HBO. Game of Thrones. and BBC.

June 7th, 2023

HBO.

During my almost three years at HBO I worked for different Creative Directors, amazing online editors, top sound engineers, and the projects were a diverse array of genres from Original documentaries to HBO Original series, to Box Office Movie hits, to Behind-the-Scenes Director Commentaries. I was hired to write, produce, and edit for each project.

HBO really encouraged creativity, trying new things. We wouldn’t be given specific direction by the Creative Director. They trusted their producer-editors to come up with an interesting way to create the piece. It felt to me that they really celebrated something different. With Chrissy, I worked on documentaries which were super fun even though the content was super intense. HBO documentaries are some of the best made. With Robert, I worked on box office movies trailers, promos, teasers. Early on, Kathy introduced me to the behind-the-scenes series called “Inside Look.” Later with Justin, I worked on the behind-the-scenes Director commentary edits for the series’ boxsets as well. But the most popular and exciting project was with Karen, the Creative Director for the series launch of Game of Thrones.

Game of Thrones.

I tend to dive in all the way with whatever I am working on so when I was assigned to work on The Game of Thrones I began to read the books. I’m not generally a fantasy drama fan but I got hooked on Game of Thrones. It was completely character-driven and psychological. There were so many characters but somehow I still didn’t get lost in the who’s who. The characters were so rich and interesting. What was special about Game of Thrones was that it was about relationships, mostly family dysfunctional relationships, and about power dynamics between the different families all eyeing the throne. It was the complexities and sometimes twisted aspects of the family unit.

And in HBO cutting edge fashion, they did something that we hadn’t seen before which was that they killed off the main character in the first season leaving the supporting cast to take over. It was really taking a risk to do this and to do this at the end of the first season. The last episode. Being a book adaptation, they could have constructed the episodes and seasons in any way they wanted while still staying faithful to the books but choosing to off the beloved character Ned Stark at that moment was truly shocking for audiences. In many ways I think that is how this series became such a huge hit for the following seasons, and it was really exciting to be part of that. Since then, this kind of abrupt killing off of the protagonist, the leading man, has been repeated on other networks and series so it isn’t quite as impactful as it was then. But I think it’s still quite disturbing when it happens, sort of messes with the mind of the audience.

Working on the promotions, the behind-the-scenes, the actor and director and producer commentaries, as the episodes are being filmed and edited means we often saw the unfinished or rough cuts, the green screens, the unmixed audio, but we had to keep moving and working with what we had and then it all came together really well with such creative and professional group of people. In those days, HBO seemed always on the prowl for the cutting edge.

BBC.

Before HBO, I spent three years at BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation in America, specifically at the Midtown office in New York City from 2006 until 2009. I was originally hired as a Production Assistant but within a couple months quickly moved up to Producer, eventually writing promotional scripts as I worked alongside some very talented editors. We worked on original series, comedy shows, reality shows, documentaries. The Creative Services Department there was small enough that I was able to learn many areas of production and I eventually taught myself to edit as well.

I basically lived in that office at BBC for those three years. I would work all night long and often on weekends as well just to get it all finished. I was juggling multiple projects, just saying yes to everything so that I could learn as much as possible. It was exciting to me to learn something new almost every day there, to occasionally even leaving the office to do photo shoots or vox pop - man on the street shoots. I went on location for a Graham Norton shoot at the Soho House in the meatpacking district. Graham Norton wasn’t quite the household name yet in America that he is today. I was hungry for these new experiences and so I just dove in with everything.

Late at night I would walk the empty Midtown East streets, a mile and a half up to East 73rd Street where I lived at the time. And then I would start all over again the next morning. I was never tired. I was always energized. BBC was a turning point in my life, not only because of the people that I met there but at BBC my life literally picked up speed. Everything that came after BBC really was inspired by that energy.

from a Producer-Editor