Paul Notice named Jury President for Editing at 2022 D and AD awards!
Executive Producer, Paul A. Notice II was just named the Jury President for Editing at the D & AD Awards this year! Take a look at an excerpt from the article they wrote for D & AD below. Follow the link button at the end for the full article.
“How Editing can be a Radical Act”
Editing, like any practice, can be a radical act. Unless you’re an editor, or familiar with the practice of editing yourself, it can be easy to underplay the essential role editing fulfills in crafting a film’s narrative. A skillful editor could spend months crafting raw unscripted footage into something captivating, adding insight or depth to the story through intentional choices in sequencing clips, strategic use of text, or even choice of music. In fact, a nuanced and experienced editor will have the ability to change an audience’s worldview, both onscreen and off.
That change could spring from something as seemingly insignificant as choosing the stock footage. For instance, the editor could influence the way viewers perceive ‘family’, by simply selecting footage with Queer/BIPOC actors instead of the normalized depiction of a White nuclear family.
To better understand this practice, let’s do a quick case study on the 2014 Cheerios Superbowl Halftime Commercial. It was a 30-second ad spot portraying a queer couple having breakfast with their child. Nevertheless, that ad challenged homophobic views still present in American society. Though it spurred controversy from the political Right, the commercial was still roundly applauded by consumers, media outlets, and advocacy groups alike. By showing these three as a family, and centering their narrative; Cheerios’ message rang clear: “Cheerios are for everybody”.
This isn’t to say that tokenism and Othering-as-spectacle don’t also exist. Rather, an editor must be intentional and genuine in their incorporation of marginalized narratives. They must be careful not to regard BIPOC/Queer/Femme/Differently-Abled bodies on-screen as props - or “a means to an end,” but rather as human beings, and an end in that of themselves…..