Missing “Sex” and the City
Mar. 11, 2004 -
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| Michael Berenbaum, pictured above, edited six seasons of Sex and the City for HBO |
Star Struck
I spent most of last week at the ShowBiz Expo in New York City. I think my fellow attendees would agree, it was well worth the trip. Rick Friedman and his capable crew at Mindshare Ventures organized the gathering. They identified seven specific areas for which they booked free summits that included hosted panels discussions and events. All day sessions covered topics related to Corporate Digital Media, Event Videography, Film Funding, Digital Media Education, Worship Production as well as topics of regional interest including New York Broadcasting, Filmmaking and Commercial Production. In ballrooms, meeting rooms and auditoriums scattered about several floors of the famed Hotel Pennsylvania, there were conferences, user group meetings and paid seminars covering all manner of production from High Def finishing to no-budget DV filmmaking (see sidebar). On the exhibition floors all the major NLE players were well represented. There was enough information, demonstration, elucidation and inspiration at that address to satisfy most anyone. There has to be. As Friedman explained it to me, there’s a balance necessary if a show like this is going to succeed. To attract attendees there have to be big names and to attract big names there have to be attendees. I can report Rick attained critical mass resulting in many opportunities for average guys like me to spend a little time with Oscar winners, Sundance stars, legendary documentarians, Hollywood insiders and other big time talents. Which brings me back to Michael Berenbaum.
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You Never Know
In 1996, Michael was tagged to edit a half-hour network pilot called “Dear Diary.” This was not a pro bono gig. The production company was DreamWorks, the pilot starred Bebe Neuwirth (formerly Lilith on Cheers) and the budget topped $1 million. Writer/director, David Frankel was thrilled with the production and the entire cast and crew were surprised when ABC passed. Disappointed but confident in the quality of their creation, Frankel and producer Barry Jossen convinced Spielberg and Katzenberg the piece deserved festival exposure. They had a certain festival in mind. The two arranged to have the pilot shown in a single Los Angeles theater, qualifying it for Academy Award consideration. Long story short, "Dear Diary," won DreamWorks its first Oscar. Needless to say, the occasional Oscar does lead to more work. When Frankel and Jossen began working on another series, they called Michael. He became one of the two editors responsible for the hit HBO series, Sex and the City.
Cutting Sex
For six seasons Michael Berenbaum and Wendey Stanzler occupied a three-bay suite at New York’s Silvercup Studios. Each bay housed an Avid Film Composer, one for Michael, one for Wendey and one shared by a pair of assistant editors. The assistant editors worked on a staggered schedule, day into evening, overlapping a few hours in the middle. Having an assistant on at virtually all hours allowed the 16mm dailies to be digitized upon arrival as well as a constant stream of VHS tapes to be outputted for viewing and approvals. Since edit duties within a single show were never shared, it wasn’t necessary to put a big server on line. Footage was digitized to shuttle drives swapped between the assistants’ bench and the two bigger bays. Having footage immediately available for cutting allowed Michael and Wendey to stay current, finishing a rough cut the day after wrapping production. That doesn’t mean directors saw instant roughs. Nothing that raw was released. By the time a director saw a cut for comments, everything was in place – music, sound effects, voice-overs, everything. According to Michael, any show could have aired at that point but of course, they never did. There was still audio work to be done, final mixing, more telecine and then the online.
And so it flowed. With two shows shooting simultaneously on staggered schedules, ongoing sound edits, revisions, mixing, reshoots, looping and the rest, there could be six or eight shows floating around the three rooms at any given time. Pushed for a number, assistant editor Craig Cobb told me it’d take five to seven weeks to finish a show.
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