Cushla Dillon: accidental acting and award-winning editing…

Interview – 2016

Cushla Dillon was a newbie editor when she worked on the TV series and film Topless Women Talk about Their Lives. Since winning an editing award for her work on the movie version, Dillon has cut an impressive list of documentaries, shorts and feature films. Notable documentaries she has worked on include The Price of Peace and The Confessions of Prisoner 'T'. Dillon’s feature credits include The Price of Milk, The Justice of Bunny King and The Mountain.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Dillon talks about:

Getting an unexpected acting role on short film Peach
How her lack of experience had upsdies when editing Topless Women Talk about Their Lives
Her admiration for the cast of movie When Love Comes
How music helped her find the magic at the heart of Harry Sinclair’s The Price of Milk
Budget pressures on Simone Horrocks' film After the Waterfall
The importance of making a compelling argument for Teina Pora in documentary The Confessions of Prisoner 'T'
Finding the unusual "balance of power" between the characters in 2014 movie Orphans & Kingdoms
The deeper meaning in music documentary Shihad - Beautiful Machine

This video was first uploaded on 16 May 2016, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

One of the great delights in editing actors is that you're always looking at who has got the power in this scene, and how can I convey that in the edit room in how I cut from one person to the other. Are they looking at that character, are they looking away — you know, everything in the body language . . . all of those elements in a scene, you are contributing to that shift of power between actors.
– Cushla Dillion on editing actors

Cushla's Full Profile