When we make helping others a primary goal of our personal and professional lives, something amazing can happen. Whether you're trying to break into Hollywood or pursuing career aspirations of your own, creating authentic relationships and helping others can be the key to your own success. In this episode of Pillow Talk, Robin Wright speaks to our very own Pillow Talk film editor Alfonso Carrion about how he broke into the career of his dreams, first working nights and weekends and eventually working his way up to land jobs on major feature films and on House of Cards with Robin. Alfonso talks about the importance of building meaningful and reciprocal relationships, especially in Hollywood where the phrase "it's who you know" really is key. In fact, Alfonso believes so deeply in the power of giving back that he's made helping others the center of his professional life. He started his own mentorship program called Ask the Fonz which offers a free learning portal on YouTube and social media which provides access to a community of aspiring film editors from around the world. As everyone increasingly turns to online video for communication and storytelling of all kinds, Alfonso has never been busier as a film editor. He now finds himself in the middle of a network of friends, colleagues, and opportunities for career growth that are the direct result of nurturing relationships and helping others all along his path.

 

Transcript

 

Robin Wright 

 

Alfonso, you look really good in our navy men's PJs!

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

l love it, it's great.

 

Robin Wright 

  

Well, I'm just gonna first introduce you, because you and I met on House of Cards. Season four and season six you were assistant editor. And then you edited a short film called Dark of Night that I directed. You did a beautiful job there. And now, what is Ask the Fonz?

 

Alfonso Carrion 

 

Yeah, so basically, I started a mentorship program helping aspiring film editors, break into Hollywood, and basically, it was an idea that I started because you know I was in that position when I, when I was breaking into the industry and I you know I wanted someone to reach out to and I, it was just hard, you know, it's just hard to break in, into this industry and moving to LA with no contacts you know, I remember that feeling I just remember being like, I just wish there was just someone I could talk to you know to like help me break in or just not even just break in, but like tell me like what are the things I need to look out for, or what to do on interviews, because it's very different from like a corporate job, you know, it's like questions you're asked the technical stuff just learning software. All of those things are just not really like you can't learn it unless you know someone, or at least can have someone explain it to you. So, this is where the idea came from it's basically me sharing my experiences and me helping someone who wants to learn all these things, and you know it's great you know I'm getting a lot of good feedback because not only people from the United States are reaching out but people all over the world are like really curious. And it's really it's really something that I did not expect that's like the biggest thing that I was just like,

 

Robin Wright 

 

Well, and also now, how has it shifted your platform. If at all. Given this time the last six months of being basically quarantined and doing zoom, mentorship, meetings, right?

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

Actually it's really boomed for me at least because a lot of people might now want to learn editing. I don't necessarily think it's more about like Hollywood editing I think people just want to learn editing now, because everything is going virtual, everything is going to go on YouTube or, you know, Instagram or all these different types of platforms to communicate, and people just want to learn how to put, you know, two videos together and you know make it look, quote-unquote like professional or like something that's not just like quick and easy they want to make it you know, look pretty, you know, decent to post on online,

 

Robin Wright

 

So how did you get into editing?

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

It's so funny, actually, I was, I mean as a teenager I loved obviously watching movies, especially action movies, and I the first time I saw Transformers, and it's like the really super like cheesy movie that you could probably save for this for this question, but the first time you actually watch transformers. There were so many action scenes that just it was just so entertaining, that like it wanted me to learn the behind-the-scenes process. It was kind of like a magic show almost where you like, you want to learn how they did it. So I would go home and watch behind the scenes, you know, whatever there was on YouTube back then because YouTube was barely a thing. And there were some videos of them just shooting, you know, different parts of the movie and then interviews with a lot of the behind-the-scenes crew, and everything is kind of just like instinctively for me just like I was like, I want to make that. So I started doing like small visual effects projects that ended up becoming to like short films and then I started editing it all together and like it just instinctively, or I guess just by the nature of how I was learning it. I ended up loving the process of editing and putting everything together. So then I pursued that in high school, and then I pursued it in college and then in college, not many everyone wanted to be a director, and I was the only one that was like, Oh, I'll do the editor like there's no one, no one wanted to be the person to put things together so I gravitated towards it so much, and it was just so easy for me to like fall in love with

 

Robin Wright

 

When you think about it the editor is another director, it's another storyteller. The way you can shape, reshape and juxtapose, a whole movie just by putting this scene over here in this scene over here, So you guys have basically your hand on the button, Like oh well that was directing it's like well no, really, it's in the editing.

