Eddie Hamilton, ACE is the editor of Top Gun: Maverick, the last 3 Mission: Impossible films, Kick-Ass 1 & 2, and X-Men: First Class, just to name a few. And in my first interview with Eddie (here’s part 2 where he talks about editing Maverick specifically), he and I talk about his early career choices and how he was able to become one of the top feature editors in the world…without ever going to film school.
With all the unique stories that come with ‘making it’ in Hollywood (or any creative career), it’s easy to assume the way someone else became successful could never happen for you. Which is why I’m always trying to boil the process down to simple, actionable steps that anyone can follow to get real results. And those steps include:
In today’s conversation Eddie and I talk about his rise from runner to editor in only six months (working in sports journalism of all places), his journey from editing indie films to becoming an “overnight success,” and the various choices that Eddie made – and more importantly didn’t make (i.e. what he strategically said ‘no’ to), that helped forge his path to the top. Just a quick note this interview is pulled from deep in the archives way back in the Fitness In Post days, but I promise every single one of Eddie’s knowledge bombs are just as relevant today as they were when we originally spoke.
Eddie Hamilton, ACE is currently editing the next chapters in the Mission: Impossible movie series. Before that, Eddie cut Paramount Pictures’ Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joe Kosinski, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation for director Christopher McQuarrie. Other credits include Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, X-Men: First Class and Kick-Ass for director Matthew Vaughn. After 23 years in the industry Eddie has cut over 20 feature films (both indies and studio movies) in a wide variety of genres as well as TV dramas, documentaries and award-winning short films. His enthusiasm for big screen storytelling is matched only by his total dedication to the craft of film editing, his nerdy technical expertise and his undisputed love of chocolate. He has given presentations on Avid Media Composer editing at NAB and IBC. Eddie is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, American Cinema Editors and BAFTA, and was on the feature film panel at EditFest London in 2013 and 2018.
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Zack Arnold: Hello and welcome to episode number 176 of the Optimize Yourself Podcast. It means the world to me that with all the podcast choices out there, you have chosen to invest your valuable time and attention with me. I promise you're not going to regret it after listening to part one of my interview today with Eddie Hamilton. Edie is the editor of Top Gun Maverick. He's done the last three Mission Impossible films Kick Ass 1 and 2 and X-Men First Class, just to name a very small few. And in my first interview with Eddie, and by the way, in part two, we talk all about editing Maverick, specifically, he and I talked about his early career choices, and how he was able to become one of the top feature editors in the world without ever going to film school. Now, with all of the unique stories that come with making it in Hollywood or any creative career, it is easy to assume that the way somebody else became successful is never going to happen for you, which is why I am always trying to boil down the process into simple actionable steps that anybody can follow to get real results. And as a reminder, those steps include number one, choosing the ladder that you want to climb with laser sharp specificity, learning, honing and becoming awesome at your craft, and making sure that the right people know that you are awesome at your craft. In today's conversation, Eddie and I talk all about his rise from runner to editor in only six months when he was working in sports journalism of all places. We then talked about his journey from editing indie films, to becoming a quote unquote, overnight success, and the various choices that Eddie made along the way. And more importantly, the choices he didn't make, ie what he strategically said no to that helped forge his path to the top. Now just a super quick note, this interview was pulled from deep deep in the archives, way back in the fitness and post days. But I promise that every single one of Eddie's knowledge bombs are just as relevant today as they were when we originally spoke. Alright, without further ado, here is the first part of my conversation with ACE editor Eddie Hamilton. To access the shownotes for this episode with all of the bonus links and resources discussed today, as well as to subscribe, leave a review and more simply visit zackarnold.com/episode176. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today with Eddie Hamilton and we're going to talk today about Eddie Hamilton is an overnight success. And it took him absolutely no effort or time whatsoever to become the editor of films like Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Kingsman Secret Service, and X-Men First Class and of course the two Kick Ass movies. So Eddie, I am immensely immensely excited to have you on my show with me today.
Eddie Hamilton: Yeah, it's an it's an honor to be with you, Zack, I'm a big fan of your show and a great admirer of your work. And yeah, and overnight success as you say it didn't take me any time at all
Zack Arnold: Right? I mean, you you look at your resume. And I would assume based on your picture that you're probably 26 27 years old, and you go on IMDb. And it just starts with Kick Ass. And it starts with X-Men and Kick Ass to Kingsman The Secret Service and Rogue Nation. And it's like, oh, sure, well, this guy was just born an editor. Right? I mean, that's the way that it works.
Eddie Hamilton: It seems like that it does seem like that. But you know, it's it's, it's I started at the when I was seven years old when I knew that I wanted to work in the film industry in some capacity. And then from about the age of 17, I thought, you know, actually editing is the combination of storytelling and technology that works for me. And then 20 years of hard work, and then I get a call about doing Mission Impossible. So that's kind of the timeline that you're talking about.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And clearly, if anybody hasn't figured it out already, and if you listen to the show, you know that I can be immensely sarcastic. So clearly, I don't believe that. But I know that that's always the perception. So really.
Unknown Speaker: it certainly can be Oh, you're absolutely right. That yeah, it can be the perception.
Zack Arnold: And I'm sure that you get that too, where it's like, oh, he's just an overnight sensation. Where did this guy come from that's working on Mission Impossible. So there's a couple of reasons that I wanted to have you on the show today. The first of which is I really wanted to talk some about your journey, as far as where you went and how you got to be where you are today because you don't have the technical or the quote, unquote, accepted version of your path like going to film school getting a film degree, all the standard education you're supposed to have you have a fairly unconventional path to get where you are. And I love talking about that. And the reason that I thought to bring you on was actually you reached out to me and you'd had sent me not sent me a tweet you just put me to attach me to one of your tweets, but it said want to get into film editing. The last two fitness and post podcast contain the best advice I've ever heard. Take a listen. And I swear to God, I had heart palpitations saying oh my god, that is so cool. That somebody that works at your level is listening to this and seeing the information that I'm trying to bring to this community. because I've read your articles about the same thing. And I remember thinking at one point, I'm going to put a link to everything in the show notes. So if you had don't know which episodes were referring to there, 56 and 57, I'll have those in the show notes. I'm also going to have the link to your website, I'll have links to your no film school article, the other articles you've done for several publications. But I remember once reading one of your articles, it was probably a year or two ago in American cinema editors. And it was right when I was starting out and saying, oh, man, this, this would be such a great, you know, story to have on my show. But I talked about supplements and doing push ups and stuff like so that wouldn't make any sense. But now I've kind of veered into this area of adding this level of bringing career advancement to the idea of optimizing yourself and you know, using the physical part to take yourself to the next level, but also mindset. And that's really where I want to bring you in today. But then, conversely, the other area I want to talk about once we've gone through that is if you listen to other postproduction podcasts or you listen to people on panels, or you go to panels in person, you hear these stories a lot. But I never get to hear what is the lifestyle like of somebody that's working at this level. And that's what this show is all about is the life that you live from the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night. Because it's great to say, Oh, wow, Eddie Hamilton has worked on X Men and Mission Impossible. That's so cool. I want to do that. Yeah. But if you haven't actually seen what the life looks like, from the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, you have to understand that that's what you're signing up for. Not two years down the line, being able to say yeah, I edited Mission Impossible. So those are really the kind of the two things that I want my audience to hear today. So let's go down the first path. And let's just kind of go a little bit deeper into your journey story, just understanding how you came to be where you are given that you have no formal background and really have no business being at the level that you are based on that background.
