Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470109
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 23 in Los Angeles. I was 20 years old and I figured, what the heck, you know? My first job was on Gower Street with a music editor who decided to direct. It was my first experience. It was great. I learned how to sync dailies. It really was a great learning process for sure, to really understand how it all worked. However, there was another arrangement that assistants, if they chose, would be able to take the film after it was locked, and put sound effects in. And that was great for me. I worked on Steenbecks [flatbed]. They built up a sound effects library. This was a seasonal program that went on for years. I got involved, so they had already developed a library of sound effects but they were very careful to choose sound effects of the region that the story was taking place. So we had to be careful that, you know, we weren't using birds, for instance, in an area where the birds didn't exist. It was a real learning experience that followed me, because when I finally started to do more films, I became more aware of how important it was to be authentic with some sounds such as backgrounds. So I got my opportunity to do that. From Time Life, I got an opportunity to work at CBS News and it went very well, I liked working there, but they wanted me to be staff, and I didn't want to do that. By-the-by, in 1976, is when I applied for the union in New York. I got my opportunity, and at the time, the fee was $1,500. SS: You're kidding! CC: No! The business manager or the business agent of the union, he was like, mafiosa, you know, he said, "You've been around a lot, you know, I mean, I know the family. And so if you want to get into this union, you're going to have to come in as an editor. Not as an apprentice, not as an assistant, but as an editor." So I said to the guy, "But I'm not working as an editor, I'm an assistant." "Doesn't matter," he said. So I said, "Fine." I figured out a way. Corky O'Hara got me a job working with Jim Glickenhaus on a movie called Chic Ciccolini (left) receiving the prestigious Career Achievement Award, presented by his good friend, and once right-hand man, Rickley Dumm , during the virtual 2022 Motion Picture Sound Editors 69th Annual Golden Reel Awards ceremony.