SANTA MONICA, CA - Creative editorial house Final Cut (www.finalcut-edit.com), with offices in New York and London, has expanded to the West Coast, with a new location in Los Angeles. The LA office launches with two new additions: partner/lead editor Eric Zumbrunnen and executive producer Saima Awan. They join editor Jim Weedon, who comes to the studio from the New York site.
The new facility will be open in early August and is centered around Avid Media Composers, all connected via Unity.
"Having established a well-respected and creatively exciting New York cutting room, we found that many clients wanted us to be more locally available to the Los Angeles market," explains Rick Russell, Final Cut founder/editor. "We've been working consistently on the West Coast, but have been temping out of other people's spaces. Even though we've made this work seamlessly up to now, we feel the necessity to have a proper base in LA to facilitate even more of a bi-coastal workflow."
"We've maintained strong relationships with directors and agencies in LA over the years and want to provide an environment that is reflective of our company's ethos and personality," adds Stephanie Apt, Final Cut president. "Having three locations gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility and enables us to serve any market."
The company will offer an interchangeable roster of editors that can move between locations.
Editor Eric Zumbrunnen is known for his work in commercials, feature films and music videos. He has collaborated with director Spike Jonze on a myriad of projects for the last 11 years, including videos for Weezer and Fat Boy Slim, both of which garnered MTV Editing Awards, as well as on the feature films Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. Zumbrunnen was most recently at Spotwelders, where he contributed to spots for Ikea, Levi's, Adidas, Citibank, Microsoft, Nike and Porsche.
Saima Awan comes on board as executive producer having most recently worked with Final Cut/New York as a freelance producer. Previously, she was the senior producer at Bob and Sheila's Edit World from 2000 until it closed in 2003. She was also a producer at Red Car for three years.
Editor Jim Weedon, who's been working in the New York office since 2003, also makes the move to Los Angeles. Weedon recently cut spots for Reebok, Coors, NetZero, Rolling Rock and Allstate.