People usually pay attention to those that act in movies, and following that will pay attention to the director and eventually tend to lose interest. Composers and a few others might get special attention from those are into the details behind the scenes, but editors rarely ever seem to get much credit aside from the fact that they have a rather important job. As their title says they are the editor for the film, the one that makes it all nice and polished and is as flawless as possible. Eric Zumbrunnen was an award-wining editor that recently passed away at age 52. So far 2017 is taking away a number of personalities both known and otherwise that many did not expect to see go.
The official report is that Zumbrunnen, was diagnosed with cancer some time before, passed away from complications that arose with the disease. He was noted for working quite often with director John Jonze and editing a number of music videos throughout the length of his career. His filmography isn’t that extensive but it is long enough to be impressive. He managed to collaborate and work on a very wide variety of genres and was considered to be one of the best at his job.
He was even in a band called Holmes for a period of two years in the 1980’s and was the lead singer and guitarist.
The most notable movies he worked on included Her, the strange but quirky Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and John Carter. Aside from that he worked on videos for Beck, Tesla, Bjork, Weezer, and several others during the course of his career.
It is a bit sad that his life will be lamented mostly by those that knew him. This is the downfall of working behind the scenes sometimes, your name isn’t truly known and if anyone asks who you are only the most diehard and dedicated fans that have seen your name and know your work will be able to respond.
That being said though his work was impeccable and many people he worked with considered him to be a dedicated and very motivated individual. You would have to be really to be an editor, or at least it seems that way. Having to clean up one film, one video after another to make it look and sound far more professional than it’s original cut had to be a demanding job at times. One can only begin to imagine the number of hours that Eric toiled on each project and how dedicated he was to making sure every little piece of every production came off in just the right manner. That kind of dedication to any job is rare these days and it is appreciated wherever it is found.
People like Eric Zumbrunnen aren’t too hard to find these days but learning how to hold onto them and show them the appreciation they’ve earned is very important. Eric is going to be sorely missed by those that knew him, but his work will at least be remembered.
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