TRAILER EDIT FOR ANTHEM MULTIMEDIA × THE BOSTON GLOBE
Bearing Witness: A Name and a Voice
Dina Rudick, Director & Senior Producer
“We had no ideas for this trailer. Zero. It didn’t exist. You took it from 0 to 100 and made something that actually helped us win an Emmy.”
What They Needed
(Even If They Couldn’t Say It)
Anthem Multimedia came to me with a challenge: build a compelling trailer for a quiet, journalism-centered documentary. They needed this trailer to secure festival placements—and they were aiming high. Emmy high.
But when they handed me the footage, they had nothing mapped out. No ideas. No structure. No tone. Just the finished documentary and the hope that I could make something magnetic out of a very cerebral, restrained story.
Before We Started: Burned Before. Stressed Now.
They’d been through the ringer with editors. Five to ten different hires over the years—none could really match the complexity and emotional nuance that producer Dina Rudick needed. Before me, she’d basically given up on outsourcing.
By the time they brought me on, the team was stressed. Worried. They believed in the documentary, but they didn’t think a trailer could do it justice. Not sexy enough. Not exciting enough. And no one internally had the creative bandwidth to figure it out
My Job: Take It Off Their Plate
They asked me to own the whole thing. Not just “cut a trailer”—but design it, structure it, emotionally shape it, and make it hit. I handled:
The story arc
The tone
The pacing
The titles
The graphic overlays
The music
The flow
All of it.
I studied comparable trailers. Built a bank of ideas. Tried things. Scrapped things. I built the trailer like a puzzle—pulling ten essential pieces out of a thousand. Every frame had to earn its place.
What They Didn’t Know (but we figured out together)
They knew the trailer needed to work—but they couldn’t quite name why it felt stuck.
It wasn’t just about trimming content. The real challenge was structure. Tone. Pacing. Giving the viewer space to feel, breathe, and follow a layered emotional arc.
What they didn’t fully see at first was how much subtle shaping a trailer like this demands. Chapter markers. Music shifts. Visual rhythm. We’re not just dropping in good quotes—we’re building an emotional journey that earns attention every second.
That’s what I brought to the table. But the magic happened because we explored it together.
Creative Direction? Led By Trust, Build In Tandem
This wasn’t a plug-and-play job. Dina and I shaped it together, from scratch.
I brought my trailer-building instincts: how to structure tension, pace emotional beats, and guide an audience through a complex topic. She brought a deep understanding of the film’s heart and the tone it had to hit.
We both had ideas. We both pushed each other. We both said “try it.”
And because we trusted each other’s instincts, we landed on something neither of us could’ve made alone.
That’s real creative partnership—and that’s what made this trailer win.
The Process: Fast, Clear, and Painless
They gave me the footage and a rough direction—and from there, we built it together. This wasn’t a “hand it off and disappear” job. It was a true creative collaboration between editor and producer.
We went back and forth testing ideas, trying different quotes in different orders, playing with music, shifting beats. Sometimes I’d bring a bold new approach to the table—sometimes Dina would have an insight that unlocked something major. We both trusted each other’s instincts, which made the process frictionless and creatively rich.
• First cut? Delivered in 3 days.
• Second cut? 90% there.
• Final cut? Exactly what they wanted.
We shaped it together. No drama. No ego. Just a deep commitment to making something excellent.
Outcome
Bearing Witness - Trailer
Want a Trailer That Wins?
If you’re sitting on a mountain of content with no idea how to cut something magnetic—let’s talk. I’ll take it off your plate, shape it into something that lands, and help you share your story with the power it deserves.