An Evening With Michael Jablow by Joe Woo, Jr. and Tricia Fass "Danny DeVito was my assistant editor!" That was one of many interesting career stories and film editing insights Michael Jablow shared with assistant editors on June 16th at Electric Picture Solutions during a Fireside Chat. Of course, years later, Devito and Jablow teamed up again, on Throw Momma from the Train as director and editor. After an introduction by Guild Board member Sharon Smith Holley, Michael began a lively audience involving discussion with a focus on music and film. "Feel where the beats go" Michael Jablow was in the business for eight years before he began his editing career in his 30's, towards the end of the studio system days. He studied film in New York and at the AFI, where he says he was made an "official hanger-on" to the paid fellows at Greystone. He joined the Guild as an assistant editor in 1977, the year Hair was filmed. Milos Forman shot Hair for nine months, Lynzee Klingman was the supervising editor and Michael started as an assistant editor, later becoming associate editor. For the "Aquarius" Central Park musical number, which Michael showed, he remembered knowing all of the 500,000 feet of film printed for the scene and recalled the intricate coding system they devised. He explained how, due to the actor's schedule, the reaction shots of John Savage were shot in Thailand and integrated into the film. Versions of cuts were saved by making "dirty dupes." For the "I Got Life" party-crashing musical number, he described starting with the track, finding the best lines and plugging in the cutaways. After nine months of shooting, editing continued for another nine. "Cutting comedy and musicals are closely aligned." Michael was an assistant for three years. Brubaker was his last assisting job. His work impressed Gary Gerlich who was head of post production first for United Artists and then for 2Oth Century Fox. Gerlich was instrumental in getting Michael his first feature, a Chevy Chase comedy, Modern Problems. A year later, on his second feature, Get Crazy, a story about the Filmore East, he met Art Linson with whom he went on to do the teen comedy, Wild Life. Michael's career was off, and feature and television work followed. Delving into stories and discussions about editing decisions and styles, Michael showed a number of scenes from movies he's cut. Kim Basinger sang Cole Porter's "Lets Do It", parallel cut with Alec Baldwin and friends in The Marrying Man. A baseball game montage was cut to Dion's "Runaround Sue" in Little Big League and a dialog scene was shown. A hilarious bitter-sweet sequence from Breast Men was run as was the "Paradise City" performance scene from Can't Hardly Wait. The pieces were entertaining and illustrated points about rules, liberties, visual training, audiences, directors, producers, other media, computers, effects, music and the photochemical and filmmaking processes. And if that wasn't enough, Michael mingled and chatted at the end, and Electric Picture Solutions kept the lights on!   Joe Woo, Jr. and Tricia Fass are assistant editors   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 19, No. 5 - September/October 1998   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776