JD Smyth is an editor and partner at Final Cut, a film editing company established over 20 years ago by “our fearless founder and legendary editor Rick Russell. We play in the short-form/long-form and commercial sandbox,” says Smyth. Final Cut has offices in LA, London and New York, where Smyth is based.
Smyth has been an editor for over 20 years, working on narrative work for brands such as GE, the NFL, AT&T and HBO, which has received accolades including Emmys, Cannes Lions and One Show Pencils. In 2019, he edited his first feature film, Stray Dolls, which premiered at Tribeca.
We spoke to Smyth to find out more…
What does your job entail?
Talking to myself out loud as I piece together sound and images into a hopefully cohesive whole while filtering and accommodating a lot of different opinions. When not editing, I and the other partners — Ashley Kreamer, Jim Helton, Crispin Struthers and Jeff Buchanan — provide practical and creative support to our editors and assistants.
What would surprise people the most about what falls under that title?
Reading the room… analyzing personalities so you can discern their specific wants and foibles (the kerning in the supers, how the VO sits over the picture, etc.) so you can accommodate those specifics while keeping an eye and ear on the whole piece.
Do you put on a different hat when cutting for a specific genre? Can you elaborate?
Regardless of hats and genres, you’re always aiming to preserve your first instincts. How did that take make me feel the first time I saw it? This is particularly true of humor when you’ve watched the cut down 100 times and no one’s smiling anymore, but they all laughed out loud the first 30 times. You will go on a journey exploring how far you can take an edit this way or that, so it’s always good to have a gut-based North Star to refer back to.
Can you describe your experience working through COVID? And do you expect these workflows to stay with us going forward?
It was painful at first. I recently started working in-person again with an old friend and director whose foot gets all twitchy when he sees something he’s not sure about. Unsurprisingly, those kinds of “in the room” cues don’t translate to Zoom.
Being back, we’ve generally found that clients want to sit in the room for the first week or so, getting into a huddle to find the shape of the piece together. Then everyone goes remote when you’re in revision land. I think that structure can be very healthy. The last thing you want is for people to grow tired of each other and the room.
What system do you edit on?
Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere (RIP FCP 7). Premiere has a lot of positives, and I may just be dyed-in-the-wool, but Avid is still the most robust and intuitive platform for straight-up cutting. I started on a Sony RM440 3/4-inch tape-to-tape machine, so everything’s been uphill from there, but all the NLE apps are the same under the hood.
Village Medical
Do you have a favorite plugin?
Errol Morris turned me on to using Avid’s Fluid Morph effect to tighten up interviews imperceptibly. Great for me, absolute nightmare to finish. Also, learning the Roto Brush in After Effects was a game-changer.
Can you name some recent jobs?
Village Medical for Deutsch NY, directed by the inimitable Patrick Daughters out of Anonymous. It’s a lovely blend of humanity, practical effects and CGI by the good folks at Artjail. Also, I worked with Kyle Cooper and his Prologue team on the title sequence for the upcoming sci-fi feature The Creator.
Are you often asked to do more than edit?
I always appreciate it when people understand that exploring sound in the edit is important and more than just something you should wait for the sound designer to attack. We’re here to breathe life into a project as much as possible before the experts elevate it further.
Beyonce
I did a project for Beyonce a while ago. She was bathed in this floating gold dust. I recorded a wind chime in the garden, multi-tracked the recording, pitched it all up, drenched it in reverb and presto: gold dust! Dražen Bošnjak at Q Department asked if he could steal the effect, as he hadn’t found anything he preferred. He’s a genius, so that was a huge compliment, but I’m content when you’ve supplied a creative guide in the edit that the sound designer can run with, even if they replace everything you’ve done. It’s all an evolution.
What’s your favorite part of the job?
Kind words and smiles. That small confirmation lets you know that while we may have a way to go, we’re on the right track. Also, being surprised by the suggestion you didn’t think would work but does.
What’s your least favorite?
Too many hours of footage and not enough time to honor the process. We always get there, though.
What is your most productive time of day?
Emails and such would be first thing in the morning. Creatively, somewhere around midnight. I was born just before midnight, so maybe there’s something in that?
If you didn’t have this job, what would you be doing instead?
Taxidermy.
How early did you know this would be your path?
Many people have heard this one, but I visited the set of The Empire Strikes Back when I was a kid. I’ve been under the spell of filmmaking ever since.
What are three pieces of technology you can’t live without?
My iPhone, my iMac and a coffee grinder that looks like a 1980s Norwegian Brutalist one-bedroom house.
What do you do to de-stress from it all?
Cliche as it may sound, spending time with family and friends.