Unknown Speaker: Sure thing. I'm one of these people who saw Star Wars at the age of seven. I wasn't taken to the movies much as a kid. But I did see Star Wars on TV, and I saw people's names at the end of the film. And I thought hang on, people must make these films for a living. And so from the age of seven, I was a complete cinephile of film not I used to read as many books as I could and listen to movie soundtracks and, and watch making documentaries and watch a lot of films. Like everyone really of ours, who's obsessed with films and has kind of found their way somehow up the ladder of the industry to be working as a professional storyteller today, a lot of those movies in the 70s and early 80s were very influential for us. But Star Wars was the one that started it personally, for me, there have been many others along the way. But that was the one that was the kind of catalyst of my interest. Then about the age of 17, I hooked up to VHS machines and realized that ours would fly by in the creative process. And it was the combination of storytelling and technology that really appealed to me and the fact that I don't mind working for hours in a dark room on my own. But I just loved the power that you know, cutting images together and working with time and working with sound and music, and how basically, the editor is in total control of everything that the audience sees and hears from the very first image to the very last image that is presented to them in a cinema or on television. And that kind of power over the story. And the experience was was very seductive and and I just fell in love with it about the age of 17 and spent all my free time editing as much as I could. I was one of those guys who used to spend as much free time as I had, you know, working on little holiday videos or little videos for my brothers for my sisters and you know, stuff like that just family stuff. It would be I would just love doing it. It just be a hobby. And you know, there's a lot of kids today who who film on their phones and put stuff together in iMovie. But it was the kind of earlier generation about that I was doing. And I did a psychology degree of all things at a at a university here in London called University College London that had a very active Film Society. And so I I spent pretty much all my free time, four or five hours a day through the three years of studying my psychology degree working on student film and television, and then tried to apply to a postgraduate film course when I was like 22 There were really only three places you could study film in this country. Then at a postgraduate level one was called the National Film and Television school, then the Royal College of Art and then a northern School of Film and Television. There are many more courses today, but really those were the three leading postgraduate courses and I applied, and I always got to like the last five or the last seven, and then there would only be two or three places allocated for editing and I would never get on. And I do have framed on my wall at home my rejection letters from those film schools, just to kind of remind me that, you know, it doesn't matter if you get turned down at places in your career, you can always just forge ahead and stay positive and focused and achieve what you want to achieve without, you know, a normal path. I did spend about a year after rejection, feeling very depressed. And you know, really looking at my options and thinking, what am I going to do, I paid the bills by working in banks and police stations, you know, basically doing temp work. And there was one day we're talking about fitness, there was one day, I was a Page Layout Designer at a business magazine. And there was one day I remember buying an entire bag of cookies, and eating them all in about an hour or two hours one afternoon, and I just thought I was maybe 2324 at this time. And I thought, You know what, I'm miserable doing this. And I will only be happy if I'm working in post production if I'm working and editing somehow earning a living doing that. So I handed in my notice that day and gave myself a month to get a job as a runner in a post production facility somewhere in London. And I managed to do that. They were a fairly small little facility, they had digital Betacam online suites and and very early Avid Media Composer offline suites, this is a 1995, 94-95. So they had Mac Cuadras running very early hardware versions of Media Composer. While I was there, they got one of the very first online media composers that worked at avr 75 and avr 77. And I ended up I started as a runner and was promoted to sort of training assistant and then assistant and eventually editor after about maybe six or eight months, so it was fairly a quick rise. But I did spend every evening and every weekend teaching myself how to use the media composers and learning how to online on digital Betacams, you know, online suites and using CMX, edit controllers and stuff like that. So I taught myself basically I was I was kind of very nerdy with computers, I knew how computer hardware worked and software, I wasn't scared of teaching myself, I read the AVID manual, it was a massive ring bound manual. Anyone who's listening to this, who did work with Media Composer in the early days will be very familiar with the kind of ring bound manual I'm talking about. But I used to read it from cover to cover every so often just to refresh my skill set and remind myself of all the different things that I wasn't using. Because it's, it's very daunting when you start you know, when you've been doing it for 20 years, you're it's all second nature. But it does seem quite impenetrable when you begin but like anything in life, you just take baby steps, and you start and you just keep working and working and working until you get better at it. And then I was doing Portuguese and Spanish sport television programs, using this online Avid Media Composer and having to work very quickly the deadlines that were imposed. And then I had to get very familiar with the hardware and the software and, and deliver, you know, quality work in a very short amount of time. But it meant that I became very, very adept at using Media Composer in that kind of pressured environment. But I never wanted to work in you know, sport, necessarily, I was really my first job was film. And so after a couple of years doing that, maybe 18 months during that I, I found a job on a very, very low budget independent movie, which I did for free. Basically, I did three movies then for free, where I would pay my bills, doing kind of working for the Paramount comedy channel for two days a week, cutting promos for them, and then three days a week, I would work for free on these movies. And then slowly, slowly, slowly worked my way up. And you know, the budgets would slowly increase and I would meet more people and get recommended to other producers and a lot of the friends I had then I'm still you know, they're still very good friends with all those people and some of the producers I still work for. And then, you know, the first 10 movies I cut, I was my own assistant. So I didn't go I didn't sort of move up the assistant editing route the way that some people do, where they start as assistants, or post pas on big films and work their way up to second assistant then first assistant, and then and then hope for a break as an editor. I always was an editor, I would just assess myself, you know, digitizing and thinking and then doing all the post production, the EDL is and the turnovers and all that kind of stuff to the sound department. So it was just necessary because the budgets were very, very small. But I still loved it and and was doing you know what I wanted to do. And then I think on my 10th film. That was when there was enough budget for an assistant I had one assistant editor then. And then my biggest break was working with Matthew Vaughn as a producer on a film called Mean machine which came out in 2001 which had a budget of about 6 million pounds I think, but that's when I met Matthew and then a lot of the films that you mentioned at the beginning have all been produced or directed by Matthew Vaughn, who is an extraordinarily talented filmmaker and storyteller. And it's been a great privilege to work alongside him on these films. Yeah. And that's so and then 20 years after I started as a runner, you know, making tea and getting lunch. I, my agent called me and said, you know, they're interested in talking to you about Mission Impossible five, this was just as I was finishing Kingsman. So that's kind of the journey for me.
