Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/551510
35 SUMMER 2015 / CINEMONTAGE Deborah Peretz started out in features, working in editorial departments on such films as The Untouchables (1987) and Black Rain (1989). Over the past 20 years, she has edited many PBS documentaries, for the venerable strands American Experience and American Masters. Peretz has earned a Primetime Emmy Award, two Emmy nominations and an ACE Eddie Award. Phillip Schopper also started out in features, but a bulk of his work throughout his editing career has been in documentary. Within the doc genre, he has edited both archive and vérité work, as well as non-fiction series and one-offs, and a lion's share of his films have aired on HBO. Complementing his prowess in the editing room, Schopper also has five directing credits on his résumé. David Tedeschi has had the good fortune of editing docs for one director over the past several years: Martin Scorsese. Highlighted by the monumental epics No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005) for PBS' American Masters, and George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) for HBO, Tedeschi's collaborations with Scorsese have earned him two Primetime Emmy nominations and one ACE Eddie nod. He's currently at work on a fiction series for HBO, helmed by Scorsese, about the rock music scene in 1970s New York. All three editors are based in New York. CineMontage spoke to them about being Guild members, how their work in fiction and non-fiction serve each other in their respective processes. WORKING UNION Peretz, Schopper and Tedeschi have all been Guild members for at least 15 years, and all joined when they were hired to cut narrative features. Schopper, the longest- running MPEG member of the trio, at more than three decades, had been editing independent work before he was asked to work on the 1981 film Reds — but he didn't join just then. "I was fairly fully engulfed in the world of studio feature post-production and was working more or less alongside idols like Dede Allen and Craig McKay," Schopper recalls. "It was wonderful, but it still wasn't a situation that opened a door to Guild feature editing for me. However, that work led me to Marlo Thomas and a project for ABC. She was producing through her own company. The show had been completed, but was in need of a complete editorial makeover. I think because of my unconventional entry into the world of editing and the kinds of projects I had edited and directed, I was A scene from AMERICAN MASTERS: Judy Garland by Myself, for which Deborah Peretz won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Picture Editing for Non-Fiction Programming, shared with Kristen Huntley and Kate Hirsong. Photo courtesy of PBS