MARYANN BRANDON - Editor

James Ellis Deakins (0:03)

Hi, and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deakins Podcast, a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deakins and a guest. We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes. This episode is sponsored by Aputure and its new Storm CS32, the industry's most powerful full-color tunable LED point source light, brighter than a 4K HMI with adjustable colors for golden sunsets, cool blue moonlight or rich, accurate skin tones. With the flexibility of powering off a household outlet, the CS32 is the light that grows with you. Storm CS32, your light for every shoot, only from Aputure.

Cinema is all about the quiet, deliberate decisions that tell a story frame by frame. Whether that's the harsh digital greens of The Matrix, or the sun-bleached amber vastness of Dune. BenQ Home Cinema Projectors respect those choices, delivering calibrated color accuracy that lets you see the image as the director and cinematographer created it. Experience the true spirit of the craft in your own home by visiting benq.com.

Today, we're speaking with an editor. Her credits include several Star Trek and Star Wars films, Passengers and Venom. We're pleased to welcome Maryann Brandon. Maryann, thank you for doing this with us.

Maryann Brandon (1:55)

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

James Ellis Deakins (1:58)

We'd like to start with our normal question, which is, how did you get to where you are today? Is ordering actions something that you did as a kid? Do you wanted everything in a certain order or is it something that you came upon later? What's your story?

Maryann Brandon (2:14)

Let's see. I wouldn't say any of those things. I mean, I would say I loved movies. I found Safe Haven in movies. I watched a lot of movies. I spent my weekends at the Utopia Theater on Union Turnpike in Queens. They used to have a triple feature every weekend with two cartoons. No matter what time of day you walked in, you just sat down and then you just waited for the whole thing to circle around and start again. I'd probably watch three or four movies a weekend and come home from school and watch million-dollar movie.

I just loved films. I really had no idea what I wanted to do when I went to college. I got recruited by the film club. There was no film classes, but I was in the art department. I was studying theater and lighting. I got recruited by the film club to be there. They didn't have any women. They needed a woman in their club and I loved films, so I said yes and we ran around campus making films. Then I had made films when I was a kid with my friends. I used to torture them and make them act in stupid things for me. But when I was graduating from Stony Brook University, most of the people I was living with at the time and friends with, all went to work on Wall Street because those were the years Wall Street, every job was on Wall Street and I just knew I wasn't going to be that person.

The set design teacher was also working on Saturday Night Live at the time, early days, like early 80s. He recommended me to the head of NYU Graduate Film School, who approached me and said, we really want women, would you consider coming to film school? I said, sure.

It was full ride, 2,500 a semester. Wow.

I said, sure, but I had nowhere else to go. I had a friend who was going to Cooper Union, so I shared a place with her on Second Avenue. I had no idea what I was in for. They literally put a camera in my hands and said, go make films and you guys all just go make films together. We did. We made films for three years running around New York City. One of my film partners was Spike Lee, Ernie Dickerson. It was a great group. Those years, Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, they were all at the school at the time I was there. So it was really like there were so many great ideas and it was very stimulating. My friends from college thought I was insane. They were like, what do you do? We're not sure and so on and so forth. Then that's how it happened.

James Ellis Deakins (5:18)

Did you get attracted though immediately to editing or were you?

Maryann Brandon (5:22)

Again, because I had no background in film and certainly my mom had no idea what I was doing. I didn't really have a thing like, oh, I'm dying to direct. But I had to finish my thesis film to graduate to get my degree. I needed money to do that, to get it out of the lab. I ended up working at MoMA as a security guard during the Picasso exhibit.