The Emmy-winning editor shares how industry disruption is impacting creatives—and how unions are stepping up.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews AJ Catoline, Emmy-winning editor for AppleTV+’s Ted Lasso, contributor to Cinemontage Magazine, and member of IATSE 700. AJ shares how he’s navigating the slowdown in Hollywood, why federal tax incentives are crucial for American storytelling, and how resilience and advocacy are shaping the future of entertainment.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, today’s a very special episode. I have AJ Catalina on the line and he’s , a board member and a contributor to Cinematize Magazine.
He’s also part of the Motion Picture Editors Guild I-A-T-S-E 700. And he’s. He’s working on shows and big shows like Ted Lasso and I mean, he’s just, he’s just an industry vet, so I’m excited to have him on. And just for everybody listening to this particular episode, this is part of our Milken Global Conference coverage series where I bring you the best of individuals that attended the conference, participated in it, panelist, speakers, and all of the above.
Aj, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks Adam. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. All right, aj. So we got a bunch to talk about here. So definitely wanna get into your work and what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. Also, get into some things about, you know, what’s going on in the world of film and tv for union members of.
Slow down, just, you know, content creation in general. It’s always great to hear from industry, Yvette and, also get your opinion on how things can be done better with either, you know, tax incentives or otherwise. So we’re gonna get into all of that, but before we do that, let’s have some talk, some shop on the conference.
So, Milken global conference. That’s my super bowl of conferences every year. Have you, have you been before? Is this the first time, is it coming for a while? Like, gimme your background. Yeah. This was my first time I was invited by Oh, a newbie. Welcome, welcome. Yeah. I had a real, I had a really good time.
I loved it. I I was invited by Kevin Cloud in of the Milken Institute. he had been speaking with me for months before the conference in, as he was trying to compile his report about the, challenges we’re having in, Hollywood. So we got to know each other and he invited me to attend.
The panel that they had there at, the Milken with a bunch of professionals and some our California leaders like Rick, Rick Chave, our assemblyman, who was so instrumental in, getting the tax bill passed. Yeah, so he invited me and I spoke there mostly about, post-production, but that, it was funny.
I was, I had never been and I had no idea what it was when I got there. I couldn’t believe all the security I like. It was a massive Hollywood. Then I was just say, describe that for a moment because for a first timer when you get there, it’s unlike anything else you’ve been to. Like you’re on this island and then you look around and you’re like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Who’s that? All these people walking around here. They’re just walking around. I mean, it felt like bigger than the Golden Globes, which I know they have there at the Beverly Hilton. And I’ve been to the Beverly Hilton. I’m a member of the American Cinema Editors and we had our, Ace Eddie Awards there.
So, you know, I’m used to showing up there in a suit and see, but this was, I couldn’t believe the amount of security guards with ear pieces, and I had to go through all this, layers to get in and mm-hmm. When I got there, I was, I could see why. So, you know, I was texting Kevin because he moved the room and I’m trying to find it, and the place was packed and as I was walking to where they had the event, I’m going through the crowd up like.
10 feet ahead of me comes this familiar face that I’ve seen all the time in the media. I’m like, oh my God, that’s David sla, the CEO of Warner Brothers. And he’s like walking right towards me and I’ve kind of learned this technique and when you’re in celebrity events, it’s better to kind of stay put and let them come to you rather than you try.
So I just kind of slowed down and they way he came, like right, I was face to face with David Oslow and that was in the first 10 minutes of being there. I’m like, wow, this is an impressive conference. Stuck out my hand and I said, hello, Mr. Lov. My name is AJ Catalina and , I’m an editor , on Ted Lasso, and his face lit up and he is like, oh, I love your show.
Great work. Congratulations. I can’t wait for you to be back. And he, and I’m like, well, thanks. You know, for being, he is like, thank you for being here. And he left. I’m like, well that was cool. That was like my introduction to Milken conference, so That’s awesome. I love it. I love hearing these. Stories too because it, it’s just fun.
