Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/914212
44 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2017 "The Aviator pretty much stayed as it was after the first cut." Foligno's collaboration with Scorsese and Schoonmaker came to a close after The Aviator, but not before she had a chance to acknowledge her longtime assistant on a very public stage. During Schoonmaker's Oscar acceptance speech, she first thanked Scorsese and the cast before expressing gratitude for the contributions of several other members of the team: "There are so many people to thank, I won't thank them, but I think they know where they are — the mixers, the wonderful visual effects people, but particularly my assistants, Scott Brock, Tom Foligno and Erin Crackel. They really got it up there on the screen." Foligno was watching the broadcast at home in New York. "I couldn't believe how generous she was in doing that," he says. "Usually, it's producers or directors or big executives who are thanked, but not us — not the assistants. That was really mind- blowing, and I will always be indebted to her for that." Foligno left the Scorsese- Schoonmaker cutting room to gain more experience on Avid, and in 2013, as big jobs in New York started to decline, he moved to Los Angeles. He is currently working on the popular HBO series Ballers (2015-present), but remains appreciative of the opportunity to work with the director he grew up revering. "You can't imagine all the people I met just from being in his office," Foligno says. "The Dalai Lama [the subject of 1997's Kundun] himself came into our editing room. He was fascinated with the splicer: 'How does that work?' I shook the hands of Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Newman and John F. Kennedy, Jr., to name a few, who came by the office to see Marty." Above all, for the lessons learned on The Aviator and other films, the assistant editor is grateful to Schoonmaker. "She was the nicest person — gracious and fun to be with as well as being a phenomenally great editor," Foligno says. "As I look back, it was just a great time to be there with her, doing what we were doing." f Tom Foligno and his children Sylvie, left, and Hannah with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, during post-production on The Aviator at Halloween in 2004. Observing Scorsese scrutinizing the takes was an education in itself. "He would be editing in his mind," Foligno recalls.