By Ricky Kreitman
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Rose, didn’t know how to operate the 16mm projector. Educational films spilled out like spaghetti, so I stepped in and proudly became the class projectionist. I would even splice broken segments with Scotch tape. I know that “projector boy” sounds like the coolest kid in school, and I wore that badge proudly.
I knew how to work a projector because I used to make Super 8 movies with my friends. We hijacked the family GAF camera meant for vacations and staged epic productions in the backyard. I’d buy 50-foot rolls of film from the grocery store, shoot them, wait a week for processing, then project our 3½-minute masterpieces onto a white sheet in the garage, holding my breath to see if my grand vision made
it onto film.
I dabbled in claymation, war films (complete with pyrotechnics), and slapstick comedies — a Spielberg wannabe. We edited in-camera. I didn’t understand the power of editing yet — not until the day we decided our monster movie needed a cameo from the real Godzilla. We checked out an actual “Godzilla” film from the library, “borrowed” a few frames, and spliced them into our epic. That’s what made the movie work.
I turned our garage into a makeshift movie theater, invited the neighborhood kids, charged a quarter, made popcorn, and ran double features: first a cartoon from the library, then “my” feature. It wasn’t just about making movies; it was about creating an experience. Watching an audience respond — laugh in the right places, gasp at the “special effects” — was addictive.
Years later, I started college at the University of Texas at Austin as a business major, but my heart wasn’t in it. I grew up in Texas, so a film career felt like something distant and impossible. But the Austin scene was beginning to bloom. “Slacker” and “El Mariachi” had just put the UT Radio-Television-Film program on the map. So I switched majors and discovered the editing bay.
We trained on old episodes of “Knott’s Landing” and “Gunsmoke,” and eventually we cut our own student projects. It was the first time I got to move scenes around, shape rhythm, and build story and emotion. That’s when I realized that this was the magic I’d stumbled onto with “Godzilla.” Editing wasn’t just cutting — it was authorship. It was the invisible hand that made everything work.
I spent my summers working at a sleepaway camp in Bruceville, Texas. I know that “A/V Specialist” sounds like the coolest kid in camp, and I owned it. I shot footage of activities, interviewed campers, and cut together a summer video yearbook using two VHS decks and a controller. That’s where I learned to carve a narrative from hours of raw footage — to find an emotional arc, even in color wars and talent shows. My goal was always the same: make them laugh and make them cry.
After graduation, I knew that if I wanted to give the industry a real shot, I had to move to Los Angeles. Just before I left, I saw a flyer at camp seeking volunteers to help interview Holocaust survivors for a new foundation started by Steven Spielberg. I signed up immediately.
Spielberg had launched the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation after “Schindler’s List.” It was a massive effort to document over 50,000 survivor testimonies worldwide.
The day after I arrived in LA, I had a drive-on pass to the Universal lot. I was 23 and about to work for the guy I’d been emulating with a Super 8 camera.
I was eventually hired to run the video transfer department, where I helped develop systems to digitize and preserve the camera masters. In a back room sat an early Avid. Nobody was using it — probably because it was in 100 pieces. But I stayed late, figured out how to put it together, and taught myself how to use it. Soon I was editing fundraising promos and short documentaries, including one that aired during the network broadcast of “Schindler’s List” — viewed by 65 million people.
In 1997, director James Moll asked me to help edit “The Last Days,” the foundation’s first feature documentary. It won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
I went on to edit two more documentaries for James: “Price for Peace,” about the Pacific War (produced by Spielberg and historian Stephen Ambrose), and “Running the Sahara,” about three men who ran 4,000 miles across the desert (produced by Matt Damon). From there, I moved into non-fiction television — starting at VH1, then “Project Greenlight” (my first MPEG editing job thanks to qualifying hours), “Survivor” (three Emmy nominations), and “The Bachelor” franchise, where I eventually became Co-Executive Producer.
I’ve cut hundreds of hours of tv — some entertaining, some meaningful, some disposable. Projector boy grew up, and he’s still chasing that flicker on the garage wall.
Ricky Kreitman is a picture editor in the Los Angeles area and has been a member of Local 700 since 1998.
