My practitioner research guide based around Thelma Schoonmaker

1. Thelma Schoonmaker
Thelma Schoonmaker is an American filmeditor who has worked alongside director Martin
Scorsese for over fifty years. She started working with Scorsese on his debut feature film
‘Who's That Knocking at My Door’ and edited all of Scorsese's films since ‘Raging Bull’. Since
then she’s worked on some of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, such as
‘Goodfellas’, ‘Casino’, ‘Gangs of New York’, ‘Shutter Island’, The Wolf of Wall Street’ and
‘The Irishman’ but to name a few in her illustrious career and winning three Oscars in that
time. Working mainly as an editor for Martin Scorsese, who had tried for years to convince
her to work for him. She was unable to work in Hollywood, however, because she couldn't
get into the union. When Scorsese called to ask her to work on ‘Raging Bull’ (1980), she
again demurred because of lack of union membership. However, she believes that Al Pacino
got her into the union. To this day, she does not know what influence was used to gain her
union membership.
Despite this, her rise to stardom was one of coincidence rather than a direct trajectory or
goal. While taking a graduate course in primitive art at Columbia University, Schoonmaker
saw an advertisement in The New York Times that offered training as an assistant film
editor. She responded to the advertisement and ultimately landed the job. The job entailed
assisting an "editor" who was randomly cutting frames from classic European films, so that
their length would conform to the running times of U.S. television broadcasts.
She signed up for a brief six-week course in filmmaking at New York University, where she
came into contact with a young Martin Scorsese, who was struggling to complete his film
‘What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?’ A negative cutter had butchered his
film, not leaving enough negative frames to allow for hot splicing, so a filmprofessor asked
her to help Scorsese. Schoonmaker edited Scorsese's first feature film, ‘Who's That Knocking
at My Door’ (1967).
In terms of her acquired skillset over her long-winded career, Schoonmaker has given a list
of key qualities all filmeditors should possess, beginning with a strong sense of discipline
due to the time and effort one needs to put into editing a picture, as well as a musical sense.
She says that Scorsese has this ability in particular, with many of his films resonating with
the music in tow with the scene on screen. You also need to be able to collaborate,
otherwise you’ll never find yourself working with a director.
“Your job is to get his vision up on the screen,” she says. “You have to give him his chance to
do it the way he wants to first, then he’s usually able to see if that doesn’t work, and you
come up with another solution”. This means your soul role as an editor is to make the
directors vision come to life, despite what you may want to implement yourself. Yet if your
patient, you’re more likely to be able to give an input on the creative decisions; in short the
more you work, the more those will intrust you with high profile decisions.