Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/551510
31 SUMMER 2015 / CINEMONTAGE time to go back to work. By then, her cousin was running Universal's negative cutting department, and she was back where she started 10 years earlier. She wasn't at Universal long before she started getting phone calls from the legendary negative cutter Donah Bassett. "Donah had a reputation for being really mean," says Henry. "She finally asked me why I kept saying no to her and I said, 'Because you're mean.' She was taken aback and promised she'd be nice to me. I said I'd give her two chances and, number two, I'm walking out." Bassett went out of her way to be overtly sweet to Henry. "Then one day, when she thought I was there for good, she said two or three nasty things to me in front of the crew," Henry recalls. "Referring to The Wizard of Oz, I said to her, 'Did you buy that house or did it fall on you?' Then I said, 'That's one,' and went into my cutting room." Working at D. Bassett & Associates was also a tremendous learning curve for Henry. "It was the first time I was thrown into such a high-pressure situation," she says. "From then on, I cut features exclusively. I had never had to deal with things like multiple-language soundtracks, multiple elements like interpositives, internegatives and overlays. Avid and Lightworks were beginning to catch on,