Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story

Credits: Co-Editor and Lead Assistant Editor
Year: 2023
Network: NBC/peacock

Premiered at DC/DOX on June 17th, 2023. NYC Premiere at DOC NYC November 16, 2023. Currently available to stream on Peacock.

Between Life & Death revisits the story of Terri Schiavo, a deeply personal decade-long saga that captivated the country and forced Americans to reckon with profound issues at the intersection of faith and politics that reverberate to this day. At only 26, Terri suffered a brain injury that left her in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of recovery. While Terri’s husband wanted to let her die, her parents insisted she be kept alive. What began as a personal family dispute in local Florida courts escalated into an international news event and seminal right-to-die legal battle, involving the highest levels of government. Using an exceptional wealth of archival footage, this film examines how politicians and activists on the religious right harnessed Terri’s story and the power of the “pro-life” movement for political gain, laying the groundwork for a post-Roe America. Both an intimate portrait of a family divided and a rigorously reported examination of religious influence in America, Between Life & Death weaves together past and present to ask universal questions about the government’s role in our private lives and who gets to decide if a life is worth living.

The 76th Annual Tony Awards

Credit: Junior Editor
Year: 2023
Networks: CBS/Paramount+/Pluto TV

The 76th Annual Tony Awards was broadcast live on June 11th from the United Palace Theater in New York, featuring showstopping performances from the casts of Tony Award nominated best musicals and revivals, including “Camelot”; “Into the Woods”; “& Juliet”; “Kimberly Akimbo”; “New York, New York”; “Parade”; “Shucked”; “Some Like It Hot”; and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” My role involved editing pre-taped material and packages to roll during the live broadcast, support for edit corrections to the broadcast, and supporting other editors on the project with ingest and organization for their assigned edited packages.

“Trade Center”

Credit: Editor
Year: 2021

An official selection of SXSW 2021, “Trade Center,” short documentary film film edited by myself and directed by Adam Baran (Circus of Books), juxtaposes an oral history of gay cruising spaces in and around New York’s Twin Towers with images of the post 9/11, hyper-commercial, police state around the Freedom Tower. Based on a short story written by Billy Miller for the chapbook Straight to Hell and utilizing interviews with men who used to cruise in these spaces, “Trade Center” explores a hidden history and culture that was lost to never return on the day the planes hit the Twin Towers. “The film has continued to find success after its SXSW premiere, screening at AFI Docs, Frameline Film Festival, and Rooftop Films winning juried awards at Oak Cliff Film Festival and North Bend Film Festival.

BRAIDRAGE

Credit: Editor
Year: 2021

A film created for Baseera Kahn’s solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, BRAIDRAGE document’s Kahn’s performance climbing a wall of resin holds, cast from the corners of the artist’s body with a 13-foot braid of human and synthetic hair suspended from the ceiling. The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College describes the meaning of the work:

Dyed in various shades of black and brown to represent the collective experiences of colonized women globally, the holds are embedded with fragments of gold chain jewelry, hypothermia blankets, and commodified Indian hair. These components, more commonly found draped on the body, are set into the body forms signifying internalized trauma. The braid specifically refers to the wig industry’s use of hair collected from Indian women – often by force. Khan says, “All over Brooklyn you see wig shops, and women are literally attaching trauma to their bodies when they have a weave.”

The film for BRAIDRAGE is projected on a wall in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and is accompanied by the giant braid and other multimedia works from other points in the artist’s career. The film will be exhibited from October 1, 2021 until July 10, 2022 as part of Baseera Kahn: I am an Archive.

The Dynasty: New England Patriots

Credit: Assistant Editor
Year: 2024
Network: Apple TV+

Directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Matthew Hamachek (“Tiger"), “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” chronicles the rise and historic 20-year run of the Patriots during the Brady-Belichick-Kraft era. The docuseries is based on the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestselling book of the same title by author Jeff Benedict, and goes deeper, drawing on thousands of hours of never-before-seen video footage and audio files from the Patriots organization’s archive. In addition to interviews with past and present Patriots players, coaches and executives, the unparalleled access includes Kraft, Belichick, Brady, and confessionals from league officials and the archrivals of this dominant sports dynasty.

For this project, I worked in a technical role helping the post production team manage and consolidate a massive archive for finishing and tracking technically complex tunrovers to the post house.

