Editor Brian A. Kates Interview: Fire Island
screenrant.comDirected by Andrew Ahn and written by Joel Kim Booster, Fire Island is a queer romantic comedy that follows a group of friends who head to the Fire Island Pines for a vacation in paradise. However, things don't go quite as expected, and relationships are tested and pushed to their limits. Inspired by Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island puts a modern-day twist on Jane Austen's novel.
The film stars Joel Kim Booster (Big Mouth) as Noah, Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) as Howie, Margaret Cho (30 Rock) as Erin, and Conrad Ricamora (The Resident) as Will.
RELATED: How Fire Island's Will & Noah Can Change Romantic Comedies
Screen Rant chats with editor Brian A. Kates about his experience in the industry and his work on Hulu's LGBTQ+ rom-com.
Screen Rant: Firstly, what made you decide to join the field? Have you always wanted to be an editor in the entertainment industry?
Brian A. Kates: I figured out I might want to be an editor when I was fourteen. I went to a summer camp that had a video program and the counselor was one of the coolest people I'd ever met. She was an NYU film student who had a mohawk and lived in the East Village. She taught me how to edit in camera, or by recording from one VHS deck to another. We were making silly parodies of blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I fell in love with the technology. I would make the same kind of stuff at home with my friends in New Jersey.
Incidentally, one of them was writer-producer Damon Lindelof. We would shoot, act in, and edit each other's videos for history class. I actually submitted one of those videos to NYU and got into the film program. Prior to that, in 1989, I had a summer job as a messenger at the post facility Sound One, and delivered supplies to the
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