Episode Details

“It’s your duty as a professional working with a director & producer that you tell them when it becomes impossible to do the job on your own.”

Eddie Hamilton, ACE is the editor of Top Gun: Maverick, the last 3 Mission: Impossible films, Kick-Ass 1 & 2, and X-Men: First Class, just to name a few. And in my second interview with Eddie (here’s part 1 if you haven’t listened yet), he and I candidly discuss his experience editing Top Gun: Maverick and what drove him to asking for help before it was too late.

The grueling work hours required to produce blockbuster content can literally be deadly if you don’t care for yourself properly. When your livelihood depends on your creativity, your mental health is no longer a luxury, it’s a job requirement. But many of us have spent so many years (maybe our entire lives), ignoring our self-care needs at the expense of our jobs - no matter the cost - we don’t actually know how to care for ourselves when the time comes we have no other choice. Eddie recognized early in his career that he would have to take control of his mental health and set boundaries if he was going to survive working in Hollywood at the highest level, but not even that was enough on this job.

In this conversation (which as a crazy aside was actually recorded before the pandemic, and I had to wait to release this interview until the film released!), Eddie honestly shares the immense challenges and responsibilities he bared working on Maverick and he gives an inside look into challenges like managing burnout, summoning the courage to ask for help, and whether or not working at the highest level in the business is worth the sacrifices.

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Here's What You'll Learn:

• How Eddie got started in editing.
• Eddie went from being his own assistant for his first ten movies to having 7 AE’s for Top Gun: Maverick.
• What a typical day looks like while Eddie is cutting dailies on Mission Impossible and Top Gun: Maverick.
• Why Eddie had to ask for help on Top Gun: Maverick
• The challenge and responsibility of being an editor on high budget films and how listening to Optimize Yourself reminded him to stay healthy.
• My story of the pressure I felt on Burn Notice when I had to cut a season opening montage with found footage from past dailies.
• Eddie’s healthy habits of running and watching movies keep him fit and creatively informed to do his job well.
• Fever dreams of close ups of actors in his head wake him up at 3am.
• The hours Eddie worked when he went on location with the film.
• When burnout kicked in and he found himself frozen in front of his laptop unable to cut dailies.
• The foresight Eddie had to mention he was going to need help to the producers early on.
• Not only could Eddie not keep up to camera in cutting dailies, he couldn’t keep up to watching all the dailies.
• Eddie values having another editor to bounce ideas off of and get immediate feedback.
• Does Eddie think the work is worth all the sacrifices he make?
• Eddie insists his team attends all important events in their lives.
• Why Eddie took a week off to do a personal development course and what changes it brought about in his life.
• The importance of asking lifestyle questions in job interviews.
• Eddie sees an appreciation for mental health growing in the past few years.
• Finding employers that respect your me