Film & Television students at the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television (TFTV) are among the inaugural participants in the ACE Editing Experience, a groundbreaking new educational program from American Cinema Editors (ACE) designed to give students hands-on access to the professional editing process.
The program offers access to professionally shot raw dailies from high-profile Netflix productions such as The Queen’s Gambit, The Old Guard, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Faculty and students can work with multiple takes, script notes from the set, and exclusive interviews with the professional editors who cut the final versions, giving students a real-world look at the art and complexity of storytelling through editing.
In Fall 2024, TFTV’s Assistant Professor Katy Skjerping, ACE became the first instructor in the country to use The Queen’s Gambit materials in a classroom setting as part of the program’s pilot phase. In Spring 2025, Professor Jacob Bricca, ACE also brought the materials into the classroom, working with both The Queen’s Gambit and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. The pilot program also included institutions such as the University of Southern California.
Now, in Fall 2025, as the ACE Editing Experience expands to more institutions across the country, TFTV continues to use the materials in editing courses. In his capacity as the founder and a leader of the ACE Education Committee, Bricca has been instrumental in the program’s national rollout.
“Working with the footage in class has been such a treat, and so valuable to the students,” says Bricca. “It shows them just how important and consequential the job of the editor really is. As they explore the coverage of each scene and all of the different takes, they go through the same process as the editor who actually cut the show. They come to understand the subtext of the dialogue, the possibilities of using dynamics to help tell the story, and the incredible power of eye contact between the characters as a way of showing subtle emotional inflections.”
About the ACE Editing Experience
Developed by American Cinema Editors and the ACE Education Center, the ACE Editing Experience is designed to simulate professional post-production scenarios. It includes:
- Raw dailies from major productions, with full coverage and performance variation.
- Set notes and real-world editorial instructions.
- Editor interviews offering insight into the choices made during the final cut.
The goal: to prepare students to handle the creative and technical challenges of real-world editing, whether in film, television, or streaming.