#8 in a Series The Eastern Breeze News and Information from the Eastern Region by Martin Levenstein, Guild 2nd Vice President My first union job was at ABC Sports in 1977. I was an assistant editor. We had two film units, 'Wide World of Sports' and 'The American Sportsman', and as I remember, there were perhaps 12 editing teams, each with an editor and assistant, a supervising editor for each unit, several sound editors with their assistants and two apprentice/expediters. The total crew was 30-35 people. Next, I was the sound apprentice on 'Honeysuckle Rose'. There were four or five sound editor and assistant teams on the movie, each doing two or three 1000-foot reels of dialog and effects. We took up the entire 7th floor of Sound One. The picture department was at the end of the hall. Shortly after that, I was a picture assistant on 'Reds'. When I joined the crew, editorial had been in full swing for over a year, including time in England during production. We soon had over 60 people We have lost, to a great degree, our sense of professional community. working in post, using four floors at TransAudio. There were over six picture editors, including Dede Allen, Craig McKay, Jerry Greenberg, Kathy Wenning, David Ray and Norman Gay, and many assistants including Angelo Corrao, Cindy Kaplan, Eric Beason, Claire Simpson, Jill Savitt and Bill Scharf, plus picture apprentices led by Bill Kruzykowski and Stuart Stanley. Maurice Schell’s sound department was scratch mixing every day for months, prepping and updating scenes as they were cut and re-cut. At any time when the bar was open, one could go across the street to the Tripple Inn and find crew members sitting in the upstairs balcony room, often bleary-eyed and unfocused. I was on 'Reds' for ten months. After working for a little more than a year in features, I had formed friendships and professional relationships which last to this day. I have been trying to put a face on the words used to describe our experiences since the "digital revolution." It’s easy to toss around terms such as "decentralized workspaces" and "isolated work environments" – but what do they really mean? Entering timecodes and checking databases for accuracy are tedious tasks, but so was cleaning and checking track fill as a sound apprentice. Marking up magnetic track to reflect work track codes on the mix track of a scene was a job that took months out of my life on 'Reds'. Was this better than conforming and re-conforming EDLs and change lists? The difference, as I see it, is in the contact that we do or do not have with our co-workers. When I worked on a large crew, or in a situation where the entire editorial staff was housed in one place, the opportunities for social interaction and cross-pollination of ideas and friendship were, I think, much greater than they are today. Work now seems to be more individualized, with everyone loading what they need into their own computers and then hunkering down to work alone. Picture, sound and music departments, rather than being housed together on the same floor, are often separated, perhaps in a facility across town. Crews are smaller or broken apart and located in different places. A computer is a cutting room in a box. Unless one is printing dailies, it’s no longer necessary to work at a place where a vendor can provide Moviolas, KEMs, splicers, benches and bins. I feel we have lost, to a great degree, our sense of professional community. Our younger members can’t have lost what they never had, but they are participating in a more sterile work environment than in the pre-digital period. This has been of great concern to the Eastern Region Directors and Alternates. If the editorial process is becoming more decentralized and we are becoming more isolated from one another, what can we do to regain our community experience? We are trying, through classes and seminars, meetings and screenings, to make the Guild the central place in the Eastern Region for people who work in post production to find that editorial community. We represent people who work on all kinds of projects in many different environments. We need your help to bring everyone together. Participate! We had an excellent program at our last quarterly membership meeting when Tom Ohanian, a fellow editor, and Michael Phillips, both members of the Avid team, gave us an indication of what Avid is thinking for the future and responded to members’ questions in a very helpful way (see article). On July 26th, we screened the latest John Waters movie 'Cecil B. Demented', a film that was cut in New York by Eastern Region Guild members. The editing crew was on hand to discuss their experiences. We are developing more and more programs that we hope will be of interest to our members. So when you get flyers in the mail, or see them posted in your workplace, please come. Meet other people in the Guild, learn how others are solving problems and keeping up with technology in their work. Make some new friends. Help us to regain our community. The union is about people working together. Now, more than ever, we need just that.   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 21, No. 4 - July/August 2000   Guild Home | Magazine Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700