'Frankenweenie', Editor, Mark Solomon

0:09Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of King Now Films Podcast: The Making of Stories. I'm your host Jawad Neir. Today, we have a repeat guest. I had Mark Solomon on previously twice for DreamWorks' Chicken Run, as well as Shark Tale. Today, he's here to talk about Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, which was a stop-motion remake of an original short produced way back in 1984. I actually missed that film completely, the 2011 version, and recently discovered it and decided to speak to Mark about it. And do check out his book, Over The Shoulder, which talks about film editing techniques and stories from his experience. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Mark Solomon. Well, welcome again, you know, to talk about, Tim Burton's, Frankenweenie.

0:58Jawad MirAnd this film, somehow I missed it. I did not know that there was a stop-motion animation, black and white re… you know, remake, if you wanna call it. And, I just saw it just this morning and absolutely loved it. And, you see…

1:15Mark SolomonIt's sweet, isn't it?

1:16Jawad MirIt is. It is. It's a very, in a typical Tim Burton, his fascination with death. And then he just kind of gives a little more, you know, different twist on it. And, yeah, obviously based on Frankenstein, but, really well done and really enjoyed it. And to see you, and I think, was it Chris, Lebenzon who was also involved with the film?

1:37Mark SolomonChris Lebenzon, yeah.

1:38Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. I had him on, a few months ago, about another one of them.

1:44Mark SolomonOh, did you?

1:44Jawad MirYeah. So, yeah, but, great film. Thank you so much for being part of it. It's, amazing. I'd love to talk more about it.

1:53Mark SolomonNo, it was a good experience. I enjoyed, I enjoyed working on that movie. Chris, I think at the time, as I remember, Tim Burton was also making Dark Shadows…

2:04Jawad MirYes

2:04Mark Solomon... At the same time. And so Chris was sort of h… half on that movie and half on our movie, as we were, like, pushing on with Frankenweenie. And, yeah, it was a good experience. I was in London then, so we were, there's a, there's a big studio set up near the Olympic site in London.

2:22Jawad MirOkay.

2:22Mark Solomon'Cause it was around the same time that they were getting ready for the, to host the Olympics in London, and we were right across the street. And, at a little studio called Three Mills, Three Mills Studios, and they took over a bunch of the space to do Frankenweenie. And it was funny, 'cause when on, usually on a movie, you think it's a big deal. There's like hundreds of people, and they're spending millions of dollars. And then across the street they were putting together the Olympic site, which is…... Dwarfed the movie, made it seem like small potatoes. It was interesting to see the scale of it.

2:52Jawad MirThat is kinda cool. That's really cool. Yeah. How, what... I mean, you have, obviously I had you on last time we spoke about Shark Tale. You worked on Space Jam. You know, we've worked on a whole bunch of different films, and now that you've written the book, Over the Shoulder. But what was your involvement, like, how did you get on board on a Tim Burton film? Had you worked with him before? I may know some of the answers, but I'm just trying to get the audience sort of entangled into this conversation a little bit.

3:24Mark SolomonSure. Well, the producer who works with Tim Burton on animated things is Allison Abbate, who I worked with on Space Jam back in the day. So we had, we hit it off well. She's, turned to be a good friend and a, and a great producer. I really admire her. And she brought me on to handle the animation side of the, and to work with the animation crew and dir… animation director and her, and some with Tim. But he sort of had his own little setup in his place where he lived in another, in another part of London where Chris worked. And so I would jump back and forth between the... At first it was just us in the studio near the Olympic site in East London, and it was about developing the storyboards and, you know, putting together a story reel, like the way most animated features go. And then as we got closer, there was more back and forth with Tim and Chris as the, h… he sort of handles sort of like the back third of the movie with all the monster elements. But the, like a, it was like a monster party, it was what Tim Burton was going for.

4:29Mark SolomonAnd it was fun to, it was fun to work with him. It was very interesting because he has such a distinctive style that even when he wasn't there, you could see what he would do. That was our, you know, the way that we played with it. Like, what would Tim do here? What would he like? And, it was, it was great fun to sort of for, you know, project what a, what a Tim Burton movie would look like d… like this, Frankenweenie. 'Cause we had a good model from the original short, the live action short with Shelley Duvall as the mom.

4:59Mark SolomonAnd, but this was the first, you know, feature length treatment of the story. And it was done in this unusual style that we had. He was very committed to doing it in black and white, and we wanted to make it feel big, so it was both in wide screen, so like the aspect ratio was wide, like 235.

