ScreenCraft Works is an international community of cross-border mentoring, talks and networking, supporting under-represented production and post talent.


Career + Learning + Wellbeing
for best film, TV and online productions.

Cross-Border Conversation:
Editing and the Phantom Menaces

Supported by Genelec

US editor Paul Martin Smith – giving a rare interview – and UK editor Chris Wyatt, who used to work together as editor and assistant, were in conversation with emerging UK- and Spain-based Japanese editor Tomoko Hirasawa

Watch the recording of the talk or read the transcript

Paul Martin Smith is known for his editing work with George Lucas, having worked for five years at Lucasfilm Ltd. While there, he was a test bed for Avid’s new developments in its editing software. His many film editing credits include London Has Fallen; Journey to the Center of the Earth (the first digital 3D feature film); Star Wars: Episode 1 – the Phantom Menace; Renny Harlin’s Mindhunters, starring Val Kilmer, Jonny Lee Miller, Christian Slater, Kathryn Morris and LL Cool J; the war drama Behind Enemy Lines, starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, the romantic comedy The Matchmaker, starring Janeane Garofalo; and Jim Gillespie’s thriller Venom. 20th Century Fox asked him to conceptualize and co-direct three sequences for its animated feature film TITAN-AE and those became audience favourites. 

Smith served as the consulting editor on Ernest Dickerson’s crime drama Never Die Alone, and edited four telefilms in the feature franchise The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. Additionally, he has edited over 30 documentaries, including Gunfight USA for PBS’s Frontline and Cold Spring New Dawn for PBS’s Nova. Smith’s other television credits include the telefilms Country Justice, starring George C. Scott; Unforgiveable, with John Ritter; The Canterville Ghost, starring Patrick Stewart and Neve Campblell; the Hong Kong detective series Yellowthread Street for ITV in the UK; and the Amblin Entertainment / Universal for NBC sci-fi series Earth 2. Smith is a member of the BFE. 

Chris Wyatt has worked with an eclectic mix of acclaimed filmmakers from Peter Greenaway to Shane Meadows. Spanning a career of more than forty years, Chris started out as a negative cutter and progressed to editor via assisting (with Paul Martin Smith) and sound editing. His film credits as editor include The Pillow Book, This Is England, ’71 and God’s Own Country. Chris recently finished working with Oliver Hermanus on Living, a retelling of the Akira Kurosawa film Ikiru, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022. Chris is a member of the BFE. Chris is a strong advocate of cross-department collaboration, especially between sound and picture and other technical departments. 

Tomoko Hirasawa is a Japanese film editor based in Spain, the UK and Japan. Tomoko first discovered her passion for editing while VJ-ing in Tokyo nightclubs. She moved to the UK to study film editing at Arts University Bournemouth in 2006. She now edits commercials and documentaries, including the award-winning short Mitaka Sumo School (2017) and feature documentary Bound (2021). She is a co-director of the post-production company Coup Pictures and is currently working for Change.org in Japan.  

For any ScreenCraft Works events that you enjoy, please consider donating £5 towards the cost of future events.