Art of the Cut, Ep. 135: "Dune" Editor Joe Walker, ACE

In today's episode, we're talking with Joe Walker, ACE about the highly anticipated film, Dune, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel. The book is epic in scope and filled with mythology, and plays out across eons on multiple planets—as you'll hear from Joe, creating a compact, cohesive, and compelling cinematic experience from this source material was not easy.

Joe and I go back a long time. He and Mark Sanger were the first two interviews I did for Art of the Cut. I was intrigued to interview Joe because of Lupita Nyong’o’s Oscar acceptance speech for 12 Years a Slave where she thanked him for his stewardship of her performance—I needed to meet the editor that gets a shout of from an Oscar-winning actress.

Joe was also nominated that year for his work on 12 Years a Slave. Other interviews with Joe included Sicario, for which he was nominated for an ACE Eddie, Arrival, for which he won an ACE Eddie, Widows, and Bladerunner 2049, for which he was again nominated for an ACE Eddie.

Prior to starting his feature film editing career, he worked on many projects for the BBC in his native England.

Thanks to Frame.io for their support of Art of the Cut and their pledge to keep this content coming your way. Click here to watch the video version of this interview along with extra content at blog.frame.io, where you'll also find expert guides, tutorials, and insights from veteran filmmakers across the film and TV industry.