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

I think the part for me that I love doing the most is like taking a person or director's vision and making it come to life. That to me is so satisfying. That's like the most satisfying thing.   it's just it's very strange to like say because a lot of people are like, Wait, you don't, you're, you're, it's not your vision though it's like it's someone else's, but it's like no it's like someone wants something that is in their head and it's imaginative it's creative. And if I 

 

Robin Wright

 

And you have to manifest that.

 

Alfonso Carrion 

 

Yeah if I can be that person to make it happen, that is, that's why I do it. It's just it that's just the way I feel about ever since I started editing, I realized that, you know from teachers, you know when teachers are, you know when they ask you know like hey this is what you have to do for this project. Can you do this or make it come to life this way or whatever, and then go into college, you know you have directors who have wild visions of making something, you know, out of a school budget or like small budget like come to life, stuff like that, I think, for me is the most thrilling part about editing something

 

Robin Wright 

 

That you love and that you're actually really good at! What a gift. You're such a natural, So let's just say you're an aspiring film editor, and they sign up for your program. What will they get out of that program?

 

Alfonso Carrion

So 90% actually of my content is free. It's all on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, social media, you know, even I'm I'm on Tik Tok. So I do, I do a lot of, I know a lot of the social media to kind of give sort of that teaser that I don't wanna say tease I'm actually giving you like the things I would say on the actual mentorship call like I'm giving you pretty much everything that I'm, I'm, my all my experiences all of the things that I want to share because I want to be that person that like, you know, when someone really does want to do this for a living, or someone wants to actually like pursue this, they can just go on my Instagram and look up all of the advice that I'm sharing or all of the, you know experiences the blogs so that everything. And then if they do want my advice like one on one, like hey like I have a very very very specific situation like I don't know if you've ever covered it, then you can sign up for my one on one mentorship call, and I can obviously go through with you and I give. And this has helped for me too because I give them like a 10 page PDF, like of like what to do, actually take the time and research and help you like figure out like what to do, because that's, that's the whole point of this it's to really help you advance your career like really figure out how to do this because it's where it all comes from it's like when I started out I was like, zero contacts, I was just like what do I do?

 

Robin Wright 

 

You do, you need unique mentorship. Yeah, you're helping these, you know novices become pros,

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

Right, and really confident it's like a really like a macro idea of the macro message of this is like also like, I'm just imagining like if there are a community of people that do end up, you know, looking into my content or like taking it all in, sort of this wildfire, or spread you know like kind of like wildfire of like people who want to give in return as well so like, I'm sort of helping people now also help other people, that's sort of been my, my other macro messages to like, since I'm helping you, I'm also hoping that I, The fact that I'm helping you as much. You can also help someone else as well. So like that's sort of the domino effect that I'm hoping to reach but obviously this is all kind of in the beginning stages.

 

Robin Wright 

 

It's a great goal though. The balance of life, like being an editor and balancing that with life, because we know, sometimes it's late nights and sometimes you're in that room for 16 hours looking at screens. So, yeah, how do you find and how do you tell those that reach out to you, to balance life properly? Where you're taking time for yourself and you're not just sort of embedded in computer screens in a room all day.

