You started your career at the New York–based production company PS260 almost 25 years ago as a runner and are now a partner and editor. What first drew you to PS260, and why have you decided to stay and grow with the company all these years later? When I was an undergraduate film student at New York University, editing was my least favorite subject in school. I thought it was tedious, boring and fussy. Granted, I was mostly learning how to cut (literally) on a Steenbeck flatbed editor or a tape-to-tape system, so I think that my negative attitude towards editing was a little bit understandable. About a year after graduation, a classmate of mine was leaving her job at a small commercial post house and asked me if I wanted to take her position. I reluctantly agreed. This place was tiny, so I filled the role of runner, receptionist and assistant editor all at once. That’s how I was exposed to the field of commercial post production, a new world I had never thought about or even knew existed before I started working in it. But now that I was there, I absolutely fell in love with the process of editing. I found incredible mentors to learn from—real, professional producers and editors to guide and inspire me. TV commercials and music videos were also particularly cool at that moment in time. Directors like Frank Budgen, Jonathan Glazer, Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze were churning out innovative masterpieces, and the whole scene was just overwhelmingly intoxicating and sexy to me.

That tiny little boutique editing house eventually became PS260, my home since its inception 25 years ago. Two of my mentors, JJ Lask and Zarina Mak, are now my business partners. I feel like I have the increasingly rare distinction of essentially having one job at one company my entire professional life. Throughout my 25 years at the company I never really felt the urge or desire to work anywhere else. Besides just being an incredibly safe and supportive place to work, PS260 has always been creatively challenging and inspiring in a way that has always kept me fueled and fulfilled. If I had dreams, I knew that this was the company that would actively help me achieve them.

Tell us about PS260. What do you do in your day-to-day activities, and who are your typical clients? PS260 started out as a post-production house, but over time, it has grown into a lot more than that. We still specialize in offline editing, graphic design, sound and finishing, but now we’re more of a complete creative partner to our clients. Typically, our clients are ad agencies, production companies and brands, but we often partner with film and TV studios, record labels, museums, and other institutions. We’re built around the idea that great visual storytelling can live anywhere, from a Super Bowl spot to a six-second social ad to a film premiering at Sundance.

I still actively edit, so on a typical day, I’m sitting with clients, digging through footage, abusing coffee and trying to find a version of a story that really clicks. There’s usually a lot of back-and-forth with clients and agencies. We review cuts, make tweaks and refine things until it feels right. At the same time, I also think a bit more big-picture—guiding projects, making sure we’ve got the right team on it and keeping an eye on our staff and offices.

What have been some of your favorite projects you’ve worked on at PS260, and how have they changed your perception of what you can achieve as a production studio? My favorite projects are usually the ones where we get brought in early and get to collaborate instead of just executing. Those tend to be the most rewarding because we’re helping to shape the piece from the start instead of just polishing something that’s already set in stone. I love having strong relationships with directors like Henry Joost and Rel Schulman from Moxie Pictures, with whom I’ve worked on projects for AB InBev, men’s grooming brand Harry’s and Vogue.

The projects like that involve our editors, graphics teams, sound team and finishing artists have been the most rewarding and they have really expanded my sense of what we can do as a studio. It's less about the scale of a project and more about the approach: if you've got the right collaboration, a clear point of view and the willingness to experiment a little, you can take almost anything further than you’d think.

What precipitated PS260’s transition from a post-production house to a creative agency? One aspect of our company that I’ve always been proud of is our ability and willingness to adapt and change. We evolved and expanded our services to meet our clients ever-changing needs.

As a company, we’ve straddled an era that began while we were still shooting broadcast television spots and music videos on film and are presently uploading content for social media shot on our phones. Those are a lot of changes to roll with. As business and budgets change, technology advances and democratizes and markets and platforms grow, we’ve strived to stay nimble, flexible and deliver on our promise of being a complete creative partner.

Along the way, we realized that as a company made up of editors, designers, engineers and filmmakers, we already had all of the talent and expertise needed to bring projects to life from inception to execution to delivery. We have incredibly deep and robust relationships with a lot of our clients, and we’re the perfect partner to create projects with—not only the editing, but also the concepting, production and post. We have access to some of the best copywriters, art directors and producers in the world. We also approach projects from a unique angle as editors, post producers and finishing artists. We know what we’re realistically going to need in the end. Our process can be extraordinarily economic and deft. When we approach work from a post perspective, we can think of it as reverse engineering a finished product. This serves all our projects incredibly effectively.

