What’s your name and your usual job title(s)?

Catherine De Paula, Editor 

How did you get started working in factual TV?

I started out editing commercials.  I was the in-house Avid editor at a production and post production company in London, England which primarily did factual and art programs.  Our company got a new client who specialized in charity commercials with about 20 clients plus.  The company had a favourite freelance editor but he wasn’t available as much as they needed so they started using me.  The first full commercial I cut for them for Save the Children became the most successful Direct Response commercial in the U.K. for 2011, increasing donations by about 800%.  Soon after I ended up working virtually solely for them until my husband decided to move to Canada.  Once here I worked on more commercial work until I got my break in factual television with Force Four Productions editing on Cupcake Girls.

What do you consider to be your career highlight(s)?

I consider it a highlight when I can work on something that really inspires me and when people give me the chance to have increased responsibility to show what I can do and how I can shine.  Currently I am particularly enjoying researching, writing, directing and editing 10 short episodes about the Apollo Missions, celebrating the 50thAnniversary of the Apollo moon landings for the Knowledge Network.  I found that being given full access to NASA’s ftp site – full of many hundreds of archive videos of all their missions – absolutely made my day.  I felt like a kid in a candy shop.  I just couldn’t wait to see what I had to work with, and to try and figure how to compress 19 hours of footage into a gripping or tearful 3-minute episode.  

What’s the strangest thing you’ve had to do working in factual TV?

I had to edit a factual cooking series on the night shift.  I was brought in as an additional editor on a series that was behind schedule.  There weren’t enough suites available during the day so getting an editor on the night shift must have seemed like a good solution.  That was one of my most challenging jobs, problem solving and being creative at 3am.  Coffee and your story editor become your best friends on the graveyard shift. 

What’s something interesting/unusual about you that most people don’t know?

I used to draw and paint and most people I studied with assumed I would be an artist.  It did mean I have a trained eye so, when I realized I wanted to work in television, I initially thought I would be a cameraman.   I did a degree in Dramatic Arts in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying acting, dancing, theatre design and that tantalizing and elusive thing called television, while also helping out as a trainee at production company.  I filmed second camera for Nelson Mandela’s 70th concert for VH1 (British MTV) and did sound for interviews of Crosby, Stills and Nash, as well as Skunk Anansie.  While kneeling down to film baby cheetah in an enclosure at the De Wildt Ann van Dyke Cheetah Centre I got pounced on by three of them and got some memorable scratches.  I learnt to never turn your back or kneel down around wild animals, even if they are young and innocent looking, because you immediately become snack sized.  It was while getting all this experience that my mentor suggested that maybe editing would be a good career fit for me.  I have to say you really only learn how to do good coverage after you have had to edit your own footage.

What’s your ultimate career aspiration? 

I aspire to work on feature length documentaries.  I enjoy working on working on more action orientated material but prefer topics that are meaningful and emotionally touching.  Historical topics are my favourite thing right now and I would love to work on more of those.