James Cude, “Best Edited Documentary (Non-Theatrical)” nominee for “Abducted in Plain Sight” at the 2020 ACE Eddie Awards.
The filmmaking team behind “Abducted in Plain Sight” at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival.
Director Lis Bartlett, Editor James Cude and team member Tom Wilson at a panel discussion of the Emmy nominated documentary, “Light in the Water”.
James Cude on the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell.
A bit about me: I’m a three time Emmy nominated and award-winning editor/producer with over 20 years of experience cutting film, television, and web. I’ve edited projects in 3 different languages (English, Spanish and ASL). I am a member of both American Cinema Editors and the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
I’ve bounced back and forth between scripted and documentary, with my focus of late on the later. I love the challenge of documentary filmmaking in that there is no script. It’s exciting to figure out how to tell a story that’s both organic and truthful to the people in the film, and also engages the audience on a visceral, emotional level. I bring to the table a strong sense of structure, and the ability to hone in on the emotional beats of the story. I’m grateful for the fact that I have been able to work with some truly amazing directors on a wide range of films. And I’m also grateful in the last few years that my work on specific films has become very well known nationally and internationally.
My path to this career was a bit indirect. I was a business major in college. My first boyfriend dumped me my junior year, so I took that grief and wrote a play in 4 hours. That ended up getting produced, which lead to a job running a traveling educational theater company post-college. The kids in the troupe got invited to perform in Washington. I needed to figure out a way to pay for it, so I agreed to produce a training video for a local free clinic and use the money I made to pay for the trip. I had a blast producing the video, so I enrolled in a summer film course at USC. I loved that, applied to the MFA program and started to save money. I saved enough to pay for one year of school. My thinking was, if I get in, great! If I don’t, I’m gonna use the money for a vacation to Antarctica. Fortunately, I got into grad school; otherwise I may still be down with the penguins. And that’s how my career started.
Outside of the edit bay, I took up water polo in my 30’s and competed with the USA National Deaf Water Polo team at the 2009 Deaflympics, earning the distinction of being the oldest American ever to compete in that sport at the Deaflympics. Recently, I’ve taken up Spartan Racing, running in over 15 races, as well as distance hiking. I currently live with my best bud Benny, a Shih-Tzu-mix rescue that came to live with me in 2019.
Awards
2020 Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Single Camera Editing - Lead Editor, "MTV News Presents: White Supremacy Destroyed My Life" (MTV)
2019 ACE Eddie nomination, Best Edited Documentary (Non-Theatrical), “Abducted in Plain Sight” (Netflix)
2019 Daytime Emmy nomination for Special Class Special, "Light in the Water" (Logo)
2018 Golden Strands Award for Outstanding Editing, "Light in the Water", Tallgrass International Film Festival
2016 Best Editing winner, "Life Interrupted", International Independent Film Awards
2015 Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Single Camera Editing - Lead Editor, "Got Your 6" (MTV)
2011 Best Editing winner, "Zombies and Assholes", LA Art House Film Festival
Education
MFA in Film and Television Production, USC
BA in Economics/Business, UCLA
To contact James, please email directly at jcudeedit@gmail.com.