Zack Arnold: Now. Okay, so so like I said, then basically, you were an overnight success. All right, well, then we've we've confirmed that That's great. Well, the first thing I will say is that you and I live on opposite ends of the planet, but It's eerie how similar our stories are. I mean, I literally had almost the exact same revelation, I decided I didn't know when I was seven years old that I wanted to be a filmmaker, because nobody understands that somebody actually puts those things together. Yeah. But that was the process that I loved was just putting things together that weren't supposed to go together. And I was I think I was 12 when I started hooking, you know, I was younger than that I was maybe 10 or 11, where I was already hooking up to VHS players. And I was making like comedy highlight reels of all like my favorite quotes and lines for movies. I would like go to a movie find the spot. I would put it on the other VHS tape. Yeah. And I'll put a link in the show notes for what VHS is for my younger listeners. Because Because nowadays like oh, yeah, no, I I started editing when I was seven on my my dad's Final Cut Pro System. It's like really? Like, really? Yeah. So there's this huge generational gap because of the technology and people are publishing their work on YouTube and getting a million hits by age 10. And yeah, we were with VHS DAX making your own little highlight reels.
Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I remember. I remember there was I wore out my copy of Alien Special Edition by putting it in a VHS machine and shuttling it backwards and forwards so many times cutting a kind of montage of the greatest hits of aliens to the music from Rocky 4 Yeah, I think I still have that somewhere. But I remember cutting like a linear cut down like a four minute version of aliens. And and it took me hours and hours and hours and hours. And the poor tapes suffered enormously but it was you know, it was my trusty go to favorite film of the of the 80s. To cut things from Yeah, I share, I share that experience. It's exactly the same as well as what you were doing. Exactly.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And then the revelation that I had, I'll never I don't remember where I was, I'll just remember the feeling that I got. Because at the end of the day, the emotion is what people take away from any story or experience. And that's what they remember. And I was probably eight or nine years old, my brother who was 14 years older than me, he had gotten a VHS camcorder and said, Let's run around the house all weekend and just shoot a movie about us, you know, chasing each other. And we use it was when Nintendo had just come out the original Nintendo. So again, really dating myself. And we had the Duck Hunt guns and we're just running around trying to chase each other and shoot each other with the Duck Hunt guns, and we call the duck hunt. And I hated the process of shooting like at the age of eight or nine I hated shooting and being on set. So that right there was the first time that I wanted to be an editor. But he we did it all in camera, there was no editing. And at the end of the day, he just I would put my eye in the viewfinder and watch it and like really, we've been running around for 12 hours. And this is all we have, I was so disappointed. He's like, just just wait. So a week later, he popped in a VHS tape, and he had taken the score of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and put it under what we had shot. And I swear I was like the first time I ever saw porn. And I said, Oh my god, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And that was it. That was the spark and nothing has ever changed in my life since then it was seeing the juxtaposition of two things that never went together before in the history of mankind that all of a sudden made something new with that combination. And I said, I want to do that. So I just started doing it for years and years and years, all my school projects. So I would say listen, instead of writing a paper, can I make a video. And at first it was a hard sell. Like when you're 13 years old, that's a tough sell. But then they would see and they're like, Oh, that was actually a really great project. And then people let me do that throughout school. And I even did that in college. So I was always editing, always doing stuff. And then when I got out to Los Angeles, I have a very similar trajectory once again, and I've talked about this in past episodes, so I won't go too deep into it. But I was only an assistant editor for five months at a trailer house. And then I was an editor from the time basically that I graduated until now. But it was 10 years of being my own assistant and working on really low budget stuff and projects that nobody would ever hear of and working with people that didn't have experience. But that's the part of the journey that nobody sees. But the one area where you and I have drastically different trajectories, which is really where I want to go now is the fact that I went to I didn't go to film school per se I went to a liberal arts school so I went to the University of Michigan, but my major or my concentration was in film I'm study so I have a very diverse background and deep background in film theory film history. I didn't, there wasn't a lot of technical knowledge. And like you, I was sitting there with the AVID manuals trying to figure it out. And then when Final Cut Pro first came out, learning Final Cut Pro. So that's what I did nights and weekends while most of my friends were at frat parties, I was learning how to use Final Cut Pro. So I was definitely that guy. Like, I just had no social life because I was so obsessed with learning how to do this, right. But I really want to talk about the difference between going to film school and not going to film school because you and I had an offline conversation about this. That was fascinating. And I really think people need to hear this because it's such a common question, Should I go to film school? Should I get a master's degree? should I should I go to AFI. And you and I had the exact same philosophy. So let's talk about that.
Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah, sure thing. I mean, I have, I have an advice page on my website, where I advise people to think carefully about whether Film School is for them. The the and a lot of this chimes in with what you and Norman were talking about in those previous episodes is, if you know that you want to work in film editing, for example, you can just start working in film editing immediately, there is nothing stopping you. Film School is great for several reasons. For example, if you don't know what part of the film industry you want to work in, you will be exposed to lots of parts of the filmmaking process, in film school, because you will have to write you will have to direct you'll have to shoot you'll have to record sound, you'll have to, you know, work in hair, and makeup and costume and production, design, all of those things, post production, sound visual effects. But if you know that you want to work in editing, then going to film school is going to cost you a lot of money. And it's going to delay your entry into the the world into the professional world by three years, four years. And the other thing you know, the other thing is that film school does not provide you with professional experience, right. And the only thing that counts when you're looking for a job in the professional industry is how much experience you've had in a professional arena. So if you come out of film school, you'll be at the same place as if you haven't gone into film school, when you're searching for a job. That's certainly the case in this country, it may not be quite the case, if you're looking for a post pa job on a studio movie where they may value some kind of degree course. But as far as I'm concerned, if somebody comes out of film school, with no professional experience, you might as well not have gone because you're going to get a job as a runner somewhere. And you're going to be starting making tea and you're starting at the bottom rung of the ladder like you and Norman were talking about, you have to climb a ladder, and you have to start at the bottom. And you can either start now, aged 18, or age 20. Or you can start in three years time age 23 with loads of debt, and three years later than everyone else. So I would say it's not worth it, you know, really, say especially now in this country, we used to have free college education up until five or six years ago, and now everyone has to pay for college tuition. And I know in America, the cost is enormously higher, it's 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of debt. And you're going to have to start at the bottom anyway. So the question is, think carefully about that, you know, if you take a job right now, it's may seem very scary, if you are, you know, in your early 20s, to get out there in the big wide world and leave home. But you know, if you're one, if you live in America, then you're incredibly lucky because you can just get in a car or get on a train and go to Los Angeles or New York and start work. Now, if you're live anywhere else in the world, it's very, very difficult to do that, unless you are lucky enough to fall in love with and marry an American, or work or get some kind of work permit, which is very difficult to get early in your career. So I would just advise, you know, getting out there and getting started in the industry and start climbing the ladder because you'll be earning money while you do it as well. I mean, it may not be very much money, but it's better than being in debt.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And there's a lot in there that I agree with. There's a couple of places where I'm gonna play the devil's advocate. But I think the first area that I really want to emphasize that I think for kids that do go to film school, they are in and I get a lot of emails, and I will do some some meetings with kids that are just finishing their last semester and they reach out and they say, Hey, you know, I just want to pick your brain, which is part of the reason that I did the podcast so I could get that the same answers to a much larger audience. But they always have this preconceived notion that well, I've gone to school for four years, and I've edited films. So I want to be an editor. So when I graduate, I need to look for a job as an editor and like Noonan, no, no, you don't start as an editor when you when you graduate. You start as opposed pa you start as somebody's assistant, if you're lucky and you get that first job, but unless you make the choice to edit things on your own, you're not going to be paid as an editor for years. It doesn't work that way. But they think that that's the case. So they say to themselves well Well, the career trajectory is that I go to school for four years, I learned how to make films. And then when I graduate, I get a job as a filmmaker. But that's not the way that the industry works. That's just not the way that the world works, you really do have to start out at the bottom. So you have to be willing to take that step backwards, where you might have been the executive producer, quote, unquote, of your student film, and you may have done all the editing, or you may have been the director, but you're not going to get that type of position paid out in the world, you might find plenty of stuff like that unpaid once you graduate. But you have to understand the reality that when you go out into the real world, you're going to be taking several steps backwards to get back to where you were on a creative level what you're doing in film school.
