drive-in theaters were our family’s picnic-and-interactive-movie experience. I am, at heart, a genre geek. I love science fiction, fantasy, classic monster and kaiju movies, and animation. The themes, epic quests, and heroes that drive these narratives have always inspired me and fed my imagination. I am, first, foremost, and always, a fan.
A defining moment for me as a child was seeing the French film La Rivière du hibou (The Owl River), 1961, based on the short story “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce and directed by Robert Enrico. It was shown to us in school, projected from a 16mm film print. In the film, a prisoner is hanged from a bridge; the rope breaks, and he swims free, climbs ashore, and runs home to his wife. Just as he falls into her arms, the film cuts back to the bridge, the rope snaps taut, his neck breaks, and he dies. We realize that his escape has been a fantasy. I was stunned. This was the first time that I clearly understood that someone had crafted this film with intent and taken me on an emotional journey as a viewer. It was a deeply profound realization for me. My imagination was ignited! I wanted to do that, even if I didn’t quite know what that meant! I was eight years old.
My childhood was not a conventional one. My parents were adventurous; in my teens we lived aboard a wooden yacht, and I grew up wild on the Indian River in South Florida. I learned early that a map is not the only way to get where you’re going. I left public school young, took a G.E.D., waited a lot of tables, and eventually found my own road back to school by talking my way into film school. I am, if nothing else, resilient and adaptive.
It was in film school that I was introduced to the idea of Media as both a scholarly pursuit and an art form. My nascent film studies instilled in me a deep love of early historical and international cinema. It was here that I began my lifelong quest to become a media scholar/practitioner in earnest, transcending mere fandom (credentials listed on my CV: BFA, University of Arizona; MFA, American Film Institute). As a media scholar, I am fascinated with how the development of new technologies has historically driven new production techniques, which in turn continually push the boundaries of aesthetic expression in practical application.
My CV reflects a rare, dual career in editorial/post-production and education/teaching. I am both an editor and an educator. My cutting room experience makes me a better teacher, because I bring real, hands-on workflows into every classroom. Teaching makes me a better editor because analyzing and explaining a cut forces me to understand why and how a cut works (or doesn’t). Each craft sharpens the other.
As an undergraduate film student, I learned to edit my own movies on Super 8mm and 16mm film using splicing blocks, razor blades, and tape on an upright Moviola and a flat-bed Steenbeck. My first editorial PA and apprentice editor jobs were on indie features editing on film workprint, just as digital editing and computer-generated visual effects were beginning to change the post-production landscape forever. I have since grown into a post-production supervisor, digital post-production workflow specialist, and an Emmy Award-winning professional editor (Days of our Lives).
As an educator, I am an experienced instructional designer, Avid Certified Instructor, and adjunct faculty member (credentials listed on my CV: ACI, Avid Technology, MS, Full Sail University). I have developed and taught media studies educational content for in-person and online courses across multiple venues (academic, vocational, corporate). I teach non-linear digital editing, post-production, digital film and video workflows, and editing aesthetics. I teach people how to see, think critically, problem-solve, and make.
What has always pulled at me is the edge: that moment a new technology turns up and rewrites how stories get made and shared. Silent film into sound film. Film into digital. Practical effects into computer-generated effects. And now, virtual production, game-engine worlds, and artificial intelligence are being thrust into the middle of the creative process and becoming ubiquitous. Most people find the edge frightening, and I understand why. I don’t. I have spent my whole life holding the past in one hand while walking into the future, adapting to what’s coming, learning it in my hands, and then building the systems that help other people learn it, too.
Which is where I find myself now, at the crux of another media convergence point. The editor, the teacher, the systems-builder, and the eight-year-old fan in the dark, all of them moving in the same direction, toward whatever stories are about to become, and toward helping the people and the industry I love find their feet there.
Because I am still, underneath all of it, that kid in the dark, stunned that somebody built this on purpose.
I still want to do that.