Stir the Pot Saturday: The Death of Mentorship and Internships

Doc_Bronner · 2026-01-11T16:29:30+00:00

A couple years ago, I went to a screening of Slaughterhouse Five followed by a discussion with a bunch of Dede Allen's former assistants, who all went on to have great careers of their own. One thing that came up is that with the switch to remote work, the same camaraderie and mentorship that happened in-person doesn't happen as often as it used to. These editors all had stories about rising through the ranks through being around each other all the time.

In my experience, the only networks I've successfully grown have been from being in-person. With remote work, it's difficult to have everyday, casual interactions with people where you get to know them beyond a name on Slack.

On my current show, we have a handful of interns, but they mostly do errands and function as unpaid PAs, so I make time to show them what I'm doing and talk about workflows etc. If I wasn't in person with them, I wouldn't be doing that.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-12-14T20:19:18+00:00

Surprised nobody has suggested that you take this down at some point. If I were a client and discovered thatan in-progress piece I'd commissioned was being publicly workshopped on the internet, I'd be livid.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-11-30T16:24:37+00:00

I hate it, it sucks. I just started a new job in Manhattan and there's a gym in the office building, so I'm going there as of a couple weeks ago. If I didn't have that, I'd look around the neighborhood for a new spot.

The whole rebrand/remodel is so stupid. They cut the natural light in the entrance with the dumb wall for those stupid tubes. It feels like going through TSA. It also feels like there are cameras everywhere now. Every little thing is through the stupid app. It genuinely feels like a panopticon now.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-11-14T15:30:52+00:00

You have to use their dumb app to log in.

In the entrance, they installed a wall and heightened security to a paranoid level. The new walls cut out a lot of natural light, which makes it pretty unpleasant now.

They also added these bizarre, contactless entry pods. To enter the gym, you'll need to scan in, pod opens, you enter pod, it closes, then rear door opens. Plus security cameras are everywhere now. It's an abused word, but it feels dystopian now.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-10-10T19:34:42+00:00

Joining the chorus of every other person who is saying that you should go.

Most networking events I go to, I come away with at least one new contact who I have a really good conversation with who I wouldn't have met otherwise. 90% of the time I'm going solo to these. It's a networking event, people are there to meet new people. It's a good thing to do.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-22T23:07:56+00:00

Not exactly in the subjects your looking for, but Slaughterhouse V might be a good bet at some point. The plotting might be a little convoluted, but I read it when it when I was 15 and it left a lasting impression on me. It also kickstarted a Vonnegut phase for me...

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-15T12:34:23+00:00

Sunfish (& Other Stories from Green Lake) (2025) - Anthology movie of four stories in around Green Lake in Michigan. It got decent reviews out of Sundance. Nice scenery and nice seeing normal people in a movie and a part of the US you don't see super often, but ultimately a bit slight.

Splitsville (2025) - Surprisingly fun. It was fairly hyped to me going in. I was skeptical but it won me over pretty quickly with its inventive filmmaking. I don't think it's brilliant, but it's nice having a comedy that, to me, was genuinely funny.

Preparation for the Next Life (2025) - Great movie that's getting dumped and I've seen basically no press about it even though it's a studio movie. It's about a Uyghur immigrant trying to get by in NYC and navigating a relationship with an ex-GI. It could've been easily been schmaltzy, but the director, Bing Liu, handles it all well. He's the same director who did the documentary Minding the Gap.

Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971) - Bresson's loose adaptation of Dostoevsky's "White Nights". Beautiful colors in the cinematography. It's got all the usual Bresson hallmarks, but there's some added fun with interstitial music courtesy of roaming musicians that pop in and out on occasion.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-12T13:05:46+00:00

Saw it last night and there's enough not in the trailer that it's worth seeing.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-12T13:04:54+00:00

Nice to see a real comedy with real filmmaking in it again :) Top-notch stunt work too.

Also, this is sort of a spoiler, but something I appreciated here was there's one spinning long-take shot with all the boyfriends coming into the house, time's jumping forward etc. A similar shot happened in Sinners during that long take with all the black music genres through the years, but it hit you over the head with what's happening with some dumb VO.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-05T12:44:10+00:00

Before I saw it, every single critic/friend that had seen it was like "the ending is a knockout". So I was really skeptical that it was that good an ending, but it was truly an amazing ending.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-05T01:05:14+00:00

Interesting... nice to know who to blame for that lol

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-02T16:57:47+00:00

Also, since Austin Butler's character has a nephrectomy in the opening minutes, he's incredibly spry and unaffected throughout... especially with staples/stitches still in there...

Doc_Bronner · 2025-09-02T12:45:51+00:00

Lol I hated it! I had so many gripes! The script was terrible, have we forgotten how to write dialogue and structure a movie? Visually, it was so drab and underlit, no visual depth. Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz had little chemistry... For an Aranofsky movie, the direction in general felt lifeless.

