INTERVIEW: In The Editor’s Room

Shannon Baker Davis discusses her journey as a film editor

Writing, directing and producing are the media darlings of the filmmaking industry. But only through the process of editing is the real story crafted. With the upcoming release of the film, The Photograph, starring Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield, newly inducted member the society of American Cinema Editors (ACE), award-winning Editor, Shannon Baker Davis, provides Mario Tahi Lathan, who interviewed her for bfm, insight into her journey and the art of the edit.

bfm: Give us an overview of your journey and the origin your interest in filmmaking.

Shannon Baker Davis: I'm from Augusta, Georgia in the US. I always had a creative bug in me. I was always into drawing and art and stuff. I grew up watching television.  While I was in high school, I went to a media program at Northwestern University, and I had the time of my life. I'd pretty much decided that I was going to college for television. I went to Howard University (in DC) and chose the Radio/TV/Film track as my major. At Howard, editing was my favorite part of the process. When you were done editing you had something tangible that you could show and say, “I did that.”

After undergrad, I got a job at a post company that did mostly political ads and infomercials, and after a year, decided I did not want to do that. I did not want to work my way up in the DC market and end up doing political ads the rest of my life. I was like, basically, I needed to go back to school. I went to AFI (the American Film Institute) because their program aligned with the types of films that I liked. AFI is like a mini Hollywood, like a studio system.

bfm: Directors study directors. Producers study producers. Writers study writers. Who were your filmmaking influences as an Editor?

Shannon Baker Davis: I always loved action movies and period dramas. I grew up watching that stuff and loved it. I saw Pulp Fiction when I was at that Northwestern program and it changed the game for me. It had a big influence over what I learned could be done narratively with story. You didn't have to make a movie that was one, two, three, four, five, etc. When I learned that’s what Editors play a huge role in figuring out, I began studying the greats, Walter Murch, Thelma Schoonmaker, Anne Coates, Michael Kahn. When I heard Dody Dorn speak about editing Memento, a movie that plays backward and forward at the same time, I was blown away. But very few editors looked like me. In fact, at that time, I knew of zero black editors, let alone, black women editors. Didn’t even know if they existed.

bfm: Of course.

Shannon Baker Davis: I was coming of age in the 1990s, and there was a renaissance of black filmmaking. All of those movies really hit home, too, because there were black people on screen, and they were in great love stories and stories that made you laugh and see yourself on screen. Love and Basketball had a huge impact on me.

While at AFI, Gina Prince-Bythewood (Director - Beyond The Lights) and Terilyn A. Shopshire (Editor - Eve’s Bayou), came in for one of our seminars to speak about their new film Love and Basketball. I was one of the few people who knew them, their work, and again, I loved Love and Basketball. That's how I met Teri. She ended up being one of my mentors and a vital, trusted friend. To this day, I call Terry if I have questions about the business or just life.

bfm: I have always looked at my favorite filmmakers and took note of one thing they had in common. Black, white, or whatever, they were all editors or at least edited their first film. I want to talk about your first project. I know you didn't start in narrative quite right away, is that correct?

Shannon Baker Davis: After I graduated from AFI, I moved to New York and went into reality TV, landing a job as an assistant editor on Celebrity Poker Showdown. Eventually, all of us assistant editors (if you could survive, because a bunch of my fellow assistants got fired) were virtually cutting so many elements of the shows. Then that same company started producing a show called Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List, one of the early reality tv, docu-series.

I assisted on the first season and then on the second season, I was bumped up to editor and cut the episode where Kathy goes on a comedy tour to entertain the troops in Iraq. My story producer and I worked, I mean worked that show. Then the network submitted the episode for the Emmys, and we won.

bfm: The fact that you're a person of color and a woman, at that stage in your career, do you think that affected any jobs or any recognition that you were getting or not getting?

