Cindy Mollo - Editor
Job title - Editor
Experience - 20+ years
“I work with headphones 90% of the time to spare my neighbours and dog having to hear the gunshots over and over.”
Describe your job role and the kinds of projects/clients you work with.
As Picture Editor, I lead the team that edits the footage produced by the director and crew.
I first assemble a version of the show that follows the script. That ASSEMBLY is the base I start with to tell the story in the most emotionally compelling way possible. My tools to do that are shot selection; pacing; restructuring of scenes; editing of dialog and recording of additional lines; addition of sound effects; addition of temporary music and score; and planning and creation of visual effects.
The result of that work is then my EDITOR’S CUT. I present this to the director and we collaborate to create the DIRECTOR’S CUT. This cut may be a more streamlined version of my cut or it can be totally different, depending on the director’s goals.
The Director’s Cut is screened for the producers and then I collaborate with them to prepare for test screenings (feature) or Network notes (TV.) I’m involved in the final sound mix and picture finishing for broadcast or exhibition.
In my career, I’ve worked on commercials, educational and instructional videos, programming for network television, cable and streaming services. I’ve edited pilots for shows that never saw the light of day, shows that ran for one season and died, and others that ran for more than five seasons. I’ve edited feature films that made millions of dollars. My directors have been male, female, newbies, old pros, former actors, directors of photography and script supervisors. They’ve included a husband and wife directing team, and lots of brother teams. (Oddly, there have been no sister teams.)
What does an average day look like in your post production working world?
For the past 2+ years, I’ve worked out of the loft of my condo on multiple projects. First, a science fiction show for Apple+ that shut down at the beginning of the pandemic; then a documentary for Amazon; the final season of Ozark for Netflix; and now The Last of Us, a 10 part series based on a video game for HBO. For the first two shows, we all worked off local drives at our homes, for security reasons, and on the second two we were connected to a Nexus in Hollywood or Burbank through two different vendors: Runway and Remote Picture Labs. It seems a lot of companies have figured out how to setup a stable remote editing environment and I’ve had many successful remote sessions with writers, producers and directors all around the world, in many different time zones. It was scary at first but now I love the variety and flexibility!
My remote Avid setup has a MAC trash can running MC 2018, 3 monitors, 2 speakers on stands, a Wacom tablet and a keyboard. I work with headphones 90% of the time to spare my neighbours and dog having to hear the gunshots over and over.
On a typical day, I’m at the Avid before 9am with my coffee, sometimes still in my pyjamas. I review my to-do list as the system boots up and I log into my remote computer. I communicate with my assistant over slack, text and phone throughout the day to confirm his tasks and deadlines and set goals so that we are in sync and make our deadlines.
After some trepidation, I’ve progressed to a paperless workflow and import my scripts, script notes, continuities, one line schedules, etc., into Notability. That way I have everything in one place as I travel between home, office and location. On my current show I’ll be splitting my week between Burbank and home so I’ve just ordered a second Wacom tablet to have one in my office.
It’s difficult to control your work day no matter where you work but I usually try to stop working by 7pm to make dinner, walk the dog and start to decompress. My assistant is in another time zone so sometimes he starts his day a couple of hours before me, sometimes he ends the day after me. We both try to be flexible and shift our days when necessary to be as efficient as possible.
What has been your career highlight?
I have many things I’m proud of professionally but I think foremost is my work on Ozark from the first two episodes to the finale. (I didn’t cut every episode, the other editors were Viks Patel and Heather Goodwin Floyd.) Collaborating with the show runner Chris Mundy and our director Jason Bateman was always fun and creative and the acting on our show was so good that it was a pleasure to sit down every day to confront the dailies.
How did your career in post production begin?
My senior year at Boston College I had an internship with the Boston Catholic Television Center. I got to work with cameras and lighting, make double system film transfers and my favorite: edit clip reels for the local public television station. BCTV hired me and another BC student right after graduation and, while he got to go out and shoot footage, I had to stay behind to edit. It felt kind of sexist and unfair at first, but I found that I really did like editing (and he really did like shooting.) Within a couple of months, I was editing full time on all kinds of projects with all kinds of clients. I worked at a live news station briefly but found that I really missed the control of the editing suite. Eventually I moved to NYC to get into more narrative work.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your career.
I was editing at a facility in New York, cutting mostly commercials (online editing) and new business pitches for ad agencies (off-line and on-line editing) when the Avid came along. I jumped at the opportunity to learn it and was working with big clients after only two days of training. It was so intuitive! My company was going to do the post work for a new NBC show called « Homicide: Life on the Street » and I trained their editors how to use the Avid. When a spot opened up on the editing team first season, they gave me a shot because I was already familiar with the system (this was one of the first TV shows to be cut on the Avid.) It worked out so well that I left my full time job and continued to edit the show for 5 seasons!
Women in post you admire?
Any woman who works in post and has a family!
What advice do you have for other women wanting to start a career in post?
I give the same advice to both men and women who want to become editors: « Keep your nut small. » If you can avoid taking on too much debt, then you can afford to take chances on small projects with new directors that don’t pay much (or perhaps anything at all.) You always want to be in a position to take the best project offered to you, to follow good writing and good directing. Sometimes that means you have a gap between projects. Then, stay open to new technology. There’s a lot of change and innovation in post, so be ready to learn the next new thing. Maybe even be the first to use it!
And finally, find an understanding and supportive partner!
Stand out scene (or scenes!) you've worked on.
I really loved cutting the Book of Eli but especially a montage where we see how Eli is living, what his routines are. He finds a place to shelter, cooks the food he has hunted that day, sharpens his sword while listening to his favourite song on his cherished iPod. I haven’t watched it in a couple of years but I remember thinking that we really captured how his world was so beautiful and so sad and violent at the same time.
In the One Way Out episode of Ozark from season 2, we had a pivotal scene where Marty and Wendy are finally going to have to cross the line and kill someone. Up to this point, they technically haven’t gotten blood on their hands but Mason has kidnapped Wendy in an effort to get his baby back and Marty has to rescue her, shooting Mason in the process. There was a real baby in the scene (for a few takes) and we used the baby’s crying as part of the score. It was really fun to carefully place each cry, controlling the kind of cries and the pauses in between to heighten the anxiety, and then letting the music fade in underneath to take over.
But really, I’ve loved everything I’ve worked on!