5:22Jawad MirRight.

5:23Mark SolomonAnd it was th… you know, stereos… stereoscopic. So it was black and white movie with, you know, 3D and wide screen, and sort of playing with how you can, how, with a new tool to play with, like how to tell a story, what you can do differently given that aspect ratio and, the black and white and the 3D.

5:45Jawad MirYeah.

5:45Mark SolomonIt's fun.

5:47Jawad MirI thoroughly enjoyed the black and white contrast and the shadows that were in there. And it just, I mean, it, the protagonists and, all the, all the characters I would say they had very similar design… To what the, what we saw in Corpse Bride, which was I think…

6:06Mark SolomonYes

6:06Jawad Mir... Way be… way before that. But again, the black and white really transformed into something completely fresh, despite the similarities. ... And what I love about Tim Burton films, he has this ability, and I think that goes for great directors. They have this ability to make the audience feel that this is the world that only exists, and you are…

6:32Mark SolomonAh

6:32Jawad Mir... Immersed in it. And with…

6:34Mark SolomonYeah

6:34Jawad Mir... You know, a limited number of characters. And the storytelling is amazing. Had you seen the original Frankenweenie when it came out way back in '84?

6:43Mark SolomonSure. Sure. I didn't, I think I think I s… we saw it before we started working on this movie, but I think I'd, I'd seen it earlier as well. You know, it was great fun, and a lot of the, like the scene where Sparky, where they go up in the attic with the lightning and the transformation but to bring him back to life, was very close to the live action version. I think that's the way that he imagined it when he was 15 when he thought of this idea, and so we really stayed true to that, and it was just, yeah. You know? I…

7:18Jawad MirIt's a…

7:18Mark SolomonWe knew that w… that's what it wanted to be. Like, that was sort of the touchstone for how the movie should feel and look. So whenever, like, so that was our reference point to go back to. We, which, was great to have.

7:33Jawad MirSo th… this film, the original short, was I think pretty much the launching pad for Tim Burton. He ha… I'm sure he had done stuff before, but that was his first main short, project that came out. Working with him on something that came out, or like a remake of an earlier part of his career, you know, like when y… when things are different in your career, when you're basically a nobody and you make…

8:00Jawad Mir... That film and it takes you to the next step. Revisiting that and s… working with Tim Burton on that, did he ever sort of talk about the original project and the obstacles that he had to get it made to you or

8:13Mark SolomonWell…

8:13Jawad Mir... Versus this one, obviously because Tim Burton now?

8:17Mark SolomonWell, the difference was then, I mean, d… Disney c… could tell that he was talented, and so they gave him money to make this short because he was…

8:24Jawad MirYeah

8:24Mark Solomon... An animator primarily. And so he had been working on some of the Disney features as an animator or various projects. They could see that he was talented and wanted to see what he could do. He said he had this story. He pr… they gi… gave him the money to produce this short subject, relatively short subject, and when they saw it, they said, "It's too dark. We can't release this." So I think when Tim Burton, you know, as he grew in his career do, with other, working at other studios, like Warner Brothers for Batman and then he did Alice in Wonderland for Disney, and it was a big success. Like, Alice in Wonderland was a big success, and they said, I think the conversation was something like, "Tim, what… whatever you wanna do, we'll, we'll support you." And he said, "Well, I wanna make a fl… a animated version of Frankenweenie that people never really got to see distributed." So with a relatively limited budget, we were able to, you know, put together a stop motion version of the story that he loved from when he was younger.

9:26Jawad MirAmazing.

9:27Mark SolomonThat's sort of the, as I, as I, that's the way I saw it get put together.

9:31Jawad MirWas it, were you directly, working with him in the post-production or…

9:36Mark SolomonYeah

9:36Jawad Mir... Was it, yeah.

9:38Mark SolomonIt was…

9:38Jawad MirWhat is he like to work with?

9:40Mark SolomonHe's very interesting because he's, some d… directors like to talk a lot and are very verbal, and that's not what he's like. He watches and sort of, you know, without talking much, you sort of get a s… get a sense of what he f… he feels, and then when he gets very frustrated, he draws furiously a, like a little sketch of what he, what he intends, and you go, "Oh, that's what you're talking about." And so then someone takes that little sketch and turns it into a production element, and it gets, it gets made like that. But there wasn't a lot of, there's not a lot of dialogue with him. Or it, there wasn't at the time when I was working with him. It was mostly communicated through, he would either, like, sort of demonstrate what he was talking about or move the pieces around or draw them, and that's the way that we would sort of get direction from Tim. And it was good that Alice had worked with him before, so she understood that was his process and the way he liked to work.