Shannon Baker Davis: I'm sure it always, always affected it. Back then, too, there was no black renaissance like today. There were no black shows. Real Housewives of Atlanta hadn't even come out yet.

bfm: Exactly.

Shannon Baker Davis: It was surprising to people that I was smart, or I knew how to tell stories, or that I was working really hard, or that I could think ahead. Every show I got on, I felt like I had to start from scratch to prove I knew what I was doing, even several years into my reality career.  That definitely wears on you.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t develop a bit of Imposters’ Complex, where you start to take on others’ doubts in your own work.  But then I’d cut episodes that everyone liked and had very little network notes, and I started building a reputation where most people stopped assuming things about me because of my black skin.

bfm: Can you talk about your start in narrative films in LA?

Shannon Baker Davis: When I left New York I was like, "I'm going to go and find scripted work in LA." I emailed everybody that I knew, people that knew people, but it was so hard to find the right person that would let me into the scripted club. Pretty soon I was like, "I now need to pay my bills." So I got a job on a reality show, thinking, "This is only going to be temporary." Fast forward five years, I was still working on reality shows, getting bigger and better shows, and getting paid more and more money, and that was kind of the problem. "I'm making good money, and I'm doing these big shows and they're getting nominated for Emmys and winning, but I’m not creatively happy." I landed Project Runway, which I was a fan of and absolutely loved working on, and then did a little stint on Undercover Boss. Then I vowed that the end of that year was going to be the last year that I did reality.  The shows were cool and the people were great, I just knew in my heart I hadn’t moved across the country to finish out my years working in unscripted.

bfm: Yes.

Shannon Baker Davis: Me and my husband had our first child, and 2 of my friends were finally getting their feature film going. We had been talking about me editing their feature for years. Three months in, I have a little baby, I'm like, "I'll do it. I'll do it." I went, and I cut the feature. It was such a great experience, that I decided this was the life I wanted. But that job was for very little money.

bfm: Sacrifice.

Shannon Baker Davis: I started turning down reality work not too long after that. Turned down everything. I decided that if I was going to spend so many hours away from home, away from my husband and my kid, that my job was going to be fulfilling in a way that reality wasn’t doing it for me.  I didn't work for like two and a half months. Finally, a woman I met, Katy Skerjping, that had gone to AFI, had just been bumped up from assistant editor to editor on The Good Wife. She had been the assistant for six seasons. I met her and we clicked. She said, "I'm going to see if I can hire you as my assistant. I can teach you everything you need to know." So I went back to assisting when she hired me on The Good Wife, and I finally had my first scripted credit. It's just hard to get those assistant jobs if you don't have a scripted, one hour drama, whatever credit. The job is not hard itself, it's getting the job that's hard. People often say, "Was it hard? Was it hard to be an editor and go work as somebody's assistant editor?" I say, "Not at all. Not in the least bit." Working with Katy was the perfect situation as my first scripted show. She set me up to succeed, because that's part of it too. If you get into a first situation that's too hard for you, or too overwhelming, you will fail, and you might blow your big opportunity.

bfm: Yes.

Shannon Baker Davis: Once I had that one credit, all of the people that I had reached out to for years and years, asking, "Can we have coffee?,” started getting emails from me again, and because I had a scripted credit, a woman that I had met on Top Chef that was now editing scripted was like, "Come assist me." That was on Issa Rae’s first season of Insecure on HBO. Insecure was so much fun. Everyone was kind of new like me and had no egos. Only lots of big, creative, funny, and dope ideas.

bfm: That lead you to Grown-ish, and then even bigger opportunities like this new feature that you edited, starring Issa and LaKeith Stanfield.

