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42 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2017 Geostorm. Warner Bros. Pictures It's been quite a ride for an artist who had to "fight my way" into the industry originally before establishing himself as one of the relatively few African-American music editors in Hollywood. That journey happened largely because he had the good fortune to "come from a musical family, growing up hearing music 24/7," according to Spiva. "My dad had a singing group in the 1950s or '60s, and put out an album," he recalls. "I can remember my mom and dad always singing, and going to sleep hearing 'Old Man River.' I also remember trying to take lessons on the organ with my brother at church — and my feet didn't touch the pedals. I got into the seat and stretched my legs to try to convince them I could reach them, but they said, 'No, I wasn't old enough.' "Really, I was always involved in music, not only in church, but in school jazz and marching bands," he continues. "At jazz band competitions, I was the trombonist, and performance trombone was my major in college [at California State University, Northridge]. But eventually, I switched to television and film." That switch was not an easy process; Spiva had not been educated or trained for pursuing a position in Hollywood. "I didn't have any mentors; there was no one advising me," he concedes. "After looking for a job for about six months, I was like, 'You know what? I'll be a file clerk, anything — as long as I can get onto a lot or studio, eventually I'll work my way.' I knew I wanted to work in music but, back then, I didn't even know what a music editor was." Still, Spiva started "fighting my way around, knowing I wanted to be in post-production and working with music somehow. I became an assistant sound editor to start." Famed sound editor George Watters II, MPSE, eventually hired him to be a sound assistant on Pearl Harbor (2001), for which Watters would go on to win an Academy Award. During that period, Spiva met music editor Mark Streitenfeld, who would later become a well- known composer. Streitenfeld hired him to work as assistant music editor on Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001), and that development, in turn, allowed Spiva to begin working with the director, as well as famed picture editor, Pietro Scalia, ACE, and legendary composer Hans Zimmer — all of whom would influence his career in the coming years. "When Mark became a composer, he eventually bumped me up to music editor, and that is really where the big foothold — the sea change in terms of my becoming a music editor — finally happened," Spiva explains. He worked as music editor on a couple of small films that eventually wound up as television movies before joining a team of music editors on Doug Liman's 2005 film, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Michael Bay's The Island (2005) and many others followed, but his most consistent collaborators were Scott's team on films like A Good Year (2006), American Gangster (2007) and Prometheus (2012). "The nice thing about working with Ridley was that he allowed a lot of creativity around him," Spiva explains. "Some directors want to direct down to the minutiae, but Ridley pulls back a little bit and says, 'Show me, impress me, what do you have?' That was a beautiful thing about working with him." In particular, American Gangster earned the music editor an MPSE Golden Reel Award nomination. "Even though the story takes place in the 1960s and early '70s, Ridley didn't want us to make it feel like a Blaxploitation piece," Spiva recalls. "So the songs we picked were not always as hard-hitting or funky as you might expect. We ratcheted it back, because we didn't want the focus to be on the music so much as on the story. It was about finding the correct tone for the movie, and for the pacing. "In that case, pulling back was the right thing to do," he continues, "because we had [lead actor] Denzel Washington there, and we didn't want to pull too much attention musically away from him. Also, Pietro is such a master at pacing, and