And year over year, I’ll tell you something it should you choose. And if you come back in, future years, the fun part is, it really does become a community. Like after a while it feels like you’re almost in this in the hallways in high school. ’cause you’re seeing some of the same people , and just that familiarity.
It’s just kind of funny year over year and I’m only like four years in, but some of the people that I’ve interviewed and had on this show have been there for many, many years longer than myself. And it’s funny to see them and , hear there’s some of their stories. So great stuff there. Yeah. In terms of like the content and whether it’s your panel or otherwise I’ve had a lot of people in this series that are part of like, in, finance or longevity or other spaces, and I’ve had a couple entertainment, but I’ll be interested to hear from your perspective from the entertainment side of things, like the type of content that was there or that you, you partook in even, and just kind of like your.
Feel for the overall, conference from that perspective. ’cause I like other people in entertainment just , to get bigger and bigger, you know? Right, right. Well, I just attended that one day. I did get to see, they had something there about, this was not long after the fires when they had the, conference.
And so I was listening to quickly and briefly a panel, about that. And they had you know, I didn’t get to attend too many, but I could see that it was a really good eclectic group of all, of kind of Hollywood and you had like a mix of people there, creatives and executives and so yeah, I, I only got, I mostly focused on, on being on my, on my panel.
But yeah, I mean, I think the general theme of what I was seeing was mm-hmm. Sort of, I think a Hollywood reset was the words I kept hearing, you know, there, needed to be some sort of reset in the industry to, you know sort of restore stability in, California because, you know, we had just been through, it’s just been calamity after calamity.
You know, obviously the whole world went through COVID, but then we had , the dual. Labor strikes, which was very historic. And then we had the fires, which slow a lot of productions down and delayed a lot of shows from starting up again. And then we just had the mm-hmm. The general malaise of corporate consolidation in the business and, you know, the streaming people figuring out what to do.
You know, speaking of Z Lab, going from HBO Max to Max and then back to HBO Max. No, I’m joking, but, mm-hmm. It’s a lot of figuring out like what the model is going to be. So that, that seems to be the theme of all the, , panels that, that I was seeing and, everyone’s familiar about.
Yeah. Well, so speaking of something that you said, I wanna maybe unpack a little bit further. From your perspective union members that are working in film and tv just coping with the slowdown in general? Like, what are you seeing in the community? Yeah, it’s still very rough. There was a saying back during the strike, survive till 25.
And that became a bit cynical to say that because 25 is here, it’s more than halfway over , and people are really struggling to survive. We have a as I mentioned, I write for a lot for Cinema Montage Magazine, which is the magazine of the Editor’s Guild We’re quarterly. Mm-hmm. We’re also [email protected].
You know, let’s check it out. But we have a, a series that we do called Tough All Over how members are coping with the slowdown and it’s really amazing the resilience out there because people don’t. Want to people want to fight through it. They don’t wanna lose their homes, they don’t wanna move away.
Mm-hmm. So we’re finding you know, and even me, like I’m about to start season four at Alaska and that that will be my first union job in two years. So I’ve been making do my editing things that I wouldn’t normally edit. I’ve been doing a lot of like independent. Projects and like sizzle pitch reels for producers, like they’re great people, but they, you know, these jobs don’t pay a lot and they’re all very short.
Like two weeks here. Two weeks there. I even spent some time editing some videos for the Keep California Rolling Campaign which showcase, these people in the IATC and all the various skills and, DGA and WGA and how they’re coping. But like, one story that really comes to mind is we had in one of our editors who’s really good and had a lot of work and worked for years and, he went to work for Trader Joe’s and he put on that little pen that said, you know, hi, I am a Trader Joe’s employee, and he said he was so nervous to go. Because he was worried. The people who knew him might come into the store. But , he rather than hide from it, he kind of embraced that vulnerability and he posted about it on Facebook.
He said, so everyone knows I’m working at the Trader Joe’s out in the Valley and if you see me there, come say hi, but I’m doing this. ’cause I know the work will come back. But I. gotta provide for my family. And everyone loves this post, got hundreds and hundreds of loves and hearts and wow. And, we just sort like, well that’s that resilient spirit.
