Features

“When did ADR start?” It was a simple question, and our director was fond of asking simple questions.

As the new comedy The Last Word premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 24, editor Julia Wong, ACE, was recalling to CineMontage what a great experience she had cutting the movie. “Director Mark Pellington was a great collaborator and so much fun to work with,” she says. “We hit it off right away.”

Acclaimed writer-producer David Simon’s production company has delivered multiple hit series for cable television, most recently for HBO. During that time, he has built a team of picture editors who have been working together for over a decade.

The year was 1976. The place was the New York brownstone of editor Ralph Rosenblum, ACE. And the film was Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, released the following year to wide acclaim and four Oscar wins. One day after work, Allen and Susan E. Morse, ACE — later his main editor, then an assistant editor — found themselves leaving the cutting room at about the same time.

In a CNN.com article about picture editor Kevin Tent, ACE, on the occasion of his Academy Award nomination for cutting director Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” (2011), actress Laura Dern was quoted as saying of the editor: “Kevin’s art lies in the genius of trusting human beings.”

Over the past two decades, editor Alisa Lepselter, ACE, has worked on a range of films. Her credits include a caper set in the cookie business, a farce focused on a filmmaker afflicted with blindness, and a crime story populated by England’s upper classes.