Gael Chandler

It all started in a small drive-in theater in Santa Rosa, California – to paraphrase Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I got a job as a cashier at StarVue Motor Movies but was more interested in the projection booth. There I learned base and emulsion, cement and tape splicing, and other 35mm basics. Eventually my union brothers and the town’s theater managers were persuaded to let a woman in the booth and the union. This meant I got to run Rocky, Star Wars, and Saturday Night Fever for months and take location assignments doing grip, electrical, and craft service work. Much film through projector and two Bachelor of Arts, degrees later with the encouragement of film professor Peter Scarlet, I headed for Hollywood and began slipping through studio gates.

My first Hollywood job was as an assistant at a sound hole-in-the-wall, a studio where I transferred 500 tiger growls from ¼” to 35mm on my first day. It was a good place to meet editors and led to my first assistant editor job in the “syncing pool” on the television show That’s Incredible.

I have edited comedies, dramas, documentaries, features, corporate videos, and promos, and cut on every type of medium: film, tape, and digital. Nominated twice for a Cable ACE award for editing a comedy series, I am a member of the Editors Peer Group of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and enjoy judging the Emmy and College TV awards.

I have taught editing practices and history at Loyola Marymount University and California State Universities at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Northridge, and have trained hundreds of professionals, independent filmmakers, professors, and students to operate digital editing equipment.

I have also written a handful of feature screenplays, one of which is optioned and another of which won the Scriptwriters Networks’ Producers Outreach Program contest and may yet be coming to a theatre near you. The writing has made me a better editor and vice versa.

My first book, Cut by Cut: Editing your Film or Video, (December 2004), details the editing process from dailies to tube, screen, DVD, or Web. My second book, Film Editing Great Cut Every Filmmaker and Movie Lover Must Know, (October 2009), demystifies the types of cuts editors make and how these cuts advance the story and affect the audience. Additionally, I have created numerous online courses on a variety of subjects, including editing. Organizing material – and content – is the common thread in my work as a writer, editor, teacher, and instructional designer. In addition to book and blog writing, I have been creating training materials (games, e-Learning, etc.) and editing videos and audio shows for corporations during the past few years.

I hope reading my books will increase your enjoyment and appreciation of film editing. And, if you’re a filmmaker, I hope the books will help you realize your filmmaking visions. Please contact me and let me know.