Advice for Someone Seeking This Job
Teese suggests landing a position as an office PA for a production or,
as he did, with the area film office, as a good place to break into the busi-
ness. His rise to success came quickly because he started his career in
Richmond, Virginia, a considerably smaller filmmaking market than Los
Angeles, where there was less competition for jobs. Another option is
making connections with classmates in film school, editing their school
projects. As they go on to work on other projects, they will already know
you and your reputation.
Professional Profile: Rex Teese, Apprentice Editor
"I am just a long string of lucky breaks," says Rex Teese of his swift
rise to success. He began editing movies while in high school. "In art
class we had to make commercials for one of our projects. And for
Spanish class we had to do these skits where we spoke Spanish. I usually
wrote them." To get out of doing some of the work, Teese took on the
responsibility for editing the pieces, which turned out to be more work.
"This was back before you could do anything on computer." Using
footage shot on VHS with a handheld camcorder, he rigged two VCRs to
use for editing, stopping and starting and rerecording to make the edits.
After high school, Teese set his interest in filmmaking aside to attend
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where he
studied to become a teacher and football coach. In his last year of college,
while doing student teaching, he discovered that "I'm a pretty decent
coach, but I'm a terrible teacher."
Inspired to contact the Virginia Film Office for an internship, he
started work at the end of the 1997 school year, just as other students
were leaving. Being the only intern in a small office afforded Teese a
wealth of opportunities to gain experience and make industry contacts.
"One day the Film Office loaned me out to a video shoot for the Dave
Matthews Band. It was my first film job: working with this band I had
been listening to for a couple of years. It was great!"
In the summer of 1998 he was hired as office PA on the Legacy pilot.
Whenever he wasn't working, he could be found looking over the shoul-
ders of the show's editors, watching and learning the craft. "The produc-
tion manager and I didn't get along too well--we had a clash of
personalities. She was about half a second away from firing me." Luckily
for Teese, the editors were swamped and hired him on as an apprentice.
When the Legacy editors weren't using the editing equipment, they
allowed Teese to use it. "I was spending weekends and nights--all this
time working on the machine. Toward the end of the show, they had to
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