Texas Christian University alum, Emily Mendez, brought home the Emmy for her work as an editor on “The Last of Us” and recently shared her success story with current Horned Frogs.
The video game that the HBO series is based on was first released in 2013, the same year that Mendez graduated from the film, television and digital media department at TCU.
Mendez knew early on that she wanted to pursue editing as a career, but as a player of the video game she would have never predicted that someday she’d work on a series based on its storyline.
“I felt like I already knew the characters because of the game, and that was helpful for me,” she told a room full of students gathered on the TCU campus.
Tricia Jenkins, professor of film, television and digital media at TCU, remembers having Emily as a student.
As the host, Jenkins asked Mendez what she knew her current students were thinking: What did Mendez do during her time at TCU that helped her get into graduate school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles? What did she do after getting her master’s degree that allowed her to land a job in the industry?
Production work in Fort Worth has grown significantly since Mendez graduated. When she was in school she sought out work both on and off campus and was lucky to land an internship at a local production company.
“They taught me (to use the production software) Avid, so I was cutting audio tracks in Avid for a safety video,” she said. “And then, eventually they hired me to be an assistant on a hunting show, which I hated working on, but I learned a lot from it.”
Her proficiency with industry-standard software and her experience working on a show helped her get into graduate school. Attending graduate school in Los Angeles and continuing to build her resume on smaller projects allowed her to progress to productions like “The Umbrella Academy” on Netflix and eventually HBO’s “The Last of Us.”
Being open to projects is something Jenkins underscored for the students in the audience.
“Just because an opportunity doesn’t sound amazing to you right off the bat, think about what the opportunity is to learn, create and practice the craft,” Jenkins added.
Relationships are key, too.
Mendez joined the show as assistant editor and was eventually promoted to the role of editor. Mendez credits her mentor and colleague Timothy Good, with whom she shares the Emmy, for helping her advance in her career.
“He knew that I wanted to edit and started giving me things … and saw what I could do,” she said. “We would co-edit when we could. It’s great when you get an editor who allows you to do that.”
As an editor, Mendez receives about 80 hours of footage — with different takes, camera angles and pacing options for each scene — to then trim down into a 50-minute episode.
However, this footage doesn’t all come in at once. To stay on schedule, they edit as the tape comes in after each day of shooting. Because the scenes are usually shot out of sequence, the tape comes in out of order as well.
Using a script from the show and notes from the director, she combs through all of the footage, marking scenes that help bring the storyline to life. After the editor and assistant editor put together a draft that is as close to finished as possible, they bring in the director.
After the director, producer and studio are all happy with the edit, other members of the creative team finalize artistic elements such as sound and color.
Being recognized for her work and hearing her name called out during the Emmys award ceremony felt like an out-of-body experience for Mendez.
“It’s still sinking (in),” she said. “It’s been a couple of weeks, so we’ll see.”
For Jenkins, who describes her former student as incredibly kind, generous and smart, the award couldn’t have gone to anyone better.
“I love to see people like Emily rise to the top. … Hollywood is a competitive, cutthroat business,” she said. “You’ve got thousands of talented people competing for the same job, and they’ll do anything to get ahead. It’s just really wonderful to see good people be rewarded and succeed.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org.At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.