Stephanie Filo, ACE is a two-time Emmy and Peabody Award-winning TV/Film Editor based in Los Angeles, CA and Sierra Leone, West Africa. She earned an Emmy win for her unscripted editing on the Mental State episode Separated (making herself and Nzinga Blake the first Sierra Leonean women to ever win an Emmy award). Most recently, she won a Primetime Emmy award for her work on HBO's A Black Lady Sketch Show, making her team the first all-women of color editing team to take home the award for Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming. This is just a tiny, tiny smattering of the credits and accolades which Stephanie has earned in her very young career (which doesn’t even begin to cover her social activism work in the documentary space).

In short, if you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible to successfully build a fulfilling creative career jumping between multiple mediums and genres - from scripted, to unscripted, to docs, and beyond - then Stephanie Filo’s story is for you.

In this conversation Stephanie shares how she has climbed to award-winning levels of both scripted and unscripted television…despite a lot of the barriers that unfortunately come with being a black woman in a white-male-dominated industry. She candidly opens up about how she has had to work harder to prove herself but also her own challenges around work-life balance and the sacrifices she’s made getting to this level in her career. This is a wide ranging conversation appealing to anyone looking to make a career transition, find purpose and fulfillment in life, and wanting better strategies for choosing the right projects to match both your lifestyle needs and your creative needs.

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Here's What You'll Learn:

How the movie Seven influenced her decision to get into editing
The struggles she encountered growing up as a first generation Sierra Leone African in Colorado
Why Stephanie as a black woman is a better fit for certain types of stories than I am as a white male
Stephanie shares the struggles she's endured as a black female editor
How to avoid getting pigeonholed
How to transition from one genre or format to another
How to sell your skills as an unscripted editor so that they are valuable in the scripted world
Is scripted editing equivalent to paint by numbers?
What Lee Daniels taught me about how my life experience informs my choices as an editor
What the cost was to Stephanie in order to diversify her resume
The toxic work-life balance culture that is pervasive in the industry and how to fight against it
Consequences of putting up boundaries against unreasonable deadlines
Are scripted or unscripted editors respected more by producers?
How scripted projects compare to unscripted projects in terms of pay and lifestyle
KEY TAKEAWAY: You are interviewing the show as much as the show is interviewing you
Why Stephanie recently turned down a job that was offered to her
Stephanie’s go to interview questions to determine if a project is the right fit for her

Useful Resources Mentioned:

Cutting Comedy with "A Black Lady Sketch Show" - Frame.io Insider

Emmy & Peabody Award Winning Editor, Stephanie Filo: Episode 2 of Post in Black Season 2 - YouTube

Boris FX | Ask the Artist with Stephanie Filo, TV/Film Editor

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Guest Bio:

stephanie-filo-bio Stephanie Filo

Stephanie Filo, ACE is a two-time Emmy and Peabody Award-winning TV/Film Editor and activist based in Los Angeles, CA and Sierra Leone, West Africa. She serves on the board for Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone, a social impact and feminist-based organization for Sierra Leonean girls aged 11-16. She is one of the co-founders of End Ebola Now, an organization created in 2014 to spread accurate information and awareness about the Ebola Virus and its impact through artistic community activism.

Aside from editing television and film, with a passion for bringing a voice to social issues and telling stories of the under-represented, Stephanie spends much of her spare time producing and editing social action campaigns and documentaries, primarily focused on the rights of women and girls worldwide. Some of her notable campaigns include her work with the United Nations, International Labour Organization, and the Obama White House Task Force's It's On Us campaign to combat campus sexual assault. Her charitable work has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Entertainment Tonight, Telegraph UK, Yahoo, Al Jazeera, XWhy Magazine, and various others. Her work on the news documentary series "Mental State" earned her an Emmy nomination for the episode "Aging Out" about youth aging out of the American foster care system. She earned an Emmy win for her editing on the Mental State episode "Separated" which covered ICE deportations, making herself and Nzinga Blake the first Sierra Leonean women to ever win an Emmy award. Most recently, she won a Primetime Emmy award for her work on HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show", making her team the first all-Women of Color editing team to take home the award for Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming.

Show Credits:

This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.

The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

Ep185: | Building a Fulfilling Career Across Multiple Mediums (Without Getting Pigeonholed) | with Stephanie Filo, ACE

The Zack Arnold Podcast

Ep185: | Building a Fulfilling Career Across Multiple Mediums (Without Getting Pigeonholed) | with Stephanie Filo, ACE