#485 – Cut/Daily Meets... Kirk Baxter, ACE
Kirk Baxter is a well-connected editor.
While he has cut for David Fincher since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), picking up two Oscars and a third nomination* along the way, he's also maintained a successful and sought-after commerical's editing business the whole time.
Interestingly enough, it's editing commercials that has connected him to other directors and other projects.
For example, his latest film is A House of Dynamite, is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, whom he previously edited a commercial for –
When he worked on the Apple Vision Pro short film, Submerged, directed by Edward Berger, the composer was Volker Bertelmann, whose Oscar nominated score for Conclave, Kathryn'd had falled in love with and wanted to approach about A House of Dynamite.
As it happens Volker also worked on Submerged...
It's a small world after all.
In this special issue of Cut/daily Meets... you get to hear from the man himself, as I was fortunate enough to chat with him in person, in the middle of his work day on The Adventures of Cliff Booth (Fincher directing Tarantino's script as a sequel/spin-off/connection to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.)
Among other things, we covered:
- The art of telling the same story three times
- Editing features for directors other than Fincher
- The sport of finessing the fine details
- Working with score
- How he's learned to get out of the way of the edit
- Editing animation (Love, Death & Robots)
- Why he hasn't edited a documentary on Bob Dylan
- What happened when his daughter discovered his IMDB page
*Wins = The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Nomination = The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Dive right in to our whole conversation on YouTube, or read a few highlights below to get a taste of what's in store.
And then dive in.