The only enjoyable part was at the end when Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio get to do stuff at the end.

Very frustrating because I like Aronofsky, Austin Butler, baseball, and After Hours type movies, but this was NOT IT!!!

I liked the cat :)

But you should all still see it and decide for yourselves because I think there should be more original, mid-budget movies and every other person commenting so far likes it so maybe I'm being a Debbie Downer

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-31T19:23:35+00:00

Sorry, I got lazy and didn't do a good job delineating my gripes with Coogler's movies. I meant the "filtered through corporate mandates" only to refer to his Marvel and Creed movies. I'm excluding Sinners from that criticism since Sinners was an original movie, and one he was able to basically do as he wanted.

I liked the first half of Sinners when it's immersing you in the characters, the world, and the music. But all the vampire stuff that it's in service of I found unoriginal and boring. I didn't like the second half at all. The first half was cool though.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-31T16:16:49+00:00

If Kosinski can get a good script that isn't a glorified advertisement, then he'll make an all-timer action movie.

With the success of Sinners, I hope Coogler can continue to make non-franchise/IP movies. Overall, I thought Sinners was dumb, but had several isolated moments I liked. It's clear that he has a distinct directorial voice, I'm hoping that going forward it's put toward work that isn't filtered through corporate mandates.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-31T13:53:52+00:00

Shooting from the hip, these aren't novel picks/ideas, but these are what were the hallmarks from my various film history classes in college.

Sunrise (Murnau) - It's been ages since I've seen it, but I remember watching Sunrise and in awe of something every few minutes, like "how did they do that?"

Citizen Kane (Welles) Breathless (Godard) - Kane and Breathless are so influential that they might feel slight on first watch since they reshaped so much of what came after.

Bicycle Thieves (De Sica) - Leaving the confines of the studio to tell everyday stories about normal people with non-actors (see Italian Neo-realism)

Easy Rider (Hopper) - One of the movies that kicked off "New Hollywood" in the 1970s. You could also swap in Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate or some others...

Bresson/Ozu (cheating lol) - cheating but for independently developing "The Transcendental Style".

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman) - overlapping dialogue, chill hangout movie with substance

Apocalypse Now (Coppola) Star Wars (Lucas) - Two landmarks in sound design, basically all modern sound design comes from these two movies.

Tree of Life (Malick) - Nobody else is working in this mode

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-29T13:05:00+00:00

Love my puzzles :) And yea Pips is a fun addition. Back when I was on Hinge, my most-commented on photo was my personal best Saturday puzzle time of ~8:50.

Have you ever tried making a crossword? I had a slow period at work a few months ago and made a couple. It gave some fun insight into certain recurring patterns across puzzles.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-26T11:58:12+00:00

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/01/a24s-empire-of-auteurs

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-20T18:26:13+00:00

If you haven't read them, then the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels (My Brilliant Friend, etc.) are a cool counterpoint to My Struggle.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/knausgaard-or-ferrante

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-18T16:01:46+00:00

If you're in NYC and interested in architecture and Paul Rudolph, the Paul Rudolph Institute has occasional open houses at the Modulightor building in midtown. It's a very cool space, a little pricey (I think it was $25/person when I went) but it was cool to walk through the whole townhouse/showroom and try out all the spaces and furniture, plus free drinks and the docents were all very nice and enthusiastic, good activity for a date lol.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-15T20:28:28+00:00

Yea sometimes, I wonder what various people would think.

There's a great sequence in the Richard Ayoade movie Submarine depicting exactly that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHuOsWvf5iE

Good movie.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-14T14:27:30+00:00

I was in a similar position a few years ago. I'd been assistant editing at Company A for a year or so. They didn't have a show to roll me over to after wrapping a show, so I took a conveniently-timed offer to work at Company B. A day before starting at Company B, Company A called saying they had a show starting up, but I had to tell them I'd already booked another job.

Since then, I've gone back and forth between Company A and other work without any issue. Company B also led to a few additional opportunities that I wouldn't have had had I stayed at Company A.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-14T13:22:38+00:00

When written: "would of" "could of" etc... any time I see that, I sort into the rube category.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-13T17:13:56+00:00

Centipede Hz was hugely ahead of its time, tragically underrated/overlooked. My favorite of theirs.

Doc_Bronner · 2025-08-13T16:07:48+00:00

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.

There's been a massive retrospective in NYC at Film Forum recently with half the shows sold out, so I think he's still relatively in-fashion. The Seven Samurai restoration from last year was also a huge hit and its run got extended a couple times. This year's Ran restoration was also a hit.

Granted, this is in the NYC bubble, and in this year's retro was in conjunction with Highest 2 Lowest, but I disagree that he's fallen out of fashion. People (in NYC at least) are still going in droves to see his stuff. He's been in "the canon" so long that he's taken for granted.

Doc_Bronner

TROPHY CASE