Eddie Hamilton: Yeah, that's totally true. Totally true. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: The one area where I do want to disagree a little bit. And I think that where this conversation completely hits home, is if somebody gets out of a regular bachelor's degree education, four years of college or four years of university over in the UK, and they'll always come to me and say, Should I get a master's degree? Should I, you know, go to graduate school. That's where I think this conversation hits home 10 times out of 10, the one area where I will disagree a little bit. And I've had this conversation with many, many students, especially at the University of Michigan, is they'll say, but I never actually learned how to make a movie, like I take one or two production courses. But all I do is watch Potemkin and write papers and watch these old movies. And to me, it's much, much harder to get a background in film theory and understanding the science behind why you make the creative choices that you do. It's so much harder to get that education on your own. If you're just using YouTube or Lynda.com, or
Unknown Speaker: or, god forbid, reading books, you know, I have to there's a lot of amazing books, I've read, you know, two or 300 books on filmmaking in my life. And there are some amazing books out there. But carry on that,
Zack Arnold: But yes, and I was gonna say you actually just stole the the next next place I was going, it can absolutely be done. We live in the information age. And you can absolutely give yourself that education. But I don't think that most kids that are, you know, 18 to 22 years old, or even 22 to 25 and the graduate level, they probably don't have the organizational skills or just the knowledge to know where to start, what to read how to put together their own curriculum, to have a really sound foundational background in film theory and the why we push the buttons, because nowadays, everything online, not just in film editing, but everywhere. How do I do this? How do I push the buttons? How does this software work? How do I make this happen? But there's never the emphasis on why do you make the choices that you do? And I can pretty much guarantee without having ever worked with you. The reason that people want to work with you is you know why you're making your choices not because you're awesome at using Avid
Eddie Hamilton: Yeah, that's true. But like everything in life, until you are sitting down doing something and being forced to make the decisions, you will never actually learn to do it. You know, discussing theory or reading books or eat any kind of tuition doesn't actually help you. Really, it's so it's completely different when you sit down. And either you've shot some footage or a friend's have shot footage, and you're cutting it together yourself, and having to solve the problems on that specific project. Until you're doing that. It doesn't matter how many films you've watched, or how many books you've read, you don't really understand what's involved. You know, I think I'm agreeing with you here. And are you saying that a master's degree is a good idea or not a good idea?
Zack Arnold: I think that there's no answer to that. I don't think you can say it is or it isn't. What I was saying is, when it comes to an undergraduate education, I think that, to me, there's a lot more merit to having that sound foundation because the four years that I went to school, I wasn't just taking classes on film editing, I was taking classes on Zen Buddhism and meteorology, and all these other, all these other creative pursuits. And it sounds like that's exactly what you got, because you have an undergraduate degree in psychology. So you have a sound Educational Foundation. So what I just want to make it clear to people to not say, Well, I just graduated from high school, I have a video camera and Final Cut Pro, I'm going to be an editor, I just want to make it clear that there is that period where I do think it's immensely important that you get that sound Educational Foundation beyond high school. But if we're now at that, let's just assume that everybody agrees that we need that sound education. Now we're at the point where you have an undergraduate degree in something whether it's film theory, like me, whether it's psychology like you now let's ask the question, should I go to graduate school? And I had this exact same question pop up in my mind. And this is where you and I are gonna agree. 100% is I had been working as an assistant editor for three or four months at this trailer company. And it was just a gigantic rude awakening into the world of working in Los Angeles in the film industry, the brutal hours, just the lack of respect for people that do an assistant editor job. And I said this is I don't want to live like this, this is absolutely miserable. I just want to cut I just want to be an editor. It wasn't that I didn't want to pay my dues. It was just I didn't like my lifestyle on a day to day basis, which for me is what it's all about. It's not about the resume. It's not about the awards. It's do I want to wake up every morning and do this. And I didn't, yes. So I started going online, and I was looking at AFI, and I was looking at USC looking at UCLA and thinking, well, first of all, I can't afford any of these. But let's just say that I find a way to afford it. Is this the right decision. And then I thought to myself, Okay, I'm already working at a company where I'm working on Hollywood films like we're working on movie drumline at the time, which is a big high school drumline band movie in the early 2000s. I remember, when I was working on real films, I was an assistant editor, but I was surrounded by real films, they were sending us rough cuts, I was seeing the process, I was kind of seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. And I said, Well, I can go to school, and I can go back to taking classes and cutting student films. And I can pay a crapload of money to do that. Or I can consider what I'm doing right now my education. And they're paying me to be educated. And I started reaching out and finding other jobs where maybe I wasn't even getting paid, but the education wasn't doing the actual work. And that's what I will tell most people now is I'll say, Listen, graduate school is gonna get you some really, really great contacts, you're gonna get a lot of fantastic education, but you're gonna go three more years, and you're going to come out, and you're still probably not going to get a job as an editor, you're still going to be an assistant, you're still going to be a runner. So you're just delaying the inevitable for three years. And the example that totally tied this up and the neatest little bow for me, it was just it was almost too perfect to even be true. I chose not to go to AFI, obviously. I mean, I decided I was going to continue working and decided I was going to be an editor. And that's how it's led to where I am today. But about let's see, it would have been in 2008, I think I had put out an online ad because I was looking for a few editors and assistants because I had a small post production facility at the time. And there was a woman that I met with it was about my age, maybe a year older, she edited my documentary film, and she's she's a fantastic editor. But I was interviewing her for an assistant position. And I looked at her resume, and she went to AFI the exact same time that I would have gone. And I said to myself, this could have been me, but now she's interviewing to be hired as my assistant, because I have three more years experience than she does. And that's when I was like, Oh my God, this makes so much sense. And that's not to say that she took the wrong path. It's just she took a different path than I did. And it cost her a lot more money. But if somebody saying well, AFI is going to get me further faster, doesn't matter if it's AFI USC, I have nothing against any of these programs are all fantastic. People just need to understand that you're not getting ahead or moving further or faster than other people. If you're thinking this is the fast track, it's not about getting you there faster, it actually might take you longer, but you are going to walk away with a lot more information experience. And most importantly, you're going to walk away with a ton of contacts. And it's going to do a lot of networking because you look at the whole clan from the 70s You know, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and Walter merge and Francis Ford Coppola, like, that's all from networking, you know, that that's how that all starts. And a lot of people they meet their group and USC, and all of a sudden they work together for the next 30 years. So I just, I just want to make sure I'm not saying nobody should go to graduate school, it's a bad idea. You're not getting anything from it, you get a tremendous value, but that value comes at a tremendous cost. And if you're doing it just because you want to get ahead further and faster, I don't think you can do that for you.