 

Alfonso Carrion

Yeah, I mean that for me, I love the fact that it's freelance and we get to choose our schedule and we get to choose how much freedom we have over, I guess just over the course of a year. I personally think that you know especially when you're starting out it's really tough. It's really tough, you're gonna have to make a lot of sacrifices because you're obviously new you're not really experienced yet you you still need to sort of pay your dues, quote unquote, and you do have to go through those really tough gigs like, I mean, unfortunately, everyone has those things you know we have to go through those games like I had to work a night shift for a year on a reality show as like a lager, like someone who's just like takes notes on footage, and I would start from 6pm to 3am every day. That was like my very first gig. So like I wasn't even like a production assistant, which is considered the lowest of the totem pole. So I was even under that and, you know, for a year I would work, from 6pm to 3am not see any of my roommates until like Saturday, it's just as a different lifestyle. So then I you know I started just grinding and paying my dues that way and then eventually became a post PA and then, you know, had a better hours worked in the day. And then, eventually, you know, worked my way up but I think work life balances right now is super important you know if, for me, now I get to at least choose my gigs like I firmly actually give advice to saying like, you can totally say no to gigs, you know once you've reached a certain level or like you can sort of plan to save a little bit more money so that you can choose to take that vacation or choose to focus on your mental health or choose to like not just, just don't work for three months or however much you need to like recharge,

 

Robin Wright 

 

What piece of advice can you give to a person who wants to break into Hollywood editing,

 

Alfonso Carrion 

 

I think, for me I mean I always get sort of like questions like you know like how do you network, like the advice I give on that is to deploy a farming versus hunting technique, which is like, instead of reaching out to someone only when you need something which is quote unquote hunting build friendships, you know, build, build relationships which is farming, you know, grow them and it's gonna take time, it's not, you can't you can't rush into something and think that oh yeah just because you know someone, they're just going to give you a job, or they're just going to actually, like, put you in mind like you don't know that the fact that like someone, that person might have like two to three people that like they really want to help, and they've been trying to help for years now, and the right opportunity just hasn't come yet. So, you just want to be on that list, it's all about relationships, it's not necessarily about like hey I want to reach out and like see if this person can help me with, you know, that's, that's usually not how it works. There's too many people who just reach out and just say hey, can, like, I don't know, like I don't know anything about you. Go over like Let's have coffee first. So let's get to know each other for so that I can actually fight for you when someone needs something that you could be right for,

 

Robin Wright 

 

And it's so incredible that you're, you know, implementing the farming philosophy because the line that we always heard growing up in this industry when we were all newbies was, "it's who you know", like you're never gonna get an audition for that movie, it's who you know. Do you have an agent that knows the producer that knows the casting director that, you know, and you always wanted to be with somebody who was connected.

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

Right, right,

 

Robin Wright

 

A representative, and so you're acting as a representative. Yeah, umbrella to say, look, I'm connecting you to this idea and this person.

 

Alfonso Carrion 

 

Yeah,

 

Robin Wright

What's the most important responsibility you have as a film editor?

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

I think personally it's to protect the director to protect the actors, and to protect the story. That's basically their goal is to make sure that you're protecting everyone who gives us a performance or who gives a vision because they're being as vulnerable as they can possibly be. And they're giving everything they have and you're sort of the gatekeeper of allowing what is, you know, being seen on screen. So, being the person who chooses which take or which direction or which plotline The story goes into is actually a huge responsibility. It can turn very quickly it can turn really badly, very quickly.

 

Robin Wright

 

Basically, the end of the story is, it's all on your shoulders the whole movie, the whole vision, it's all up to you buddy. <Laughs> 

 

Well listen, it's fantastic that you're doing this, and helping people. Thank you and being kind, because there's so much ugliness in the world right now and you know, childish really really childish behavior going on. That's just mean. And so this is a beautiful thing that you're doing, being a mentor. How great! Because you went through, you trudged through that mud in the beginning, like you said you know you paid your dues and you worked from the ground up so that's also a great reminder for this younger generation coming in.

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

Yeah, I'm hoping that like again like I said before, you know, the people I help can realize that like, they can help people too when they grow into,, you know, their experienced careers, because everyone's story is different, you know like someone may might become a commercial editor you know and they might want to help the people who want to do commercials, so it's like that's that's my goal in the in the macro sense of what I'm trying to do so

 

Robin Wright

Good on you! Gratulations. Good luck with it. And, AsktheFonz!

 

Alfonso Carrion

 

AsktheFonz!