Helpsters (Season 3)

Credit: Assistant Editor
Year: 2022
Network: Apple TV+

Helpsters is a new live-action pre-school series from the makers of Sesame Street. Cody and the Helpsters are a team of vibrant monsters who love to solve problems with a large cast of guest stars. On this project, I worked as an assistant editor on fourteen new episodes, prepping footage for editors, managing VFX, and handling turnovers for the post houses and network.

Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union

Credit: Assistant Editor
Year: 2021
Network: HBO

The three-part documentary, Obama: In the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, chronicles the personal and political journey of President Barack Obama, as the country grapples with its racial history. Through the story of one man irrevocably bound to the history of a country, the documentary reflects on the country's past and present national identity. For this project, I worked as an assistant editor managing the archive for the offline edit, and then performed the final archival master conform for broadcast delivery.

The Vow (Season 1)

Credits: Associate Editor (Episodes 4, 5, and 7) and Second Assistant Editor (all episodes in Season 1)
Year: 2020
Network: HBO

HBO’s The Vow is a nine-part docuseries directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer (The Square, The Great Hack) that tells the story behind the headlines of the sex cult and human branding within the NXIVM organization that broke in 2017. The edit combines a wide range of media, from original verite to archival audio and video of various digital and physical media to detailed composites and psychedlic graphic sequences to explore cult indoctrination and the vulnerability of the human psyche. I worked for over two years as an assistant editor with creative responsibilities, ushering season one through its full post production cycle and developing remote workflows for the pandemic to help deliver the series for broadcast in fall 2020.

“State of the City 2018”

Credit: Additional editor
Year: 2018

I worked as an additional editor alongside lead editor Jason Linzer to create a PSA style mini-documentary to serve as an intro to Mayor Bill de Blasio's 2018 State of the City address. The piece was produced by Rachel Velasquez and Jason Linzer with Julia Pitch as the Director of Photography. 

Sheltering Love fundraising trailer

Credit: Trailer editor
Year: 2018

I edited a trailer to assist with fundraising for a documentary by filmmaker Dawn Green which tells an autobiographical story about the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on her life. The trailer helped her raise over 8,000 dollars in an IndieGoGo campaign and helped secure in-kind donated support from the Cardozo Indie Film Law Clinic. The film, Sheltering Love, is still currently in early production and development. You can learn more at shelteringlovefilm.com.

Ken Baldwin’s Sizzle Reel

Credit: Sizzle reel editor

I edited a quick sizzle reel for designer Ken Baldwin to showcase his commercial projects for a new venture, with a focus on beauty and product commercial work. All footage provided by Ken Baldwin.

Thanks, and Sorry to Bother You fundraising trailer

Credit: Trailer and doc sample editor

I edited a fundraising trailer for Thanks, and Sorry to Bother You, a documentary currently in production. I created proxies and organized selects to share with the producer and director from nearly 45 hours of original material. Together we collaborated on a mini-doc version of the footage that outlined the plot of the planned feature for use in grant and funding applications. This work sample is only available via password protected link. Please contact me to see more. 

Web content for Glamour magazine

Credit: Editor

While working freelance as an additional editor at CNE, I edited a quick and snappy piece for Glamour magazine. Composed of multi-cam footage of stand up interviews, the spot is edited for humor, character, and pacing in a 'reality show' style aesthetic. 

Scenes created with The Edit Center

Avid film editing samples

During a six-week bootcamp on technical and creative editing, I worked collaboratively with the other participants to create the first rough cuts of two films, one documentary and one narrative. The instruction included an overview of feature length and long-form technical best practices as well as creative decision making in post-production. A reel of my designated scenes are available on request via a password protected link. Please contact me to view the reel.

Cold case podcast: California cop talks murder and mystery

Credit: Editor and Producer

While writing the core program for the branded series How to Solve a Murder created for Amazon Studios Bosch, it came to my attention that we had every interview used in the research digitally recorded. Pitching the podcast as a 'bonus' piece of content to the client, I worked with the branded edit team to compile a story out of the raw interview audio and record voiceover in a style inspired by the true-crime podcast Serial. The result was the piece here, which became an key portfolio piece in selling new branded podcast projects to future clients.