The Rough Cut

As one of the most revered series in television history, it should come as no surprise the the post team from Breaking Bad would know a thing or two about "breaking in" to the industry. And not just breaking in, but staying in and staying at the top of your game. Presented by Avid as a live Zoom webinar, editors Kelley Dixon ACE and Chris McCaleb ACE along with sound supervisor Kathryn Madsen entertained and informed a worldwide audience with their collective thoughts, experiences and insights. BIOS Kelley has spent the last thirteen years editing Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, Preacher, HBO's Luck, and Shameless, among others. She cut her first feature The Goldfinch in 2018. She has won 1 Emmy for Breaking Bad and has received 9 Emmy nominations and 7 ACE nominations for her work. Chris McCaleb has been editing TV series like Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire, Fear the Walking Dead, Patriot, Lodge 49 and Narcos since 2014. He has received three Emmy and three ACE nominations for Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. Kathryn began her career in sound as an assistant editor. She soon moved up to ADR Supervisor and then to Sound Supervisor. Her favorite gigs have been the TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and the film Hell or High Water. In 2013 she was dubbed the "Goddess of Sound" by Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston Kathryn has been nominated for seven Golden Reel awards, winning in 2020, as well as eight Emmy nominations. During the presentation the team touched on a wide variety of topics including... How important is a demo reel and an agent The impact of being in a union The schedule of a 1hr series Cutting trailers to sharpen your skills The tools they use now vs what they used when they were starting out Avoiding the pigeon holes Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs Learn Avid editing for free with Media Composer | First Learn Pro Tools for free with Pro Tools | First Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode Visit The Rough Cut on YouTube

Da 5 Bloods editor, Adam Gough is on this edition of The Rough Cut to talk about his work on Spike Lee's latest film, now streaming on Netflix. For over a decade Adam was sharpening his storytelling skills in the cutting room before getting some much deserved recognition for his work on Alfonso Cuaron's Roma. Not only did it grab him around 20 different award nominations, it also got his phone to start ringing. On one particular occasion it was director Spike Lee on the other end of the line. Apparently the call went well, because Spike signed Adam up for his next project, a film about four African American vets who return to Vietnam in the present day in search of the remains of a fallen comrade and another precious thing they left behind. It's definitely one of Spike Lee's biggest and most ambitious projects and Adam did a fantastic job editing the film. During the podcast, the Da 5 Bloods editor talks about... Working with archival footage to craft the context of the film The visual dynamics of double cuts The surprise vs suspense of walking through minefields Paying homage to films that came before Moving between 5.1 surround sound and stereo while editing What being a technical editor is all about Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs See the latest Special Offers for Avid Media Composer Learn Avid for free with Media Composer | First Subscribe to Media Composer | Ultimate and get the best Avid has to offer Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode Visit The Rough Cut on YouTube

The Trial of the Chicago Seven editor, Alan Baumgarten ACE is on the podcast this week to discuss his new film with writer/director, Aaron Sorkin. This is the second time working together for Alan and Aaron, and since this is also only the second thing that Aaron Sorkin has ever directed, the basic math will tell you that Alan is his "go to" guy. And why not? Aside from doing Aaron's first film, Molly's Game, Alan has proved his mettle on just about every kind of film. Dramas like American Hustle and Trumbo. Comedies like Dodgeball and Meet the Fockers. Superhero action movies like Venom…and of course my personal favorite, which falls into all the above categories, Zombieland. Hey, if you can't see the drama in Zombieland, that's on you. The Trial of the Chicago Seven is a legal courtroom drama, much like the film that launched Aaron Sorkin's writing career, A Few Good Men. But "Chicago Seven" takes on the even more ambitious challenge of detailing an actual historical event, which is the trial of seven men charged with inciting the riots that took place in 1968 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As you would imagine, this is a big story with a big cast and has many details that need to be fleshed out and brought to life in the most engaging way possible. In our discussion with Alan, he talks about: The challenge of setting up the characters and context of the film in the opening prologue sequence Negotiating for who and what you need in the cutting room The effect of the pandemic on finishing the film from the director's cut onward What he looks for in an assistant Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs See the latest Special Offers for Avid Media Composer Try Media Composer | Ultimate for free Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode Visit The Rough Cut on YouTube