Unknown Speaker: I agree with you. And I had a similar I again, we have very similar experiences. I remember sitting in the National Film theater here in London, three years after I had failed to get into the National Film School here. And I someone sat down next to me and I looked over and it was somebody who had been interviewed the same time I was to get into the National Film School and they had succeeded in getting in, they had they got on to the one of the five places to study editing, and I didn't. And we started chatting. And then it became apparent to me that that they had just graduated and that they were looking for a job out there in the world. And I had already done three years of work, or two years because I had a year off but and I was I was actually editing I think I was editing my first or second low budget movie already at that time. You know, and I had done all this training in the sports television productions. And so again, very similar end result. I remember thinking to myself afterwards, wow, that could have been me and I could have been, you know, three years behind where I am now. So it's a very similar story. I have to agree with you.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, it's actually another one that I thought was funny that it literally it's crazy how you and I have it's like we're brothers from another mother. It's kind of creepy. But there was I had applied for something called the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences internship, which is an internship where when you grow graduate or even before you graduate, you come out to LA, and they'll put you on a TV series or in a post facility for a summer, which to me was just an absolute dream job. Like, how cool would it have been to do that in college? I was in Michigan, I was in the Midwest, I grew up in a, you know, a dairy farming community of 400 people in Wisconsin. So working on a TV show, like, come on, how amazing is that? Show. And I applied three years in a row, I was a finalist three years in a row. And I never got in, you know, so, so angry. But then I again, I was interviewing or talking to somebody, actually, I was talking to somebody at a party. And I think it was when I was either just starting on Burn Notice or could have been right before. And I was talking to somebody. And he's like, Yeah, I've got this friend of mine. He's looking for work. I don't know if you wanted to maybe interview him as your assistant. And I'm like, Yeah, sure, I'll talk to him. And I started talking to him. He's like, Yeah, I was the winner in 2002, of the academy, Television Arts and Sciences internship. So he was the guy that got it over me, we were down to two, he was the one that got it. And again, I was possibly talking to him to hire him as my assistant. So you know, there's so many different paths that you can take. And I know that feeling of being young and hungry and wanting to do it and looking at somebody like you that works on Mission Impossible, or me working on Empire and saying, I just that's just what I want to do. And I want to get there now. It's not going to happen overnight. And you're going to have to go into the trenches and do a lot of these things. But the path is there. If you're willing to take it, it's just it's going to take longer than you think. Yeah, that's true. So before I lose you, because I know you're such a busy guy, you're in the middle of working on another big big film right now that I know we can't talk about. But people need to understand if they make it to the level where you are now, what is it day in the life look like? Because I don't want them to get caught up in the credits, or the fancy posters or the fancy premiere parties are being able to say, Oh, I worked with Tom Cruise. None of that matters. If you're miserable from the time you wake up until the time you fall asleep at night. So tell me now that you're working on these giant tentpole films. I want to go into what your lifestyle actually looks like. And then I want to touch upon the differences that you see between working in the UK and working in the US because there are big differences and it's hard to find people that can speak to both.
Eddie Hamilton: No Sure thing. Okay. So I, I'm like you in the I try to focus quite a lot on exercise and diet while I'm working. It is incredibly difficult. But this is how I built it into my routine, for example, on Mission Impossible. When we were filming. They were at a studio in Northwest northwest London called leaves in studios where they filmed Harry Potter the Harry Potter studio tour is there. Right now they are filming Wonder Woman there. And we did Kingsman there. So a lot of big movies get shot there. It's a very modern studio, it's a great place to work. It has blazing fast Internet access, Warner Brothers have invested millions of dollars in modernizing it, it's a pleasure to be there. However, it's quite a long way from where I live, it would take about an hour to drive there maybe an hour and 20 minutes in bad traffic. However, there is a train that runs from near my home, it takes 40 minutes. And then at the other end, it's maybe five miles to the studio. So so what this was my daily routine, I would get up at 6am Leave the house about 20 past six cycle about 10 minutes to the local train station, which is called Clapham Junction here in London, there was a train at 640 Every morning, it would take me 40 minutes, it would get me to Watford at 720. And then I would cycle for 15 minutes to the studio. So I'd be basically in the cutting room by 735. And but I would get like 20 minutes of 2025 minutes of exercise, you know, on my bike, which is very common in London, I cycle as often as I can in London, because the one thing that everyone has to do is commute to work. And if I can cycle as much of that as I can, and I will. But that would be I would be in the country of you know roughly about half past seven, then I would work solidly without taking lunch. Usually I just blast all the way through to about half past nine or half past 10 at night. And then I would take a train at 950 or 1050 back home and then I would cycle home. So I would normally get home around half past 10 Or half past 11 Depending on how late I worked. So I have two young children, their age nine and six, they would be asleep when I left the house, they would be asleep clearly when I got home. So during the five or so it was mostly six day weeks on Mission Impossible. I wouldn't see them. So I'd see them on Sundays. So it's an enormous kind of sacrifice to make but a huge opportunity to work on a film like that. So my wife is incredibly supportive and understood that this was, you know, a sacrifice that was worth making in the long term. Working with these great filmmakers working with Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie working with Paramount on this huge movie. And I it's you know what I do? into doing all my life working on these big films. So there was no way I was going to fail, I was going to do whatever it took to do an amazing job for them. And so that was that was my day. So during the day, the way I would tend to work is, I would usually look over the sequences, I'd start the day before, I would refine them a little bit. The dailies would start coming in, I would start watching dailies, as soon as I could, I would try and cut something together from the dailies as quickly as possible, just in case, anyone wanted to see anything. Or if I needed to advise Chris, the director, that there may be something missing, which is to be honest, one of the main responsibilities you have as an editor on these big films, is reassuring the production that they have all the coverage, they need to tell the story that they need to tell in that scene. But I would always be very keen to feedback immediately. You know, by lunchtime, if there was any shots that I felt were missing, maybe maybe by two o'clock in the afternoon. And sometimes they would be able to go in and shoot that stuff the very next day, if the set was still up, or sometimes they'd plan to shoot it the next day with a splinter unit, quite often I would go on to the set and and advise it on exactly the composition of the shot I needed. Or sometimes it would be, you know, I need more footage of Simon Pegg at the opera wearing his dinner suit, you know, under the stage of the opera with with his he had like a tablet made of a eating program. So I would sometimes go on set, which would be like a five minute walk and I would sit and I would say right, we need this sweet shot, we need this shot, Chris McQuarrie would be on an adjacent stage shooting another scene and he would say right, Eddie, just go in and shoot whatever you need. Or I may come over and check you know, but I would describe to him the shots that they wanted. So there was quite a lot of that. And then I would try and watch as much of the dailies as I could, but I tend to cut the scene first and then watch all the dailies, because then I have an idea of the kinds of problems I need to solve. And what I'm looking for. The other thing that I would do is I would make massive selects rolls of every line of dialogue from every camera angle, from every bit of coverage. So all the wines, the mediums, the