A bit about me…

In some ways, I feel like I was always headed down the path of becoming a filmmaker. Growing up in a family of television broadcasters three generations-running in Bismarck, ND, media was always around me as a kid.

I obsessed over Star Wars and Jurassic Park in grade school, I made camcorder movies for fun in junior high, had my mind blown open the first time I saw Dead Poet’s Society in high school.

But the first time I got a chance to edit a movie on a computer when I was 17, it literally clicked in an instant that filmmaking was what I wanted to do with my life. The blending of image, sound, music, cinematography, performance, and story that I was able to dance with in the cut - it connected with me in a way that nothing had before, and I’ve never looked back.

I have so many interests across so many disciplines - before filmmaking, I started out as a composer, I studied philosophy in college, I’ve been a globe-trotting videographer, I taught sound re-recording mixing at USC, I’ve been nominated by both the Cinema Audio Society and American Cinema Editors for my work on the same film (going on to win the CAS award) - I have a general intrigue in the inter-relatedness of all things…

But when it comes down to it, I find the most satisfaction when I get to take all the passions and experiences life has offered me, and simply parse them down into picture and sound through editing.

Something amazing happens when images are contrasted with other images & sounds in the service of story. Film editing truly is a form of poetry.

I take joy in understanding cinematic language from every vantage point possible, and bringing all of that to bear when I cut a film:

- I’ve sound edited on Sundance award-winning films, and feel right at home on the mix stage.

- I’ve been composing music for 20 years, and I love the inherent rhythm of a cut.

- I’ve won numerous awards for directing and cinematography, and that always informs not only my shot selection when I edit, but also the way I work with photos, graphics, and visual effects. Directors have told me they appreciate not only how sensitive I am to story and emotion, but how knowledgeable I am with technology, and how versatile it can make me on a filmmaking team.

I love how each member of a team can enrich the final product through collaboration.

- Brainstorming in pre-production before shoots.

- Watching dailies together, and dreaming of the themes and emotions that hit us in the material.

- Moving around index cards on a cork board with a director, and honing the narrative thread together.

- Responding to a director's notes on a cut, and elevating the material more and more with each passing iteration (while also offering my honest opinion if I feel things could be headed in a better direction)…

In all of this, I truly believe that two heads are better than one. Directors and editors can each bring our own angle to the material, can enrich it with each of our perspective, can spur one another on, and can ultimately yield great films from great collaborations.

Sound interesting? Give me a holler!