Alison Grasso - Editor
Job title - Commercial Editor
Experience - 10+ years
“Coming up with other women around as peers, mentors, and role models was great because it made the industry feel much more inclusive and that my goals were entirely achievable.”
Tell us about your job role and the kinds of projects you work on;
I’m a film, video, and audio editor living and working in New York City where I’m currently staff with Cutters Studios. I primarily work on TV commercials and branded content, but I also love taking on more diverse projects including podcasts, music videos, short films, et cetera! Over the years I’ve worked on branded projects for Facebook, Gatorade, Modelo, Savage x Fenty, and Pantene to name a few. Working with Cutters has also allowed me to dip my toe into directing, which I’ve been doing direct to brands when the opportunity arises.
What does an average day look like in your post-production working world?
Something I love about my job is that no two projects, and thus no two days, are the same. I work on a lot of doc-style projects which give me a lot of creative latitude to shape a story, and allows for a lot of collaboration with directors. After doing a kick-off call and getting a rundown on the project, I'll dive into the dailies to screen and select, then put together an assembly. I always think about working on unscripted content in particular as akin to sculpting– you've got a mountain of stuff in front of you and your task is to chip away at it and shape it to turn it into something recognizable and beautiful. In addition to the process of actually cutting a project from scratch, I'll also usually have projects that are further along and needing checking-in-on as they are mixed, colored, and conformed for final delivery.
How did your career in post-production begin?
To go full-on origin story, I started editing video off DV tapes as a teenager in Baltimore, Maryland, with software so old I don’t think it exists anymore. I made a few school-assigned projects like news segments and a few non-school-assigned projects like terrible skate videos. I just liked making stuff! Fast forward a bit, and after graduating from NYU I started working my way up the post-production ladder at Crew Cuts, from receptionist to assistant editor to cutting assistant to editor. I was really fortunate to have a lot of committed and supportive mentors there, and while it was a long and sometimes arduous climb with a lot of late nights and weekends, working from the bottom up can be an indispensable learning experience and a great way to build relationships within the industry. I learned so much there, not just from editors, but also from the other assistants. That on-the-job education was critical to developing good habits for professional workflow—the very unsexy but very important backbone of any job—that’s necessary to be organized and efficient.
Tell us about a career highlight;
Cutting season 2 of the podcast Limetown was a particularly awesome project because it was a rare opportunity to dive into longer-form, episodic scripted content. Working on an audio-only project is both really liberating and really challenging. While you don’t have the benefit of a visual to help tell the story, you have a ton of freedom creating a “scene;” you can really use your imagination and have a lot of fun with it. That project also allowed me to hone in on performance and pacing and characters in a way that’s not always possible in short-form visual content.
Which women in post do you admire?
Karen Kourtessis was a senior editor with Crew Cuts when I was coming up (she’s now with Union) and in addition to being an incredible editor, she was always one of the realest people in the room, and so easy to talk to. She was always taking on diverse projects and really defied the notion of editorial pigeonholing when it came to what she could or wanted to do.
Catherine Gionfriddo was the most patient and supportive mentor a person could hope for! She taught me a lot about running a room and staying cool under pressure, in addition to lots of dry technical stuff, how to be a good assistant, and how to find and get the kind of work you actually want to be doing. Coming up with other women around as peers, mentors, and role models was great because it made the industry feel much more inclusive and that my goals were entirely achievable. I never felt like I didn't belong there.
Favourite piece of your work?
One of my favorite pieces of work is an experimental short film my friend Jena Burchick wrote and directed after the 2016 election and in conjunction with the Women's March that followed, called "Dear Country". I think she did a great job capturing the mood of the time with a diverse cast of subjects and a primarily female crew, and I felt like I was really able to contribute to the project because she gave me a lot of freedom to craft the visuals to go with her script. I think it was quite therapeutic for me to work on something that felt meaningful and optimistic in a time where a lot of people, women, in particular, felt pretty hopeless about the state of politics in the U.S., and that sense of meaning and purpose is something I'm always hoping to find in my work.
What advice do you have for other women wanting to start a career in post?
I think having a good attitude and an open mind are super important when starting any job or career. Learn as much as you can from those around you, because people in every role and at every level will likely have something unique to offer! Since everyone works differently, you’ll never know what little tips or tricks you can pick up. And, I find that a lot of the joy in this work doesn’t just come from working on great creative, it also comes from the collaborative aspect, and ideally surrounding yourself with people you respect and like spending time with.