Manhattan Edit Workshop's Blog

Editor Bryan Chang from our Documentary panel from "Sight, Sound & Story: Post Production Summit on June 14, 2018. Bryan Chang is a documentary filmmaker whose award-winning films have been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, TIME Magazine, The Atlantic, MoMA, Sundance Film Festival, and distributed theatrically. His feature-length documentaries include "Brasslands" (director/DP/editor), "Narco Cultura" (editor), "Dark Money" (additional editor) and "Island Soldier" (producer/editor). He was an editor for the Emmy-winning documentary series "A Year In Space," and is currently editing on a Netflix original documentary series about genetic engineering. He is a co-owner of Meerkat Media, a cooperatively-run production company in Brooklyn, NY. "Sight Sound and Story" is an annual event presented by Manhattan Edit Workshop that brings audiences "behind the scenes" with legends of visual st...

Editor Erin Casper on shaping interviews in "American Promise." From "Sight, Sound & Story" on June 11th, 2016. This week's #WCW at MEWShop is former Sight, Sound and Story panelist and Erin Casper! Erin is an Emmy-nominated documentary editor based in New York.  Erin’s recent editing credits include "The Last Season" (2015 Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award nominee); and "American Promise" (POV 2014, Special Jury Prize for Achievement in Filmmaking at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Official Selection of the 51st Annual New York Film Festival).  Erin also edited "The New Black" (Independent Lens in 2014, GLAAD and NAACP Image Award nominee); "Our School," (winner of the 2011 Sterling Award for Best US Feature Documentary at AFI DOCS); and short nonfiction pieces for NY Times Op-Docs and The Intercept. In 2011, Erin was the inaugural recipient of the prestigious Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship...

In this video from MEWTube, documentary editor Mona Davis discusses the making of Love & Diane . From "Sight, Sound & Story" on June 11th, 2016. Mona Davis is a feature documentary editor based in New York with a passion for verite films with character driven stories. Her credits include the critically acclaimed Love and Diane, which premiered at the New York Film Festival, the Emmy nominated A Perfect Candidate ,  Dream Deceivers , The State of Arizona, and the Academy Award nominated In Our Water and The Farm: Angola USA (Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance), for which she won an Emmy for Best Documentary Editing. She has consulted on numerous films including 51 Birch Street and First Comes Love . Her work has shown theatrically and on HBO, Showtime, CBS, PBS, BBC and Arte. Love & Diane is a 2002 documentary film directed by Jennifer Dworkin about a recovering crack addict and her troubled daughter in New York City as they navigate the obstacles of ...

Cinematographer Matt Porwoll is based in New York City. His most recent work,  Cartel Land , was nominated for a 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary (feature). Cartel Land was also selected for competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and subsequently went on to win the US Documentary Prize for Cinematography. He was one of three speakers on the documentary panel at MEWShop's " Sight, Sound & Story: The Art of Cinematography," 2015  event. We recently caught up with him to ask some in-depth questions about his career and experiences as a cinematographer. Manhattan Edit Workshop (MEWShop): Where did you grow up and why did you want to be a cinematographer? Matt Porwoll (MP):  I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve known that I wanted to be a cinematographer since my freshman year of high school. It’s interesting to try and trace the reason why, but I think a big part of why I took this path was that my dad liked taking pictures. As a kid I loved goi...