Just over 11 years after our last visit in 2013, The Elstree Project returned to Los Angeles this week!

Howard, project leader and co-founder, was nominated for an Eddie Award for Best Documentary Feature Editing by the American Cinema Editors (ACE), at their 75th annual Eddie Awards. This was for the film Her Name Was Moviola, which Howard co-created with our TEP interviewee and film editing legend Walter Murch! The ceremony was held at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Friday 14th March, having been delayed from January due to the LA wildfires which caused so much devastation.

During the trip, Howard was able to make some new connections and visit some historic film sites, including Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Paramount Studios, 20th Century Fox Studios, Universal Studios and the Motion Picture Editors Guild. During a personal guided tour of the Guild, Howard was shown the archive rooms, which included a treasure trove of historic editing equipment including upright and flatbed Moviolas, splicers, joiners, coding machines, and all sorts of other cutting room paraphernalia — many of which we have in our lab back in Hertfordshire, but not to this impressive extent! It was a wonderland of film editing tools. We would especially like to express our thanks to Jim and Sharon of the Guild for the invitation.

Howard also discussed the use of Avid Media Composer’s new Transcript system for use in archives, which is an area in which the Guild are working on providing training and information to their members and partners. We feel this will be especially useful in working with the content of The Elstree Project archive, and in making the interviews accessible in the future.

It was amazing to once again be out in Hollywood and the home of the movie business, and we hope to be able to visit again and share more information about how Borehamwood and Elstree have made their great mark in the same industry with all our American friends.