10:42Jawad MirThat's interesting because if, aside from his films like Batman, Alice in Wonderland, but films similar to Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhand, and Big Fish, I mean, there are so many names. He has that, in those films, there's a lot of quiet scenes.

11:03Jawad MirWhich I feel like reflects, because he likes to em… emote to the audience visually more than, you know…

11:09Mark SolomonYeah

11:09Jawad Mir... Verbally. But, seeing him, you know, just te… hearing from you articulate himself in a visual way or in a quiet way is quite fascinating and reflects in his films as well.

11:25Mark SolomonYeah. It comes across. He works with good screenwriters. I mean, like, I think story is not the thing that he loves the most. He loves the impr… the impact of the visual image, and looks at a blank screen and says, "What do you wanna see here?" Like, what would be the great thing to see here in, if you're doing Sleepy Hollow or Batman or one of these, you know, big well-known kind of stories. And, a… and that's to his credit. I mean, it is a visual medium, and you get a lot of the wor… the world of the story is what comes out of his head. You know, that's what he's great at.

11:59Jawad MirWhat were some of the, was there a specific scene or overall production challenges or p… sorry, post-production challenges that you guys came across that you remember? I know it's been about a good 11 years, that you can recall.

12:13Mark SolomonWhat was it? There were, there were lots of things. I mean, getting the family dynamic right w… with, like, Ed… Edward, and his parents. I mean, the voice cast was wonderful. I mean…

12:28Jawad MirYes

12:28Mark Solomon... Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara did a lot of the voices, and they knew each other before, and they're both very funny, talented people. And it was a joy to sit in at the recording sessions and see what they would do with the lines and the characters. And then trying to put that into a scene with the boy, and try to get s… you know, a believable family dynamic out of that was challenging. And also we felt that one of the things that we talked about early on in production, I remember, is that we felt stuck in that attic. You know, where they built this beautiful set of Victor up in the attic. And we had like, what other s… where other places can we be? Like, where else can we, can we do this? And Alison came up with, you know, shooting something in the boy Bob's garage, and coming up with other things, like, as part of the school. Trying to get the voice of the teacher right, Mr. Rice Kruinsky.

13:29Mark SolomonI mean, that was a challenge to get right. I can't remember the actor's name.

13:35Jawad MirMartin Landau

13:37Mark SolomonLandau. Martin Landau.

13:38Jawad MirLandau. Yeah.

13:40Mark SolomonHe was, he was wonderful. But we, but w… while we were working out the scenes and the characters before he was cast, trying to imagine what he was like and what his role, how scary he would be to the kids and what his, you know, the comic possibilities that you could do with him was a lot of, was a lot of fun, and took a lot of time. Getting the... Sparky getting hit by the car when he's chasing the baseball, that took a lot. 'Cause, like, how much can you show? Like, how much of the game do you need to see? How much of the car and the dog do you need to see? Or how little can you show and get, make it clear what's going on? And I mean, we sort of did a, wound up with a very tasteful, you know, PG rated…... Crash. But that doesn't happen right away. You know, that takes time to arrive at that.

14:31Jawad MirYeah. No, most certainly. And, were you ever, were you brought on after the production were done, was done, or were you part of the production process?

14:41Mark SolomonWell, animation style is the editor's on early.

14:44Jawad MirYeah.

14:45Mark SolomonSo as soon as they start, once this... We had a v… you know, a wonderful screenwriter, John August, who'd wr… I think he had done Big Fish before with Tim. Had a script. And so then th… they start drawing storyboards and getting production design. And then once there's enough storyboards to have a scene together, then we start cutting it, then start cutting it together right away. So that's, it's, it's almost like pre-production. So that, the animators and all the other, departments on the crew can see what the story looks like sort of running in time, like what a sequence looks like from beginning to end. We're editing, so you sort of introduce the element of time, like how long does the, this scene take and how much do, how m… how much of the characters do we see and, you know, how do we set it up? And then based on that, they can go ahead and animate. So we w… I was on early on that show.