overs, the tights, so that I could audition all the different performances for every line in every scene from every character. And sometimes I would do that, but quite often I would if time was short, I would delegate it to my assistant, and then I would just carry on working. So occasionally I would take a walk around for lunch and maybe grab some food from the trailer, or I would try to do is in terms of my diet, you know, usually when I would arrive at the studio, I would have a bowl of oatmeal with fruit. That's kind of my staple, you know, breakfast unsweetened oatmeal with fruit basically with raisins, maybe. And then at lunchtime try and have a soup, something really simple like like just a bowl of soup, or maybe a salad. But usually I just end up having some kind of soup. Trying not to snack you know, I will sometimes eat carrots for a snack or I used to drink a lot of Coke Zero, but I've gone off it recently. I don't know why I just don't feel the taste for it anymore. But I used to normally have a can of Coke Zero about 11 o'clock, I would chew gum quite a bit because it would just kind of be something to do while I was thinking and then try and then normally by about three o'clock. I'm a big chocoholic. I love chocolate, it's my only advisory because I don't sneak smoke and I don't drink. But the best, the best way of dealing with chocolate I found is portion control for me. So instead of eating an entire candy bar, what I tend to do is I buy these lindo balls, which are incredibly delicious, but they are the perfect size. They're like circular little balls, I think you can get them in Target. I remember buying them in target in Whole Foods, I think they had them. But they're made by Lindo, their little red balls, they're like incredibly delicious balls of chocolate with like liquid chocolate inside. But one of those is a perfect hit for about three o'clock in the afternoon if you need a kind of blood sugar hit. So that's what I try and do is limit myself to one maybe two of those in the afternoon. And then go through in the evening. And again, try not to eat too much in the evening just you know, vegetables and sometimes fish or chicken and then cycle home in the evenings and kind of collapse into bed around 1030 or 1130 at night. But the main thing is to not eat, you know, bad food, you know, just to try and keep it to like proper snacks, proper vegetables and fruit and not too much chocolate and no no, you know, crisps or potato chips, whatever, you know, so that that would be that would be how I'd work and then when the film had finished shooting, I remember listening to your to the chat that you have with Alan Bell where he described his routine on Hunger Games and it's very similar. So after the shoot you move from the film studio and you move into central London and the hours become a little more manageable like I would I would then be able to see my kids in the morning have breakfast with them from seven till half past seven. Then I would cycle for half an hour. Get into the cutting room at eight work with Chris, Chris would normally come in about nine, we've worked very closely together till about seven, maybe 738 o'clock in the evening, that I may leave, or I may do an extra hour of just tidying up the sound or whatever we've worked on and just kind of, you know, playing around with some ideas. And then I would normally be home by maybe 830, or nine o'clock. But again, I've got half an hour cycle in the morning and a half hour cycle in the evening. And I would only really take public transport, if the weather was, you know, terrible if it really was pouring with rain. Otherwise, I just, I'd slug it out through the rain, because, you know, there's nothing like arriving at the cutting room with the blood pumping and the oxygen flowing through and you've been cycling and thinking about things on your way in and quite a lot, quite a lot of the best problem solving ideas that I have, are in the shower, or as I'm cycling to work or as I'm cycling home, because I'm thinking about, you know, the stuff that I've been working on, or the stuff that I've been working on the day before, and trying to come up with solutions to the story problems that I've come across. So that's kind of that's kind of the average day really, and and on our mission, I had seven assistants, if you include visual effects editor and visual effects assistant editor, so there would be a lot of delegation of you know, Assistant editorial tasks and visual effects, editorial tasks to then, basically. So that's kind of how the days would work.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And that's, that's what you have to look forward to, after working for 20 years and getting your dream job is on average, 14 hours a day, six days a week. And I think that hearing that is so important for people that aspire to do this, but don't realize what they're signing up for. And what what I want to go into that I think is so key about your story, what can be taken out from it, is the idea that you're bringing movement into your day, if somebody said, Hey, do you exercise regularly, you're not going to say yeah, I go to the gym six days a week, or I'm doing p90x Or I'm doing all this hit training, you're just riding your bike. But I think that the psychological barrier that so many people come across, this is just not just for post production. But it's definitely a problem in post production, just because there's no time to do anything, is it most people would rather dream of exercising five days a week, and then just ride their bike to work, right. And they say I just if I'm gonna do what I have to do it all, I have to do all or nothing, and I'm gonna get it right, and I'm gonna get on an exercise program, I'm gonna get on the proper diet. But if they can't do it all, they're just going to do nothing. And they just have this barrier where it's like, well, just park your car as far away from the front door as possible, and walk into the office or just get up every hour, and walk around and grab water and go to the bathroom. But people are like, Well, no, I have to exercise five days a week, because that's what the internet tells me to do. And but would you rather think about doing that someday, or just get up and start doing the things that you are actually capable of today, because in our industry, finding the time to actually dedicate to having an exercise program is not very easy. And I'm literally as we speak, designing a course that helps people in our industry find ways to move more to create the habits, the routines and the systems that don't even have to think about it to where at the end of the day, they've been so active and productive that they're like, I guess I could exercise I had the energy to but after the day I just had I don't really need to.
Eddie Hamilton: So that's crucial. Yeah, that's amazing, Zack, it's great. And, you know, I'm, I'm, I wholeheartedly agree with you that, you know, if you eat sensibly, the main thing is just not eating loads of calories. You know, eating healthy food is quite hard, because you sometimes you want a snack and you know, I I tend to try and eat really well, Monday to Friday. And then I kind of cheat a bit on Saturdays and Sundays when you're eating with family and you know, your kids having an ice cream and you want to have an ice cream or whatever. So I just kind of don't worry about that. But I know that if I've eaten really healthfully during the week, it doesn't matter so much. And but it is something that you know, is a challenge every day and but you kind of get into the habit of eating, limiting the amount that you eat every day when you're when you're kind of doing what we do. Some people work with standing desks, which again, I have tried, but they don't don't necessarily work for me. So I just have an incredibly ergonomic ly well designed chair that I've had for about, you know, I got it in about 2002. So I've had it for 13 years as chair and it's you know, people think I look a bit like you know, Professor extra maximun. It's that kind of kind of gigantic cool chair, but it's incredibly supportive on the lower back. It allows you to have a variety of positions which are comfortable. It's something that I invested in, you know, it cost me like over 1000 bucks when I could barely afford it. But it's something which I thought you know what, I'm probably going to take this chair from movie to movie with me and I have done you know, it's it's worked out all right. But I know that in Los Angeles where I've when I've worked in Los Angeles, which I've done on a couple of films, it is difficult, because you are driving everywhere and you have allocated parking spaces. And, you know, I remember how excited I was to go drive onto the fox lot when I was doing X Men first class, and I had a parking space really near the cutting room. But I knew that you know that that was dangerous, really, because I wasn't going to be walking that much. And I made sure that I walked a lot. I used to get up early and swim in the mornings. Before I got before I got there. But I guess we can move on to your next question, which is the differences between, you know, for example, working in Los Angeles, or working in America and working in England?
