Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/551510
38 CINEMONTAGE / SUMMER 2015 union." "I just think there is more work for documentary editors in New York City, period," Tedeschi opines. "It does seem that New York has been a real center consistently for making documentaries in a way that hasn't been necessarily consistent for other parts of the industry." DOING THE NON-FICTION/FICTION SHUFFLE Peretz, Schopper and Tedeschi flex their editorial muscles in fiction as well as non-fiction, and they all find common ground between the two. In fact, working back and forth has served to strengthen their craft and artistry. "There's a lot of commonality between features and docs," Peretz asserts. "Both are about storytelling and require building a dramatic arc, character development, finding the emotional essence in scenes and creating pacing, rhythm and musicality in the cutting. Where it differs is that documentaries are often more or less written in the cutting room. This can be incredibly exciting — discovering the film in a mountain of material alongside the director. It's also incredibly challenging and stressful at times, knowing there's a film in there somewhere, but what exactly is it? "There have definitely been days when I longed for a script with a clear beginning, middle and end," she adds. "Or times I've been cutting a vérité scene knowing just where I want to be for a certain moment when, alas, the DP was elsewhere! And I'm wishing I had the coverage I would have had on a feature. But that's all part of the challenge — and sometimes the fun of it." "The biggest challenge is that producers don't necessarily understand why you'd want to go back and forth between the two," Tedeschi notes. "And sometimes you'll have to explain yourself. For me, it's different parts of my brain, and I love both of them. People often say to me, depending on their prejudices, 'Well, isn't documentary — or narrative — editing a more skilled profession?' But to me they're both thrilling. They offer different kinds of challenges." According to Tedeschi, the challenges in a documentary are generally that "you have fewer resources and there's no script. But the thrill of it is, you put together A scene from Governor Richards of the Lone Star State, which Phillip Schopper edited and for which he shares a director credit with Keith Patterson. Photo by Bob Daemmrich