Month: February 2026

“I wanted the movie to feel like New York in the late ‘90s.”

In Memoriam: Don Zimmerman: June 15, 1944 – July 24, 2025

Picture editor Don Zimmerman, ACE, had an abundant sense of humor. He had to. Over the course of a career […]

Getting to First Bass: How Love of Music Led to a Sound Career

During Christmas 1991, I got my first bass guitar — a Washburn Force ABT in candy-apple red — and started taking lessons at the local music shop. There, I made friends who became my first bandmates.

Ben Baudhuin Talks Editing on Blumhouse Thriller ‘Drop’

by Jack Giroux Ben Baudhuin is always asking himself, “Is it satisfying? Is it entertaining?” The editor’s collaborations with […]

Cut to Black: Saleem Aziz – Editor

It’s celebration time! Three times a week in February, The MPEG African American Steering Committee is celebrating its African American […]

WHAT OUR MEMBERS DO: Melanie Escano, Assistant Editor

I’m an assistant editor on “Chicago Med.” I process dailies, organize and mark scenes, add in temporary sound effects, mock up simple visual effects, score temporary music, export producer/studio cuts for review, troubleshoot technical issues, turn over the locked show for sound, music, and color departments — and my editor, Dorian Harris, ACE, gives me scenes to cut.

Fun Junk: How Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson Made a Showbiz Classic With ‘Sunset Boulevard’

“‘Sunset Boulevard’ is what my wife would call, and I would agree with her, fun junk,” Woody Allen once said. “You know, it’s great fun, but it’s a junky and silly movie.”

Fun and ‘Games’: How a David Mamet Thriller Cast its Spell

The “House of Games” big twist hit me like a left hook — and that was just at the end of the first act. Its world, a stripped-down modern-noir dreamscape, cast a kind of mysterious spell. And the language? It was Mamet operating at his peak. I mean, c’mon.

Seeing Things: How Glenn Cote and the ‘Alien: Earth’ Team Got Those Special Effects

“Alien: Earth” lead visual effects editor Glenn Cote and his team certainly had their hands full, liaising with eight different visual effects vendors and supplying them with everything needed to efficiently generate animated creatures or complete post-viz shots, while also providing picture editor Regis Kimble with elements he needed, as quickly as possible, to keep the show on schedule.

‘The Paper’ and Its Cuts: The Team Behind the Peacock Mockumentary Tells All

“We redressed the whole set to look like a 1970s newsroom. Greg Daniels and Michael Koman based it on Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries — the black-and-white film look, the texture, the gear. We brought in period costumes and typewriters, even had a few people smoking, and shot on black-and-white 16mm film. Even the aspect ratio was different from the rest of the show.”