15:42Jawad MirSo it's interesting in your career, right? You have done Space Jam, which is live action mixed with animation. Then you did Shark Tale, which is computer animation, 3D.

15:52Mark SolomonYeah.

15:52Jawad MirThen you did stop motion. What were the three differences as an editor, if any, that you came across? Or was it a similar process, in terms of putting everything together?

16:04Mark SolomonNo, s… some things are the same and some things are, some things are different. I mean, I…

16:08Jawad MirWhich would be?

16:10Mark SolomonSpace Jam was 2D, like hand drawn…

16:13Jawad MirRight

16:13Mark Solomon... Over live action. I did Stuart Little 2, which was, you know, digital animation over live action. And then stop motion and computer generated animation. I mean, the, interpreting the script and getting it ready for production, that's the same in all of them.

16:33Jawad MirRight.

16:33Mark SolomonOnce it gets sh… how it gets shot and then what happens afterwards is different based on the production style. Like Space Jam, we had to do all these complicated overlays so you could see the, you know, the background that Bugs and Daffy are walking through as you see a line drawing of Bugs and Daffy moving across it. So they can s… and you can start to create the feeling of that the animated character is touching a real re… world surface. And then in animation, I mean, in stop motion, everything is done in one go. Like, there's not, it's not layers upon layers as it is in computer animation. In stop motion, they build a little set, like on a tabletop model.

17:17Mark SolomonLike a train, like a model train set. And so they have little trees. And in Victor's house, they had a suburban house on a real street, and in the kitchen they had little tiny miniature spice rack that someone had to make by hand. And the trees have all the leaves, like, glued on by hand, and the grass has to be laid, and the tr… everything is planted there at once. And so when the figures, the characters like Sparky, like I have a Sparky right there.

17:46Jawad MirYeah, I see him. I see him.

17:48Mark SolomonThat's about the size of the dog. And so then the scale of the boy had to be above that, and the scale of the adults had to be above that. And the house they lived in had to be big enough to accommodate them. And so we had all those elements and the characters really move through. Instead of like on a, having a wire frame like you would in computer animation, or you have, just do one layer at a time. But it's, they're all fun. The thing that's charming about this movie and Chicken Run, though, the two stop motion movies… And that everything is, everything is there. And it's, and it has sort of a handmade feeling to it because some animator is moving, manipulating the characters frame by frame and moving the, moving the camera, moving the characters, getting expression out of these little figures. And there's a, an innocence to it that suited this story well and a lot of stories, I mean, like, the charm of stop-motion carries, is very well-suited to certain kinds of stories, and I think this was one.

18:54Jawad MirRight. And, you know, Chicken, I completely agree with you. I'm s… there's such a fascination, of stop-motion, at least with me, and I'm sure audiences as well. You know, the most recent stop-motion by Aardman that came out, Wallace & Gromit.

19:10Mark Solomonhuh.

19:10Jawad MirI f… I forget what it's called. It's the…

19:15Mark SolomonThe Awakening? Something s… something Awakening?

19:18Jawad MirYeah. I'm gonna find this.

19:19Mark SolomonBoar on Awakening.

19:22Jawad MirWallace & Gromit latest film. It was called Vengeance Most Fowl.

19:30Mark SolomonVengeance Most Fowl. Right.

19:31Jawad MirYeah. It's the, return of... Have you seen the shorts of Wallace & Gromit, the original shorts?

19:35Mark SolomonSure.

19:37Jawad MirSo it's basically the return of one of their, nemesis, the, I forget the character's name, but the penguin. They w… pr…

19:45Mark SolomonFeathers.

19:46Jawad MirFeathers. Feathers McGraw. Feathers McGraw.

19:48Mark SolomonYeah.

19:49Jawad MirSo, you know, even watching that just recently and watching this now and Chicken Run, they just have so much... I think the key word you mentioned was so innocence to it. And… ... You just feel like you can just grab and, you know…

20:05Mark SolomonYeah

20:05Jawad Mir... Feel them while you're watching the film.

20:07Mark SolomonYeah, it's tactile.

20:08Jawad MirYeah. But Chicken Run was much more, you know, it was about the great escape and kind of, approach, but it was more brighter, more colorful, more humorous… ... Positive tone. This was a complete contrast, right?

20:26Mark SolomonYeah

20:26Jawad Mir... Dealing with death, black and white, and everything. You know, when you're working on something like that as, a, as a, yourself as an editor, was it something that was really, you know, ch… not necessarily challenging, but just to be in that vibe all the time versus something that's more happy note? Does that make any impact, on you?

