Guild Seeks Members to Teach Master Classes

Membership Outreach

Editor Stephen Rivkin, left, conducts the Picture Editor Master Class in the Guild’s Dede Allen Seminar Room. Photo by Willow Fortin

The Editors Guild’s Membership Outreach Committee is looking for members in good standing to be instructors in the Master Class program and share their knowledge and experience with the younger generation of our membership.

Introduced in Fall 2016, the Master Class program was borne out of many conversations with members discussing the lack of mentoring opportunities in the workplace. Essentially, it is a two-day seminar in which a member of the Guild skilled in a particular discipline (picture, sound or music editorial, sound mixing) teaches a small class of five to eight members about the creative concepts behind their respective disciplines. The classes provide discussion, skills practice and teacher/peer review.

A proven success, the Master Class program has already provided classes in:

Picture editing for film
Picture editing for animation
Picture editing for one-hour drama
Dialogue editing
Foley/BG/Group editorial for television

Those who have taken the classes have found them very rewarding. Likewise, instructors who have taught the class have said they are eager to return and teach again. Past teachers include Alan Heim, ACE; Stephen Rivkin; ACE, Michael Jablow; ACE; and Eileen Horta, MPSE.

While the Membership Outreach Committee looks forward to the Master Classes already scheduled for the first part of 2018, it is always looking for experienced members to take part in the program throughout the year and beyond, to teach the aforementioned classes or new ones.

Classes can be taught during the week or over a weekend, depending on the instructors’ schedules. The structure of the class is flexible, and teachers are encouraged to design it in a way that would be most effective to get their points across. Typically, the class should give an overview of a scene that requires editing or mixing.

The instructors and students discuss overall creative concepts and the approach to working on that scene. In addition to a discussion of the creative work, the teachers are strongly encouraged to address proper conduct in the edit suite or on the mix stage when working with directors and producers, as well as general thoughts on how to navigate the notes that they give.

Editors Guild President Alan Heim, front left, with “student” members who took his Master Class, from left, Brian Jones, Darren Hallihan, Ashley Rath, Michelle Cabalu Zaslav and Scott Pellet, and Guild Training Coordinator Dieter Rozek. Photo by Lisa Dosch

Members interested in participating in the program as an instructor should contact Adriana Iglesias in the Guild office at aiglesias@editorsguild.com. They should be proficient in the appropriate software, even though these are not training classes on using the software.

While the Guild does have a limited footage library available to be used as class materials, instructors are encouraged to ask their productions to make available material with which they are familiar. The Guild also has a non-disclosure agreement/release letter to provide to productions if there are any questions or concerns.

Announcements of the classes will sent out to the relevant classifications two weeks before the selected dates of the classes.

Please consider giving back and providing a wonderful experience for our younger generation of members. For more information on the Master Class program, please contact the Membership Outreach Committee at outreach@editorsguild.com.