The ACE Eddie Awards

I was very fortunate to be invited to join the Avid table at the American Cinema Editor awards this past Sunday. I suspect the open seat had a lot to do with it being Valentine's Day, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Somehow, it didn't click in my head that it was an awards show until I actually got there and saw the flock of reporters waiting to catch a glimpse of Morgan Freeman and James Cameron.  There were also some pretty impressive dresses, including my friend Tina, who was wearing a vintage couture dress recently worn by Rihanna.



The Beverly Hilton was nicely outfitted for the occasion.  The Avid cocktail reception was on the 8th floor, with a terrace and the ballroom used for the show was sufficiently glitzy.  The awards show itself was well produced and rather efficient/short.  Joel McHale was the host and his Community co-star Ken Jeong was a presenter.  Ken made great self-deprecating jokes about award winning editor Debra Neil-Fisher being forced to view a little too much of his naughty bits when editing The Hangover.  Morgan Freeman, Bryan Cranston, Mary Lynn Rajskub and the girl from Precious were some of the other flash presenters.  And, for me, the biggest thrill was seeing Carl Reiner up close, who was there in support of his son Rob Reiner's lifetime award.

But even cooler than all the celebs was being in this room full of "nerds" (oh yeah, Michelle Rodriguez was a presenter and made some comment about the editors being nerds and she got a smart [and mostly good-natured] ribbing from one of the later folks about being careful not to call the people who make you look good "nerds").  But, seriously, as a a guild awards show, it seemed much more about technical quality than popularity and you could feel it was a room full of people with immense respect for each other.