Zack Arnold: Well, actually, I do want to go there. But I don't want to close this loop quite yet. Because I think there's another component that I think is really, really important. The first of which is when you were saying you've tried transitioning to a standing workstation, I know a lot of people that have said that. And the reason that they weren't able to transition is because they didn't understand there's actually a protocol to transition to a standing desk, and it's not just oh, I'm going to stand now. Because it can be so uncomfortable. And you have all these different chronic pains that you've never had any work before. And all of a sudden, you're getting exhausted much soon. And you're like, Well, I can't work like this. And I can't think if I'm tired all the time. So that's another thing I'm building into the program is a step by step protocol for what does it actually take to transition to a standing workstation? How can you create a standing workstation if you don't want to buy one? And what are the tools that you can have around you to keep the more active, and once people start to realize that there's an actual system and it's not just stand instead of sit, that's when I see the real transformation happened. And the light goes off in their brain, and they're like, Oh, my God, if this is what it's like to stand, I'm sold. So I'm just going to kind of throw that
Unknown Speaker: That's great. You know, I'm, I'm, I will be first in line to study that. Alright, well, I'm glad to hear that one of my assistants on mission, use a standing desk the whole time, and he had a high stool so he could rest a little bit if he wanted to. But generally, he was standing all day, and I did quite enjoy walking through to his room and playing on his system. But for me, it didn't work for long periods of time. But hey, I'm all is that's that's, that's about it.
Zack Arnold: And that's the problem is there's just a learning curve where people just think, Oh, I'm just gonna stand and I'm going to be Walter merge. And it's it's way more complicated than that. But once you have the system, you're like, Oh, well, this isn't hard. It's just information I didn't have. So I'm trying to provide that because once people do it the right way, they never ever go back. But I won't harp on that too much. Because I know that I'm I talked about the standing workstation way too much as it is and just had a whole hour long conversation about setting workstations. But the other area that I want to go before we go to kind of La versus the UK, I talked a little bit about the psychology of the all or nothing approach and saying, Well, I dream of exercising five days a week, but I can't so therefore I'm going to do nothing, you can apply the same thing to die in this industry. And I think the big transformation came for me is when I realized that psychologically, we have the same barrier, where you're working in postproduction, you're surrounded by horrible food. I mean, they're basically handing you horrible food all day, every day on a silver platter. And the psychology is, well, I'm not an athlete, you know, I'm maybe already married or whatever. And yeah, I'm five or 10 pounds overweight. But what's the big deal right now losing the weight is not a priority for me. So I'll have this and I'll have that and it starts to add up over time. And over time. And over time. The way I got over that barrier in the way that my viewpoint of food shifted, was not well do I really care about having six pack abs right now. It's how is what I'm eating, going to affect my creativity and focus two hours from now, once I made that psychological shift, I became petrified of the chocolate chip cookies, and the chips and the red velvet cupcakes that people had for the birthdays. And I would say, All right, well, I'm in the middle of dailies, I have a cut to deliver tomorrow at noon. And I have 14 hours worth of work to do and I have six hours to do it. There's no way you could pay me enough money to eat a red velvet cupcake. Because I'm not going to be focused and creative. And once that switch happened in my brain, that's when my whole diet change. And it wasn't because I bought this amazing diet program. It was the psychological trigger, where I realized what I eat is way more about than just the taste of the food. And I'm going to link to a blog post that I actually wrote way back in the infancy of fitness and post that's all about the psychology of how you make the choice of food based on performance, not based on taste. Once I made that shift, everything changed. And then the byproduct of that is more energy, more focus and you start losing weight, you start getting lighter, and it's just it's this compounding domino effect. But that was the trigger for me that started at all. And I think that what you've already done is great, where you're limiting the amount of snacks and you're having the healthy options like that's the way to do it. And I'm assuming that when you slip up and I'm sure you do because even I do all of a sudden three hours later you're in front of your computer and you're thinking oh my god, I can't even watch his dailies right now like I'm so my brain is so foggy. Why did I do that? Right?
Unknown Speaker: Yeah, sometimes that happens, although, I guess maybe I don't eat bad food that much. So it doesn't it doesn't really happen to me. But the one thing I would say is that, you know, my my goal in my career is to be one of the best in the world at what I do. You know, just unashamedly. That's, that's My goal, you know, and you to be the best, you have to be in, you know, in good physical shape and mental shape. And, and so it's one of those things where I remember thinking to myself about five years ago, you know, to be able to deliver truly world class work and to be able to focus and to be able to build a reputation of excellence every day, and uncompromising quality, which is what I'm about, you know, seriously, it's about what is the very best work I can do right now. And I just my entire work ethic is built around that. And, you know, unashamedly, I care more about the films that I'm working on than, than almost anyone else, maybe sometimes even the director, you know, not in the case of Chris McCrory and Tom Cruise who care passionately about the quality of their films, and you'll never meet somebody who works harder than Tom Cruise, I can tell you that right now, you know, that mentality of trying to always be the best, you know, rubs off on all your assistants, and people see it when they walk into the room with you. And that's why they, they want you to work with them, because they know that they're buying, or they're employing somebody who is committed to delivering the very best work every day, you know. So that's, and diet and exercise is comes hand in hand with. With that, you know.
Zack Arnold: Well, I couldn't have couldn't have said it better myself. That's a great shameless thing for Fitness in Post, because that's really where all this started was me realizing that I needed to stop treating myself like a Ford Pinto. And I needed to start treating myself like a Ferrari, not only if I was going to survive, but if I was going to succeed, because you can't work the hours and just be at a high level creatively if you're not taking care of yourself, physically and mentally. And that's really what this is all about is that that just wasn't around, there was nowhere for me to go. And I've created all of this just basically out of pure self interest, because I want it. But then I started realizing, well, there are a lot of other people that want to but it really was just for me, like, I just need to create this because I really, really need this. And there's nobody I can go to that feels the same way I do. But then I realized that there are a lot more people coming out of the woodwork than I thought that said, I want this to and I've been looking for it
Unknown Speaker: No you're right and you're very kind to share it with everybody. And you know, we live in an extraordinary time where things can be shared instantaneously. And, you know, you can download a podcast within seconds and be getting advice on any number of things. And you know, the other great thing is that you can reach out to people via Twitter, you know, I can just tell you, hey, Zack, you know what, that that advice podcast that you did was fantastic. And thank you to Norman, and thank you to you for doing it. And, you know, I learned a lot, I thought the analogy that you guys had about choosing which ladder to climb, at the start of your career, I'd never heard it put it in those terms. And it is completely true. I meet a few people who've climbed up slightly the wrong ladder, like they've climbed up a visual effects ladder, when really they want to be in an assistant editing and editing ladder. And, you know, it's just, it's, it's so totally true. And so it's my pleasure to kind of get on the phone with you or get on Skype with you and share all this information as much as we can, you know.