20:50Mark SolomonYes. Yes. That's why, you know, you, 'cause you work on... Y… th… you spend all day with the material, weeks and weeks. I mean, it was the different movie that it affected me the most. There was a movie called The Tale of Despereaux where it's about a mouse and sort of like a fairy tale kind of setting.

21:06Jawad MirRight. Right.

21:06Mark SolomonBut he ends up in a dungeon, and this, being with this mouse in a dungeon for weeks at a time got me down, and I couldn't figure out why I was feeling badly. But it was because I spent all this time feeling like I w… 'cause you have to inhabit the character. You're in a, y… you know, I've, I've heard s… said, I think Paul Hirsch said that an editor isn't a job, it's a being a host organism. That you sort of take on the story and the characters, and you sort of live with it in your body.

21:35Jawad Mir100%.

21:36Mark SolomonAnd that's the only way to sort of really inhabit what you're doing to sort of really be, tell the story from the inside. And in a story like this, I mean, it has so much charm that it, the darkness of the story is very PG dark. You know? It's not, it's not really too tough.

21:51Jawad MirYeah.

21:51Mark SolomonIt's not like Saw or some movie about, you know, where things are really, horror. But it's a young person's horror where they have, you know, and this was sens… Disney was sensitive to this when we did previews. They talked about what did you think of this... They didn't call them scares, like when the cat's face jumps out over a tombstone or the bat sort of jumps forward. They called them jumps. Like, "What did you think of the jumps? And how old, if you have younger brothers or sisters, how old do you think you need to be to see a movie like this?" 'Cause it's not for, it's not the same, it's not like a Teletubbies audience. It's, it's a young audience. But it's still you have to be, you have enough sophistication that you don't get sort of put off by... Some kids really don't like scary music, and Danny Elfman wrote a wonderful score for this that really, I mean, he's great at getting that Tim Burton vibe of dark but not too dark, where it's, it, there's a lot of, you know, charm and engaging a… and, you know, quirky instrumentation and that kind of thing that really helps carry the feeling for what the movie's gonna feel like.

23:00Jawad MirI do think if that film was made today, I feel the younger audience, the fact that they've been exposed to tablets and phones so much… ... I don't know. I feel that they probably would be okay with it. If there, if this, if this was made back then for the ages 10 or 11 and up, I have no data to back this up, but I just feel based on my kids and the kids that I see…

23:25Mark SolomonHow old are they?

23:26Jawad MirWell, they're much older now, but 15 and 19.

23:28Mark SolomonAh.

23:28Jawad MirBut I see younger kids. I think five plus can probably watch this now. I genuinely feel that now…

23:36Mark SolomonYou'd be right

23:36Jawad Mir... Because they're exposed to so much stuff nowadays.

23:39Mark SolomonI remember when one of my daughter first saw Tim Burton, I think she saw Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, and she was fascinated by this dark w… w… story world that y… that is new to them. You know, when you're young, y… when you're that young, you don't really see a lot of stories like that, and that he can sort of walk that line where you sort of safely scare a younger audience is something that's special for them. And yeah, she really enjoyed that stuff.

24:09Jawad MirThat's great.

24:09Mark SolomonYou feel cool. You feel like a cool older kid, I think, when you can have, to take on being a s… a little bit scared at a story.

24:16Jawad Mir100%. Were there any stories from working on the film that you can remember that… You wanna share with the audience? Any, anyth… any story about editing, or it could be just dealing working with Tim, or working with Chris, or the actors?

24:37Mark SolomonWell, the thing that was the most fun was, you know, that was a, was the one show that I was nominated for, an ACE Award, and that the movie was up for an Oscar. And so for the one time when I was able to go with Chris, the co-editor, and with Allison to, you know, an awards dinner, and to be nominated was a great experience. I mean, it, that was f… such a validation. It was great to be in the room with people who are the, you know, the peers that are the most professional and the most experienced. And to feel part of that room where Spielberg is with Michael Kahn and, you know, Walter Murch is there, and all these people that I sort of looked up to as idols of the editing world. And to be a part of that,.. I mean, yeah, we didn't win, but being in the room was the prize. And to have that experience was,..

25:39Mark SolomonIt's very encouraging professionally. And it's, it has its own reward, you know? I mean, you feel like the people's recognized your work.

