Tom Greenberg has a message for film directors, and it’s the same message he has for directors of photography. The only person his message might not be for in the creative chain is the screenwriter.

“The screenwriter is first in the production process. The editor is last,” says Greenberg, from his edit suite at Compass Film Academy, where he’s the senior postproduction instructor. “We want students, whether they eventually become directors, producers or DP’s, to know how their decision in production can and will affect what happens in post.”

What happens there is where the story, the visual puzzle pieces, come together. Greenberg says,“As digital acquisition replaces film as a shooting and capturing medium, there are more responsibilities coming in the direction of the editor.” He contends that cameras, such as the Red, and other digital gear, are producing film-like images that are brought forth to their maximum in the editing process. “The editing workflow often creates environments where rough-cuts and the finished production, with composite layering and graphics, are cut separately, then integrated.” Greenberg says. “These new software tools level the playing field, and so it will boil down to who has the skills and the innate sense of story to use those skills creatively.

Today’s new generation of editors are having to learn and sharpen digital editing techniques. That’s something we teach at Compass, it’s one thing to learn how all of the this new software works, it’s another to know how to apply the knowledge in a developed skill set.”

Greenberg has been telling stories through the eye of the camera and in post production for more than twenty-five years. After a long career producing high-end corporate projects, primarily in the Detroit area, he formed EO MediaWorks, a
marketing and media creation company, and he moved his family to West Michigan.

Students coming to Compass will learn all aspects of filmmaking. And when they go through Greenberg’s post production courses, he’ll teach them the skills they’ll need to begin a career in post production. But should they decide to be a producer, director or director of photography, Greenberg says his lessons will impart the message of planning and doing it right in production, too.

“That way an editor doesn’t have to fix problems in post. He or she can finish stories.”

A message with a future.