Jay Trautman

Jay Trautman has been one of my strongest mentors throughout The Last Hurrah.  Ostensibly, Jay is our editor.  But he's also attended every single production meeting, and is responsible for hiring our excellent sound department on set.  On top of that, he brought on Jeff Byron for post production.

Jay doesn't treat The Last Hurrah like a job.  He treats it like a creative project - like being in a band.  I find myself seeking his feedback on everything from story notes to budget questions.  When I couldn't figure out a two-shot with Steve and Will on set, it was Jay who pulled out Masculin-Feminin to convey how two shots are sometimes superfluous.

To convey the scope of Jay's creative influence on the movie, Jay is largely responsible for turning me on to the local Silverlake punk bands who will be populating our soundtrack.

(Adam Harr, Jay Trautman, and Yours Truly)

You might wonder, how much work does an editor do on a one-take movie?  A tremendous amount.  We have some extremely tricky special effects sequences that are taking months to design.  We also have so many people to coordinate with for color, picture, and sound editing.  And we have not yet worked on cutting a trailer and making of.  It's a decent amount of work.