25:49Jawad MirYeah. I mean, that's the greatest achievement for any artist, is that the recognition that you get and people appreciate the work. Not you necessarily, but the work that you have done.

25:59Mark SolomonYeah.

26:00Jawad MirThat means a lot to an artist. Chris, what is he like? Again, I think he's a wonderful human being. I've talked to him. He's lovely, very approachable. But just working with him, what was he like? He's worked with Tim Burton over God knows how many films.

26:17Mark SolomonYeah, he... They had their own sort of private language together.

26:21Jawad MirYeah.

26:22Mark SolomonAnd so... And he was very protective of that, of working with Tim, which I understood. I mean, I was sort of on... We worked in two different locations, and then once in a while we would work together when we had a screening coming up, or I would, like, offer to help out, like coming up with temp music and doing those kind of things. And he was very, you know, very committed and very focused on getting the best movie out of it he could that,.. And working with Tim, you know, who is not ar… that articulate, that they had built up a sort of private way of working together. That was fascinating to see and, you know, and clearly very talented. And Tim Burton's the on… isn't the only director Chris works with. I mean, and they…

27:04Jawad MirYeah

27:04Mark Solomon... All those movies look good, and it's because he's a very talented editor.

27:10Jawad MirYeah. No, he is, for sure. Just as we sort of wrap up, in terms of... Well, you know, when a film, when a film is finished and it's shown at a screening, or a public screening… ... Or a test screening, whatever that is, a premiere, m… do you remember that experience of gauging the audience reaction first time?

27:34Mark SolomonSure. Well, we did previews and, you know, and that, those are always sort of, a mixed bag because some things play well, but... And some things are sort of not quite finished yet, so you really can't tell what the reaction is. And for the previews for that mo… for that movie were sort of a mixed bag. We tried to f… tried to tease out what's valuable from that experience and what was better to just not worry about and just carry on and make our own thing. And then going to a premiere, it, everybody's just excited that the movie's com… now completely finished. And I had... You know, I didn't s… I wasn't around, like, through the end phases of, like, the mix, and the sound, and the, post-production. So seeing it with fresh eyes at the end w… seeing it with an audience who, you know, with, like, a cast and crew screening and a premiere. They had a premiere at, you know, on Hollywood Boulevard, and Disney really put on a nice premiere for the movie, was it's a great feeling of completion.

28:35Mark SolomonThat's what you get from seeing it, finished for the first time, is you feel like, "Yes. Yes, that work is done. It reached an audience." I g… It looks like someone at my door.

28:46Jawad MirYeah. That's okay.

28:48Mark SolomonOkay. Give me, give me a sec. I'll be right back.

28:50Jawad MirYeah. No, yeah, no problem.

29:05Mark SolomonGive you five minutes? Thank you. Oh, you'll have to cut that.

29:19Jawad MirYeah. I will. I will. Don't worry. Yeah. So t… tell me just... I know we talked about your book, and I... You probably have to go. But, we talked about your book last time, Over the Shoulder, which you have in the back…

29:34Jawad Mir... Over there. Just, you have a book tour coming, book tours coming up, and just to kinda summarize your book again just so people who watch this who are into filmmaking or editing can reach out and grab this book from Amazon or wherever they can get it from.

29:48Mark SolomonThanks, Jawad. Thank you. Yes, it's about,.. Over the Shoulder, it's about my experience as an editor and sort of principles of visual storytelling and what it's like to be a freelance editor, and, like, how to sort of navigate the sort of freelance world of being a creative editor, and the principles of the context of the work. This, it's intended for young filmmakers and people doing online video looking to use editing to make it more memorable and emotional.

30:17Jawad MirAmazing.

30:17Mark SolomonAnd it's f… people are finding it, useful and appealing, which is very satisfying for me. It's a, it's my gift to the next generation of editors.

30:27Jawad MirNo, it... I read it when you first sended me a cop… sent me a copy, and I really enjoyed it. And it was, you know…

30:33Mark SolomonThank you

30:33Jawad Mir... It was very s… it's very enjoyable reading, as well. And I'm not a... I mean, all these books that you see here, I only connect to film-related books more than anything else.

30:45Mark Solomonhuh.

30:45Jawad MirSo that was certainly a fun read. So thank you so much for doing that. I appreciate it.

30:50Mark SolomonMy pleasure. My pleasure, Jawad. It's good to talk to you again.