Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/832212
28 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2017 Akhtar says he loves a good diversity joke. He remembers when Chris Rock, as host of the 2016 Academy Awards telecast, critiqued Hollywood for disguising its diversity problem with soft bigotry by being "sorority racist." Rock imagined an executive saying, "It's like, we like you, Rhonda. But you're not a Kappa." "I stood up and applauded when I heard that," Akhtar remembers. "I don't think people are intentionally insensitive, it's just that they haven't thought much about what they are saying." Akhtar is a member of the Editors Guild, American Cinema Editors and the Directors Guild, where he recently participated in a panel discussion about diversity hiring in film and television. "I am pleased there has been a real push to discuss diversity and to try to have more inclusiveness in the industry," he says. "It's hard to know what we can do about it, but in order to make progress, we need to learn what the issues are. "I haven't ever had a problem getting hired to edit because was brown," he continues. "But I look around and don't see a lot of diversity in post. I don't know if there are a lot of people not getting opportunities, but we need to hear from our members to find out. If there is a problem, why?" The editor's accolades for best comedy editing are well deserved, because he cut the Crazy Ex- Girlfriend pilot episode twice. The original pilot was commissioned as a half hour for Showtime, which eventually passed on the project. Six months later, The CW picked up the show for a series, but wanted the episode extended and reformatted to an hour's length. This task landed squarely on Akhtar, who dove into the challenge to double the cut's time. The producers had only shot three additional scenes. "We were lucky enough to put back in every moment we had taken out to get to time in the original half- hour show," he explains. "We had to make it work in a new way." The journey from snatching the pilot show from the jaws of one studio's pass bin to making it into a Golden Globe Award nominee and winner for another company is a rare yet wonderful example of an editor transcending his or her role and place in the cutting room and becoming a principal creative collaborator. When Rachel Bloom won the 2016 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series (Comedy or Musical) for her starring role as the show's namesake "crazy ex-girlfriend," she went to work the next day and celebrated with her editor, posing for a photo with both of them jointly holding the trophy. Bloom is also an executive producer and co- creator, and when the show was picked up for a second season, Akhtar was invited to direct an episode. The producers obviously recognized his work not only as editor, but as one of the show's founding fathers. Comedy traditionally works in the half-hour format, so to extend the show longer required an editorial feat of collaboration with the show's writers. For Akhtar, this unique experience reinforced the theory that the craft of editing is similar to writing with picture and sound. Although he cautioned that the journey was fraught with the potential shoals of executive writer egos upon which any editor could run aground. "People often don't understand what we do as editors, but what we are doing is the final rewrite of the show," Akhtar explains. "We speak 'editor language,' but oftentimes editors don't speak 'writer language,' and it's so important that we do. It is the editor's job to protect the show from bad acting,