I re-designed my website! Check out the new dwryan.com. it's basically the same info and videos as  my old site but now in shiny new HTML5 so you iPad users can actually see it! And for you iPhone and android users,  go to my mobile site at m.dwryan.com!

Never be irreplaceable! If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

I must be doing something wrong. This year marks 10 years in post-production as an assistant editor. The average assistant (it seems) does it for 2- 5 years before making “The Jump.” to editor. I have my circumstances, in one aspect I was fortunate to have a staff position with health benefits which was vital due to family health issues. But it was also a trap as every time it seemed I might get a promotion I was either told they needed me doing what I was doing or the company was on the verge of collapse and if I wanted a job at all, I should sit tight. I realized that the only way I could get a what I wanted, was to leave.
It was a tough decision but, with family health issues and my daughter about to turn 2 plus a job market left reeling by the writers strike, we decided to move back east with her family in New Jersey (but that's a whole other story). Fast forward two years later and I have been able to find work here and there in New York, and made some new friends and connections. I took what was supposed to be a few days on pilot at a very low rate and I was quickly moved to another show and I became the only assistant on the series (still at the low rate of course). I busted my ass to keep up with the shows fast turn around and sometimes massive amount of footage, doing my best to make it easy for the editors. I was handling it until I got an email that an editor was having problems with some grouped clips I prepared .
I went to my post-producer and asked what the problem was. He said that an editor wanted me to make sure that when I multi-group clips that the A camera is at the top of the bin so the multi-group will use the A cam audio. I said all that you had to do was select the audio by right clicking the audio track in the time-line. He said he knew that but the editor couldn't do it and didn't seem able (or willing) to learn how. On hearing this, my blood pressure shot up and I was like WHAT?! Here I am busting my ass and someone who gets paid twice my rate doesn't know how to run the damn machine and I have to go extra steps to make sure he doesn't have to do a basic skill. It would be like a pilot who can take off but doesn't know how to steer and refuses to learn! I snapped a little and told my producer exactly how I felt and how frustrated I was with my career. I think it may have helped because today he offered to have me cut some clips for the net.

This was also short lived as my work load was to much to have time to cut very much at all. Then, I was told I only had two weeks left on the show. So much for that.

I had only a few weeks off and I was fortunate to find a string of gigs at a much better rate that carried me through the winter. I'm still working as an assistant but I've had some recent interviews that are very promising. More on that soon.  

September 11th 2001 an assistant editors experience

 I was still asleep in my apartment in Valley Village, Los Angeles. I had my clock radio set to turn on at 5:45 in time for the “Ralph Garman Show Biz Report” during the Kevin and Bean Show on KROQ. but instead of the familiar old timey “Hooray For Hollywood” Music that usually plays in the background, Ralph in a somber tone, introduces Doc, KROQ's newsman who reports that a commercial plane has just struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I woke up my wife and turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit the South Tower. Deirdre and I sat there numb, as the reports of other plane crashes a the Pentagon in DC and PA. confirmed that this was no accident. Watching the smoldering towers, we stayed glued to the TV and saw them fall.

I didn't know what else to do. So I decided to go to work. I had just started a new job as the daytime assistant editor at Termite Art Productions. I had only been there 10 days and I didn't really know anyone yet and I wanted to make a good impression. We had just started production on a new show about The sinking of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor. The consensus in the office was that this was going to be our Pearl Harbor.

I worked on a few things I had but mostly everyone was watching the news for any more information. I didn't have a TV in my office but I found the CBS was streaming video on the net so tried to watch it on a old Mac I had on my desk (Streaming video was still rather primitive in 2001). I remember Alana, one of our producers, telling me she just got off the phone with her panicked sister in who thought every Landmark in every city in the US was under attack. “The Statue of Liberty, gone! the Washington Monument,gone!”... her sister was yelling. Eventually we were all in the kitchen watching the news play the crash over and over again. By this time they had received more angles on the second plane hit and footage of people covered in dust running from the site. By noon my Post-Supervisor, Randy sent everyone home.

I mention the video footage a lot because in the years to come, I had to log much of the footage collected that day for the documentaries we would eventually produce about the events and it's aftermath. I can't tell you how many times I watched the planes hit. Video of the first hit eventually surfaced and footage of the search and rescue effort which then turned to a salvage operation continued to pour in.

One of the first shows we did was  about Nostradamus, it was partly inspired by an Internet rumor that He accurately predicted the attacks. The email included a quote from his writings which turned out to be made of two separate passages spliced together.

Barely a few months had gone by and the tapes started coming in. At first, it was almost unbearable, I would load tapes without actually watching them. Spot checking to make sure they were in but not looking to closely at content. It was just too hard to watch. I know it sounds childish but it was the only way I could cope. I'm sure a lot a people in the business felt this way. Over time it got (for lack of a better word) easier. But it still effects me when ever I see it.

We had several historical documentaries mention it when appropriate and wee did a show about the

salvage effort a Fresh kills landfill. This is where they brought the debris from the WTC including the fire trucks and ambulances destroyed by the collapse. They recovered 1,000s of personal belongings and tried to return them to the victims families if possible. It put very intimate and human face on the tragedy.

The last show I worked on was about the geology and infrastructure of New York City and Ground Zero played an important role as the excavation site gave geologists a chance to do some research before the new buildings were started. I think it also documented the beginning of the healing process for the city

September 11^th will always be a hard day for America. Most people experienced it through their televisions. I didn't get back to New York until late 2008 when the construction of the new World Trade Center was well underway and yet I felt like I had been there all along because of the projects I have worked on. I am proud to have helped create work that I hope will preserve the memories and help people understand those terrible days in my own small way.

Want to see what an editor does all month?

I am revamping my blog so in the mean time, I present a post from a Editor Scott Simmons. Watch him edit an episode of NBC's Chuck in 3 minutes...

ProVideo Coalition.com: the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

Help save the life's work of a little Tokyo Photographer

My good friend, Mike Risner found himself the care taker of the life's work of Los Angeles Little Tokyo photographer Ichiro Ninomiya. You can help save this amazing collection by donating to the project(link below) and following his blog savingninomiya.blogspot.com/

That's what friends are for...

Just a quick note about my ongoing job hunt. The best interviews I've had were always through friends (and lately the only ones)not through any website or job board. So on that I just want to send a shout out to my friend Max (who recently became an associate producer) who has, it would seem, been sending my resume all over New York. Tomorrow I have a interview for an AE job as a direct result his leafleting efforts!
Wish me luck.

Dumb Movie Crap -"Hackers"- Brought to you by Community Channel

I was going write about hackers in movies but she beat me to it. I could not have said it better!