Ted Lasso editors, Melissa McCoy and AJ Catoline join this episode of The Rough Cut podcast to tell us about what goes on in the cutting room to make the magic from the locker room. Ted Lasso is an AppleTV+ series developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt, based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports' coverage of the The English Premier League. The premise is that American college football coach Ted Lasso is recruited to coach an English Premier League team, AFC Richmond, despite having no experience in English football. So, to overly simplify the whole thing, it's a fish out of water series. More aptly put, it's a goldfish out of water series. That's a little joke you'd get if you watched the series. And if you don't, you really should. Maybe it's a case of the right show at the right time, but Ted Lasso and his relentless optimism could not have come along at a better time. AJ and Melissa talk to us about: Zooming with Coach Lasso How reality TV experience comes into play for improv The challenge of cutting sports in a scripted comedy plus, breaking down key scenes from the series Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs Go Behind The Scenes of Ted Lasso with a "Timeline Tour" on YouTube See the latest Special Offers for Avid Media Composer Learn Avid for free with Media Composer | First Subscribe to Media Composer | Ultimate and get the best Avid has to offer Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode

The Queen's Gambit editor Michelle Tesoro ACE (House of Cards, When They See Us) first collaborated with writer/director Scott Frank in 2017 for his series, Godless. In fact, The Queen's Gambit also reunites Michelle with fellow Godless alums Wylie Stateman (sound designer) and Steven Meizler (cinematographer). The fusion of their collective talents has resulted in a critically acclaimed series that stormed its way into the Top 10 on Netflix. The Queen's Gambit is adapted from the Walter Tevis novel of the same name, released back in 1983. It follows the journey of Beth Harmon, a young girl who was orphaned at the tender age of nine. While awaiting adoption at the orphanage, she develops a passion for chess and an addiction to tranquilizers; both tapping into an inner genius that propelled her into the world of competitive chess as a teen and then young adult. Thanks in large part to Michelle's graceful sense of storytelling, this drama unfolds with brilliantly balanced pacing, while maximizing Frank's fantastic writing and a career making performance from actor, Anya Taylor-Joy. In this episode of The Rough Cut, Michelle talks with us about: compressing time while keeping the emotional beats developing discrete visual styles for the different chess matches cutting dialogue that's purposefully hard to hear working within a "oner" Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs See Michelle's guided Timeline Tour on YouTube See the latest Special Offers for Avid Media Composer Learn Avid for free with Media Composer | First Subscribe to Media Composer | Ultimate and get the best Avid has to offer Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode

Inbal B. Lessner, ACE, is an Emmy®- and Eddie-nominated editor and producer. On her latest project, "Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult"—which she co-created with her filmmaking partner, director Cecilia Peck—she takes on the roles of lead editor, writer and executive producer. This four-part documentary series, premiering on STARZ, follows one young woman's perilous journey through the dark and criminal world of NXIVM, the notorious self-help group turned sex-slave cult. Lessner and Peck's last collaboration was the Emmy®-nominated feature documentary Brave Miss World, which debuted on Netflix in 2014. It is the story of an Israeli beauty queen who was raped seven weeks prior to her winning the Miss World pageant and her crusade to reach out to fellow survivors while trying to keep her own rapist behind bars. In 2019, Lessner edited and coproduced "The Movies" ("The Golden Age" episode), executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog. This was the latest in her four-year-long collaboration with the team that produced CNN's Emmy®-nominated "Decades" series. She has edited seven episodes in the series, and she was nominated for an ACE Editing Award for "The Nineties" episode "Can We All Get Along?" Lessner's editing credits include ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (Netflix Original, Dir. Kelly Duane), which was nominated for an Outstanding Documentary NAACP Image Award, as well as Autism: The Sequel (HBO, Dir. Tricia Regan), a follow-up to the Emmy®-winning Autism: The Musical (2007). She edited and coproduced the internationally acclaimed, award-winning I Have Never Forgotten You, a documentary about Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal. She also directed the docudrama Night Bites, and she was second-unit producer on the HBO/ARTE documentary Watermarks. Over the course of her career, Lessner has worked in the cutting rooms of directors such as Davis Guggenheim (Teach), R.J. Cutler ("American Candidate"), Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge (A Lego Brickumentary), Jeremy Simmons ("Transgeneration"), Tracy Droz Tragos (Be Good, Smile Pretty) and Natalie Portman (A Tale of Love and Darkness). Lessner began making films when she was in high school and later produced training films for the Israel Defense Forces. At NYU, she was the recipient of the prestigious, merit-based WTC Johnson Fellowship, which is awarded to one student filmmaker a year. Since moving to Los Angeles, she has edited hundreds of hours of non-scripted network and cable television shows. She was also a visiting professor at UNCSA Filmmaking School and a mentor in the Karen Schmeer Diversity in the Edit Room Program. Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs See the latest Special Offers for Avid Media Composer Learn Avid for free with Media Composer | First Subscribe to Media Composer | Ultimate and get the best Avid has to offer Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode Visit The Rough Cut on YouTube