Zack Arnold: So lastly, before I lose you, I really want to talk a little bit about what we had mentioned a little bit earlier, is that you have worked in two different countries in the same industry. And I've heard stories about how things are vastly different working in the US versus other countries. So briefly, kind of give me an overview of what are some of the differences you see doing the exact same job, but in different countries and kind of the cultural differences.
Eddie Hamilton: You know, working in America, the industry is very mature. The way that the unions regulate paying conditions is very mature. And we do not have that protection really in the UK. Working in the film industry is about very, very long hours and very low pay and no overtime over here. And minimum wage quite often when you're starting out. It wasn't even that a few years ago, but now there is a minimum wage and so people can't get away with paying paying people less than that. But whenever I have worked in the US or even in Canada, you know, there is there is this incredibly wonderful mechanism of paying you for the amount of time that you work and paying you overtime. If the hours get crazy and paying you double overtime if the hours get really crazy. And I remember one of my assistants on X Men first class terrific assistant who's now you know working as an editor in his own right called Adam golf. Here we were shooting in Savannah, Georgia 35 mil anamorphic negative. The tele Sinise were happening in New York, we were shipping neg you know flying neck every day up the coast and the tele Sinise were coming back and they weren't they weren't great you know they weren't to the level of quality that we needed. So my assistant flew up there and he did like a three days he did like a 72 hour shift at the tele cine place redoing all the tele cine from scratch again and you know barely Sleeping effectively. But it was absolutely necessary because we needed all the footage back because they were shooting very complex stuff. And we needed to advise them on what was missing. And we needed to cut the stuff together quickly. And I remember he earned an enormous amount of money because Fox had to pay him double time, and then keep paying him double time or whatever it was. And that just would never have happened in England. So also, you have incredible health benefits, which clearly we don't need so much of because we have the National Health Service over here, which is free at the point of entry, pay free at the point of access for anybody in England, even if you visit here from America, as an American, you can still go to any accident emergency department, if you need immediate care and get world class care, as happened to a composer friend of mine who's here working at the moment, the other day, he was able to walk into a hospital and get free health care, which we're all proud to, to pay for, you know, because it's extraordinary. But you know, when you're unionized, and if you get if you if you work for IRC or local 771, I think it is, you know, you have health care available to you if you're working in the industry. And it's very mature. And it's, it's a wonderful thing. And something which a lot of people don't realize is an enormous gift to you guys working out there and something which should not be taken for granted. And, you know, if you come to England, you will be shocked to see how many hours people are working for how little pay without any kind of regulation, really, and there is a movement here to try and encourage producers to take a more thoughtful, compassionate point of view to the kind of hours that everyone is working in this industry, not necessarily assistant editors and editors. But you know, people in in wardrobe departments and the the art department and the ad department. I mean, the hours are just utterly relentless. And the pay doesn't necessarily reflect that. It does. It does sometimes, but not necessarily. And so that's that's one thing, which I've observed is the difference between working over in the US and working in London, which is, you know, enormously beneficial to people working out there is just, you know, the way that you are treated, I think is much much better than it is over here.
Zack Arnold: Now. How does it work then if you're working on an American studio film, but you happen to geographically be in the UK? Like, are you a member of the Union? No, no, you're not getting paid overtime.
Unknown Speaker: No you don't have to be a member of the union to work in, in England, so on X-Men or Mission, you know, I'm not I am a member of, of IRC and local 771 and the motion picture editors guild, but the membership is only necessary when you're in America working on the film. So I put my my membership on hold. I think it's called honoree withdrawal when I'm not in the US. And then if I work in the US, I reactivate my, my membership to the union, I support what the unions do, I think it's very, very important that everyone joins the union and works on the union contracts, it's incredibly important to stand up as a group and and defend our working rights, you know, our paying conditions and but over here, you don't need to be a member. Now, clearly, they will pay you for six days based on your pro rata rate for five days. And if you know there's a kind of goodwill attitude when you're working on big studio films that if you do crazy hours, they you can put down on your timesheet, you know, the hours that you've done, and they will pay you overtime, but they're not mandated to do it, they will do it because it's the right thing to do when you're working on films of a certain budget level, certainly on X Men First Class and our mission that post supervisors would, would insist on paying you for the hours that you worked, but there was no there was no mandate to do it.
Zack Arnold: That's interesting, because I would have assumed that if you're on a US film, like if you're on Mission Impossible, regardless of where your chair physically sits, that you would have gotten all the same. Like no
Unknown Speaker: you're working with a UK company with Paramount productions UK. I mean, as far as I'm aware, I made I'm not entirely sure about how the production companies you know, business practices work in these situations, but it is usually a you know, Paramount Pictures UK or Fox UK who are running the production here, you see so it says that it's a separate production entity from America.
Zack Arnold: So really then even though you're working on a film that's you know, being produced by an American studio, so to speak, your actual physical employer that's paying you is in the United Kingdom, which therefore they can use the United Kingdom regulations for not having overtime or six days or extra pay, but because it's a US film you can kind of get away with
Eddie Hamilton: Yeah, the only thing I would say at the end, you know, to wrap everything up and I kind of say this quite often is it's very important to remember that if you really want to succeed in this industry and you and you are single I ended and determined and focused, you can succeed and you will succeed because it doesn't matter what obstacles or what sacrifices you have to make, none of that will matter. Because you will want it more than everyone else. And you will eventually succeed. Because the people around you will decide it's not for them. And, and kind of give up, really. So all I would say to you is if you're if you're out there, somewhere in the world, that seems a million miles from Hollywood, and you really want to do this, you absolutely can do it, you just have to set your heart and mind on achieving what you want. Focus on it. And if you're in America, you can work you can go to LA right now and get a job and work there. And it may seem scary, but you have to do it, because that's where the post production industry is. And that's all I would say to everybody is if you work hard enough, and you want it enough, you will succeed.
Zack Arnold: I couldn't have said it better myself. And I wish that everything you said fit on a t shirt because it's perfect. Probably be kind of a long t shirt and hard to read. But yeah, I literally couldn't have said it better myself. And that has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. And please, please, if you ever come to the US reach out, I would love to be able to, to meet you in person. And thank you and just just shoot this talk about our days of editing VHS tapes.
Unknown Speaker: No it's a pleasure, Zack, and thank you for everything you're doing for the post production industry. When I when I started out it was very, very difficult to find out to get anything. And I used to write a lot of letters to people to editors and assistant editors. And whenever I got even one reply from people, it would be so encouraging and now people like you are going the extra mile to to record these podcasts and help people get started in the industry. So it's my pleasure to join you. And thank you for everything you're doing as well.
Zack Arnold: Well, I appreciate that very, very much. That's that's the whole reason I do this. So I'm gonna let you get back to your latest 10 poll. And I'm gonna go wake up with my daughter now. So
Eddie Hamilton: great stuff. All right. Thanks very much that great.
Zack Arnold: Thank you Take it easy. Bye.
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
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