
AICE Awards Names 2018 Hall of Fame Inductees Los Angeles, CA April 9, 2018 Three West Coast-based editors whose lives and work made an impact on their colleagues, their clients and their peers are being hon-ored with posthumous induction into the AICE Hall of Fame at this year's AICE Awards in Culver City, California.
Editors Michael Bartoli of Hybrid Edit, Chris Hafner of Cutters and Eric Zumbrunnen of Exile are all being inducted in recognition of their accomplishments as editors and company owners and their overall impact on the industry. Bartoli passed away in 2016; Zumbrunnen in 2017; and Hafner earlier this year.
AICP West Chapter Board members LaRue Anderson of Apache and Yvette Cobarrubi-as-Sears of Cosmo Street, who are leading the planning for this year's AICE Awards presentation, say the process of selecting Bartoli, Hafner and Zumbrunnen for the Hall of Fame was an easy one. We looked for talents who jumped out as having an out-standing body of work and whose careers were marked by integrity, exceptional acco-lades and the overwhelming respect of their colleagues, says Cobarrubias-Sears. Mi-chael, Chris and Eric checked all of those boxes. Sadly, all of them left us within the past two years, so it's been an emotional time for the post production community here, to see such revered and talented friends and colleagues gone.
Anderson pointed out that each of the inductees played a unique role in the post pro-duction community. Michael was renowned as a mentor, she says. From his days at Red Car, then at Filmcore and later at his own shop, Hybrid, he helped turn assistants into editors. There are quite a few editors in our industry today who owe their careers to him. Chris opened his own company, Brass Knuckles, on Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice long before the area was considered cool. He had a musical background and brought a real rock and roll vibe to his work. Everyone who worked with him loved him. And Eric started out working on commercials and music videos but leapt into our consciousness when he cut Spike Jonze s Being John Malkovich' in 1999. He was a tal-ent everyone wanted to work with.
Bartoli: A Laugh You Can't Forget
A California native, Bartoli widely known simply as Bart got his start as a runner at Red Car, the legendary editorial company founded by editor Larry Bridges. While there he advanced to the role of senior editor, later joining Mad River Post. He was recruited to join Filmcore by editor Steve McCoy, himself a member of the AICE Hall of Fame, then returned for a second stint with Bridges at Red Car before partnering with editor Susan Munro to open Hybrid Edit.
Munro met Bartoli at Red Car and says the two immediately clicked. Editors can be territorial when it comes to their clients, but that was not the case with Michael, she says. He had no ego. He shared his clients, we shared cuts with each other, he was al-ways very open, collaborative and supportive. Just as her relationship with him clicked, so did those with his clients, she adds: He had a great rapport with them and called many his friends. With Michael, it was about more than the work, it was about the relationship. That made him an amazing partner.
His work for Dryers Ice Cream won a Clio, and he cut for such clients as In & Out, Del Monte and Mountain Dew. Known for his versatility, Bartoli was often brought in early by creative teams to contribute during the creative development process and was an expert when it came to humor and the integration of special effects. He worked with every major agency on the West Coast (including CAA) and many in Chicago and New York, and regularly collaborated with such directors as Bob Giraldi, Jeff Gorman, Gary Johns, Jon Francis and Jordan Cronenweth. He also dabbled in feature promotion, cutting the trailers for Spike Lee's debut film Do the Right Thing, and more recently partnered with the director Chris Robinson on the Kevin Hart skit for BET that launched the parody series The Real Husbands of Hollywood.
It was his childhood friend, Bert Kelley, a longtime executive producer (and now part-ner) at the L.A. agency Davis Elan, who recommended to Bridges that Bartoli might fit in well at Red Car. He went on to edit with Bartoli at each of his career stops, right up until his passing, on spots for clients like Toyota, McDonald's, Great Call and many oth-ers. Michael was the nicest, most helpful guy, the kind who would go above and be-yond for you, and as a result he was loved and respected by everyone he worked with, Kelley says. He had his finger on the pulse of life, and was a good person to lead the way. And he did that for a lot of us.
Chris Gipson, a partner and editor at Republic Editorial in Dallas, might agree. He first met Bartoli during Bartoli's second stint at Red Car. Bart was one of those guys who always wore a smile, and when he wasn't editing he was strumming one of the many guitars that adorned his edit suite, Gipson says. He liked to laugh, and had a laugh that's hard to forget. As an editor he was generous and encouraging. If you wanted his opinion on an edit he would give it, but in a very constructive and helpful manner. Gipson recalls a time when Bartoli was cutting a large package of spots for Lincoln and, knowing Gipson was young and building his reel, handed off a cut down for Gipson to edit. Although I looked up to Bart and saw him on a different level as a mentor, Bart saw me as an equal.
Hafner: The Epitome of an Artist
Chris Hafner attended film school at NYU and was nominated for six Emmy Awards and won for anti-drug PSAs he wrote, directed and edited before he'd even graduat-ed. He then joined a New York post facility where he was asked to edit a concert film for Ozzy Osbourne, which opened the door for his career as an editor an
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