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24 C I N E M O N T A G E U N I O N M A D E Steve Rasch. By Steve Rasch I grew up in the suburbs of Syracuse. When I was 12, I got a Kodak Instamat- ic camera for Christmas. You put the cartridge in, closed the back, popped on a flash cube (four flashes, the cube rotated automatically!) and pressed the shutter. I needed to figure out more about photogra- phy, and my dad's old 1940s Kodak folding camera and a light meter were suddenly my favorite toys. My dad built me a dark- room in the basement. My subjects were my crazy family and friends. The dogs got special attention. Then I seriously start- ed mowing lawns in order to purchase the ultimate camera: The 35mm Pentax Spot- matic. Heaven. But I didn't have a focus for my photography. I grew up in a large family, five kids born in a seven-year span. My dad was a jokester, and dinner was the time to continue the family tradition of making each other laugh. I started watching old Marx Brothers movies on PBS. I became a bit obsessed with Groucho and recorded the soundtrack of "Duck Soup" on Dad's brand new Hosho 1/4 inch portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. Then I discovered a show called "Monty Python's Flying Circus." That's it, I thought. I bought a used 8mm Kodak film camera for $15 and began a lifelong pursuit of filmed comedy. My older brother and younger sis- ter were willing actors, and when pressed, my mother too. But I had no concept of a film or tele- vision business and had no connections or mentors to advise me, so I followed my brother to Colgate for an English and beer degree. After sophomore year, I checked out a few film schools, but besides NYU and USC, there weren't too many choices. So I stayed at Colgate, made a few 8mm shorts with my frat bros, and continued PRETTY, PRETTY GOOD HOW A LOVE OF COMEDY LED TO EDITING 'CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM' an uninspired slog through liberal arts. At the school library, I discovered a magazine called "Weekly Variety." There I learned about a thriving business in film and televi- sion, so after college, I moved to Boston, got a job in a camera store, and started making Super 8mm sound comedy films. This for- mat is very difficult to cut, so I transferred the film to 3/4 inch tape and learned to edit on a Sony RM 440 tape-to-tape system that I rented by the hour at a local nonprofit film collective. To improve my writing and directing skills, I joined an improv comedy group. A fellow freelancer got me a job at a video postproduction company. I started as a dubber and had to go in at 6 a.m. and make VHS dubs of commercials and industrials. But I quickly learned how to run the Sony 1 inch tape machines, and in a year I was promoted to video editor. On weekends, they let us use the cameras and edit bays free of charge. I shot a 16mm comedy, cut it on tape, and sold it to the A & E network. That got me into AFI in 1988. Who says you can't go to film school in your mid-30s? B re a k i n g i n to t h e s c r i p te d co m e dy business was harder than I thought. The good shows were all union. I took my editing resume and dropped it off at five nonunion post houses in LA. Soon I was doing free- lance online and offline tape work. I wasn't too picky about content: marriage, babies and rent are surprising motivators when it comes to job selection. But a producer at a company called Visualize liked my sense of humor and knowledge of the comedy scene, and soon I became the go-to editor for several comedy series he produced for Comedy Central and VH1. After hundreds of days cutting cable TV, I finally qualified to join the Editors Guild. S i tco m s we re b o o m i n g i n t h e ' 9 0 s, and an editor I befriended named Jay Sherberth got me a job cutting "The Parent 'Hood," starring Robert Townsend. I spent a few years on the Warner Bros. lot cutting sitcoms. When one got canceled, another SEE PAGE 61