Baby E- Mommy, do you know that picture where you were learning to edit?

Me- Which one?

Baby E- The one you were learning to edit.

Me- Oh, the one where I was sitting at the computer?

Baby E- Yes, that one.

Mommy- What about it?

Baby E- You looked much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much different!!!!

—

I was twenty years old in that picture. I can tell by the scar on my leg- a surgery I had that year to remove a bone spur above my knee. There’s a scar on my wrist and my arm from the same operation that took spurs from those places as well. Amazingly it was the only operation I had for my bone condition. I still carry the scars, though they have faded some.

This was the summer before I moved to New York. I had already been editing for a few years at this point. Those days were still the infancy of non linear editing, when AVIDs were hardware and cost a pretty penny. The four drives stacked next to the computer tower held 9 GB of space each if I remember correctly. We used to edit at a low resolution and re-digitize everything to a higher one to online. The deck sitting on the table was a Beta deck- the tapes came in two sizes.

Editing setups like these were a beast to turn on. There were so many switches that had to be turned on in a certain order. Once everything was powered up to took about 15 minutes to get up and running- enough time to grab a cup of coffee and flip through your scripts.

It was on this machine I did my first edit. I spent many long days and many long nights in this edit room- meeting deadlines for a client or putting finishing touches on my own personal projects. And while I’m very thankful that editing has evolved so much since those early days, I’m so very glad my roots started at the beginning.