Jennifer Abbott isn’t a household name. But, given current world events, it’s time for that to change.
The Saltspring Island-based filmmaker—who co-directed and edited the 2003 film The Corporation—is coming to Victoria for The Art of the Edit, a workshop where she’ll be teaching students editing skills and techniques. It’s a job she’s well suited to do, after teaching film editing at Emily Carr and working on numerous feature films since the ‘90s.
“The workshop tries to delve deeper into editing,” explains Abbott, “which is a very difficult thing in some ways to teach, because it’s quite intuitive and subjective. I mean, there are certain rules for sure, but then the other parts of editing are really difficult to teach and to learn, so it’s trying to delve deeper. What is an artful edit? What is artful editing?”
Editing can be difficult to explain to students, so Abbott uses a method she started when she taught at Emily Carr where she handpicks sequences from a range of films—everything from surrealist films to Hollywood blockbusters and even vintage television shows.
“I use examples of edits in teaching to encourage people to pay attention to things that they might not,” she says. “I think it’s a really good way to go because it provides a visual example of what I’m talking about.”
Because Abbott prefers to work on documentary films, the challenge is making the ideas behind them engaging and transforming what could be a dry subject into something inspiring and interesting.
“In the edit suite, generally I’m alone and generally I have a big chunk of time that I can just really get into that zone where it becomes intuitive,” she says. “I edit my own work because I don’t like to translate my ideas into words while I’m working.”
Abbott’s most engaging work to date is arguably The Corporation, a film now being credited as an inspiration for the growing Occupy movement. Abbott herself is no stranger to politics with her film subjects, having approached food politics with A Cow at My Table, and gender and sexuality in Two Brides and a Scalpel: Diary of a Lesbian Marriage.
“I make documentaries because it’s been my way of finding a voice in a society I frequently feel alienated from,” she says. “And it’s obviously very rewarding when that voice is heard and when it resonates with others. We don’t just make them for ourselves; we make them to try and contribute in some small way to a cultural shift and to a behavioural shift. As a filmmaker that’s immensely rewarding for me.”
The Art of the Edit
CineVic (1931 Lee Ave.)
November 19 and December 3, 12-5 pm, $125-$150
cinevic.ca