10 Questions For Jesse Averna

AOTG by Gordon Burkell

Who is Jesse Averna
Jesse is a four time Emmy winning editor, affiliate member of ACE, and a rabid Star Wars fan. You can follow his ever updating reel and see what else he is working on, including his own film, here: www.iCutFilm.com

You can chat with him every Wednesday night on Twitter for #PostChat.

Or you can bug him anytime on Twitter here: @dr0id.

What is your schedule while you are editing and what does an average day look like?
An average day is hard to define. It depends what season of the year it is. The show requires year round work. My year is broken up into three phases. The first phase happens as the show is being filmed. Some of the content is designed to be a certain duration. I am sometimes brought onto the set to rough-cut as they are shooting to help make sure the segment is coming in 'on-time'- not too long or too short.

Sesame Street is shot with three to four cameras. I help choose when and what the audience should see at any given moment. The Editor is really the final creative pass of the piece. I work with the Director, Producers and Research Team to complete the edit and enhance with special effects, etc.

The second phase of my year is QC'ing. Sesame Street is comprised of different shorter segments to make the whole. What we call 'magazine style'. Most of those pieces are filmed and edited by us, but some are also commissioned from filmmakers and other content creators. For instance, every show has a letter and a number of the day that is highlighted through several segments. Some films supporting the letter and number are commissioned. I run them through a quality control to make sure they meet Sesame and our distributors' standards. read more...