Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I FA L L 2 0 2 0 29 Can't Stop, Won't Stop: POST SOUND EDITORIAL DURING THE SHUTDOWN Presented by the MPSE MODERATOR Frank Morrone CAS MPSE PANELISTS: Michael Babcock CAS Sean Massey MPSE Gary Megregian MPSE Mandell Winter MPSE This panel was moderated byFrank Morrone CAS MPSE, Past President of the MPSE, current Secretary of the CAS, Emmy winner (for Lost) and seven-time nominee, four-time CAS Award nominee with three wins, and five-time nominee for the MPSE Golden Reel. The four panelists were all supervisors. Michael Babcock CAS, who has 15 Golden Reel nominations with four wins, three Emmy nominations, and has worked on The Dark Knight, Inception, and Trial of the Chicago 7. Sean Massey MPSE, who was nominated for two Golden Reel Awards for Deadpool 2 and The Stand. Gary Megregian MPSE, a two- time Emmy winner with a total of 10 nominations, and nine nominations for the Golden Reel Award with one win. Credits include American Horror Story and The Politician. And Mandell Winter MPSE, nominated for two Emmys and seven Golden Reels, with credits including Southpaw, The Magnificent Seven, and True Detective. Frank asked about the transition from editing on the lot to editing at home. Michael found out that he had to move home on a Friday afternoon. He grabbed a hard drive and named it "Lifeboat" to take home. His library is already on a server, so he was able to do most of the editing for his two shows on his laptop. Sean finished the show he was working on and had two weeks to pull together a home system. Gary had just wrapped Hollywood for Netflix and was getting ready for The Politician. They had a couple of weeks to decide whether or not to move, as well as which departments would move home. Editorial had a week to get gear together. They were lucky that four episodes were already cut and ready to mix. Mandell works at Sony, but with a show that had picture editors at Paramount. He had to pull speakers out of storage to set up a usable home system. Like a good supervisor, Mandell cares about his editors and supervised the transition home for all of them. "The most important part was that they were compensated for the change." Frank then asked about technical issues. Michael described painfully slow internet uploads, made worse by the fact that he had no assistant and had to schedule his day around uploads and downloads. Michael normally likes to edit (and mix) using a server, but file transfers had to go through the internet. "Using the internet is like taking a step back 15 years. You feel like you are editing underwater. It's very stressful; just as stressful as dealing with COVID." Gary quicky upgraded his service from 300 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps for uploads. The mixers were frustrated with their upload speeds, as little as 15 Mbps-20 Mbps. Mandell switched to a business account with 500 Mbps-600 Mbps download, 35 upload. Sean's daughter is online learning in the next room and gets 300 Mbps download. Shows are turning over through the internet. "You have to allocate time for (downloads & uploads); you have to be your own assistant. It was a step backward." Recap by David Bondelevitch CAS MPSE