Shannon Baker Davis: It's called The Photograph, for Universal Studios, directed by Stella Meghie. I cut her episode of Grown-ish in season one and we clicked. We could talk about film and tv on a level you just don’t get with many people. She said, "I have this studio feature that may or may not go, we're not sure. I'm rewriting." She said, "But first I have this little indie film that I wrote that is being shot in December that I would love for you to cut."  When I finished Grown-ish, I went on to cut her feature in six weeks, a movie called The Weekend, that premiered at (the) Toronto Film Festival (TIFF). Then on the Photograph, we had a tough time convincing the studio that, as a first-time studio feature editor, I could do it. Eventually, I had people calling from every walk of my life trying to vouch for me. I pushed and pushed my agent who pushed and pushed Universal, and I finally got the job.

I had a lot of fun cutting The Photograph with Stella. It's a lot of work. You're constantly reworking the story, reworking the structure and finding the best performances. Then when you’re close to finishing, everything’s always a rush and you end up spending a lot of time in the cutting room. I know why it’s so important for a director to have a good “partner” in the edit.  We laughed, gossiped, sipped our “tea,” and always worked really hard.  I also had a great, great post crew. I had an all-women post crew that was always supportive and kept me on track. We had a super supportive environment and I absolutely needed that to survive, because there was pressure to make this opportunity count.  I’m really proud of The Photograph. It reminds of those 90s love stories I connected with back in the day. And Stella and I felt a responsibility to Issa and LaKeith and the audiences and ourselves to make a dope, memorable, emotional and entertaining movie.

bfm: As a filmmaker of color, how important is networking and having mentorships ?

Shannon Baker Davis: It's crucial. It's absolutely crucial. Having a mentor is like being a child and having a loving parent. Not that they will directly take care of you, but you can rely on a mentor as much as the relationship has been established. There are good ways to be a mentor, and good ways to be a mentee. You have to bring something to your mentor's life too, and try to be helpful in any way you can. A lot of times people that have mentored me will email me and say, "I'm looking for an assistant editor. Who do you know?" And because I’m still close to a lot of assistant editors, I can usually help them find somebody who is great.

bfm: True.

Shannon Baker Davis: They also help you, give you advice on how to navigate. It's just great to have somebody that you can talk to, vent to, and then also be inspired by the great projects they’re doing.  Then you support whatever they do, and they support whatever you do.

bfm: What is your advice for filmmakers who want to pursue a career as an editor?

Shannon Baker Davis: As an editor, you need to be watching everything. There is an insane amount of good television out right now. It’s overwhelming, and you have to watch it all. You have to know what people are doing out here. You have to be able to talk about the good, the bad, the inspiring, the creative choices and the mistakes. If you get in a room, even if it’s a job cutting a short film, everyone is going to look at you and say, "How do we make this better?" You need to be able to break something down and offer some answers.

bfm: The fact that you were pregnant and you were working, I look at that. You took a lot of excuses off the table for me.

Shannon Baker Davis: It's a lot. I always say, “If you're not working, your job is to work your craft.”

bfm: Yes.

Shannon Baker Davis: You should be binge watching everything while you're not working. You don't have kids? Get off Facebook. Get off Twitter, get off Instagram, and get in your film life.

bfm: Okay, so one last question. What’s this “unicorn” that you mention a lot?

Shannon Baker Davis: Some of the other black women editors and I started saying that we're unicorns, because we're so rare. You're at an event and in a room full of men and non-black women and you see somebody across the room, and it's literally like a unicorn came in, and you're like, "Oh my God, there's a horn over there." You basically bee-line to that person and say, "Who are you? Why don't I know you? How can we be friends?" We're unicorns. We're special. I think we're special. And we do exist.

bfm: I like it.

Shannon Baker Davis: Between Editors, Assistant Editors, and PAs, there’s a group of us black women who get together and go see movies or go have drinks, just to kind of check in with each other like, "Are you doing okay?" It's nice, because sometimes you feel isolated. And then with the other “unicorns,” you open up and you're candid about something that may have happened and someone is like, "Oh yeah, yeah. That happened to me, too." It's a bonding thing. It's validating. It keeps me going, and I hope I can help keep other black women going, too.