What is the company culture at PS260 like? A considerable amount of our staff have been with us for over ten years or more. I think that’s a testament to our work culture at PS260: we’re invested in each other’s success, and that’s reflected in the longevity of our employees and client relationships. We’re interested in character, raw talent and attitude. The person is more important than the position. Skills can be taught, and we can create job roles to fit a person’s capabilities, but ultimately, we’re looking for genuinely good humans. At the end of the day, we’re a company of folks who love what we do and also just want to hang out with each other.

Since you began working in post-production, what changes in the industry have surprised you the most? Post-production was a very different world 25 years ago. It was much more centralized, more technical and, honestly, a bit more predictable. What’s been most surprising isn’t just any one change but how many layers of the business have shifted all at once. Early on, there was a clear line between production, post and agency. In post-production, you’d get the footage, cut it, finish it and deliver a final product. Today, that idea of a “final” doesn’t really exist anymore: Everything is iterative. A single project can turn into dozens of versions across platforms—different lengths, formats and audiences—and that constant evolution has fundamentally changed how we think about storytelling.

Another big surprise has been how quickly the barriers to entry came down. The tools that once required specialized hardware and dedicated suites are now accessible to almost anyone. That has been incredibly empowering, but it has also raised the bar creatively. When everyone has access to the same tools, what really differentiates you is taste, perspective and the ability to tell a compelling story.

The pace of change has also been striking. Between social platforms and streaming, the volume of content is enormous, and timelines have compressed in a way I don’t think many of us anticipated. At the same time, clients are more involved than ever—reviewing work remotely and collaborating in real time—which has made the process more dynamic but also more continuous. There’s less of that old rhythm where you had clear phases of work and space to step back.

What’s been especially interesting is how the role of a studio like ours has evolved. We used to be seen primarily as a finishing partner—bringing craft and polish to a project. Now, we’re often part of the creative conversation from much earlier on, helping shape ideas, tone and storytelling. The lines between agency, production and post have really blurred.

If there’s a common thread through all of it, it’s that the industry has become both more accessible and more demanding at the same time. There’s more opportunity than ever but also a constant need to adapt—creatively, technically and culturally. That ongoing evolution is probably the biggest surprise of all.

With AI and automation being incorporated into so many post-production processes, why should creative agencies still turn to human editors and colorists to finish their projects? Our robot overlords still need us! I solidly believe that AI is and always will be a tool for professionals to harness, not a replacement. It’s pretty incredible at speeding up the process, taking some of the friction out of the process and freeing up some mechanical tasks. AI gets us into scoring position so seamlessly and fast it sometimes feels like magic. But it’ll never be human. It’ll never be able to fully make decisions that a professional would, that an expert would and that a human would. Humans are able to distill data that’s emotional, cultural, intuitive and lived into a decision in a way that these robots never will.

AI isn’t worried about what an audience is thinking. AI doesn’t understand that what doesn’t go into an edit is oftentimes more important than what does. Ultimately, AI doesn’t have taste. As human artists, we make thousands of subjective decisions that ladder up to a feeling, a tone and a point of view that can’t be automated. Efficiency is great, but creativity doesn’t work in a straight line.

Do you have any advice for creatives just getting their start today? The biggest piece of advice I’d give is to focus on developing your point of view, not just your technical skills. The tools change every year, and they’re more accessible than they’ve ever been. Anyone can learn the software. What’s harder—and ultimately more valuable—is having a perspective. What do you gravitate towards? What kind of work do you want to create? That’s what people remember.

I’d also encourage creatives to work on their people skills. A place like PS260 is built on relationships. Be someone people want to work with. Be open to feedback, be reliable and be curious. Talent matters but so does how you show up. We’re often packed into rooms with each other for days at a time, so be someone who other folks want to be stuck in a room with!

And don’t wait for permission to start. You don’t need a traditional path anymore. Some of the most unique and prominent voices in the industry built their portfolios by just making things—shooting, editing, experimenting and putting work out into the world. Consistency matters more than perfection early on. ca