And he’s back now. He’s got an editing job. But, you know, I think nobody in our business wants to believe that it’s over. You know, , we know that we have this tax bill that just passed and the governor just signed it. And we’re hoping that it will bring. Change. And I think that, ’cause you could argue, people are like, oh, Hollywood’s done.
You know, it’s going to other places. You know, the new younger generation doesn’t watch film and TV like we used to. Everything’s on their phone. People are watching YouTube and TikTok, and it’s hard to monetize that. But I think people are fighting that and they’re like, no, , it will come back and we’re just in a transition period.
So yeah. So, I think, it’s been tough and it’s been hard and, but people are just finding a way through. Yeah. Yeah, I see that too. And that’s the thing about it. But I have seen the, people, you know, more people moving out of LA and the COVID. And then after the, union thing happened and all this, it’s like, ah, so it’s been hit.
But I do think that when we think about the resiliency of kind of, even that’s what’s happened in the past, like, like even, you know, world wars, right? if you think about like surviving things like that, I was reading a document, I don’t know, is it like a Disney documentary or something like that the other day?
Like a book I should say. A mini, I forgot which one it is. Like think like Wal or something like that. Talking about like what Disney was doing during, you know, world War. And I’m like, wow. Like if we’re talking about like things like that happening as well than a pandemic and what we’re dealing with now, I’m like.
To me, Hollywood’s resilient. Like we’re gonna figure some ways around it. We’ll keep moving forward. Right? Like, I’m optimistic, but that’s my bent anyway. Yeah. So, you know. Yeah. Well, I, I work at Postproduction. We’ve had these previous disruptions around technological change. I mean, the biggest one I think came just when I was starting in the industry in the 1990s, we were moving from analog, from cutting on film and tape to digital.
I saw my first avid. Media composer when I was at USC in the nineties. Oh, wow. You’re back then. That’s awesome. I’m back then to myself. Yeah. But, but a lot of our, you know, I had not been a member of the editors film then, but a lot of, from what I heard, our members were really up in arms and like, I’m not gonna learn.
I’ve been editing on film and tape for years. I’m just not gonna learn this new way. And you know, now we’re seeing this a little bit with, with ai. It hasn’t totally invaded our space, but it is it is getting there. More and more we’re seeing more, software that’s taking jobs away from like, dialogue editors, for example.
You know, AI can move the lips of an actor to change it, to match new dialogue , and we’re seeing AI being able to clean up sound. So there is a lot of it. Mm-hmm. But so we’ve been through these technological changes and I think the lesson always is. To change and adapt and, , rather than fight the current swim upstream to swim with it.
So mm-hmm. You’re right. I think we will see , some positive change in jobs come back if we just adapt to whatever it is that’s new. If, if all the programming’s gonna be on the phone and everyone’s gonna watch YouTube and TikTok, then Hollywood needs to figure out how to make programming for that and monetize that.
’cause we’re storytellers first and foremost. What we do is tell stories. Absolutely. And I don’t think that. Humanity is gonna lose its interest in telling stories. I think that’s always gonna exist and and hopefully there’ll be those jobs. I love it. Aj, man, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show today and getting some of your perspective and really just again, to see through your line, your lenses a bit here.
So this has been great. That being sure if somebody’s listening to this, watching this and they want to follow your work, you know, follow your journey, how, how do they do that? Sure. Well, you can find me online at either editors guild, uh.com or as I say cinema montage.org. I just wanna add one more thing that, you know, we did, we did sign the tax go and get that passed, but that fights this beginning.
So many jobs Yeah. Are going overseas. It’s not just a question of judgment to Atlanta or Texas or so what we need next is a federal tax incentive, and the unions are really gonna join together on that, like. United States of America, the Congress of the United States needs to protect the film industry more than just the individual states.
So had to do a union conference in in Hawaii in a couple weeks, and we’re all gonna be there. We’re all gonna talk about how we can. Engage our members to talk to their federal leaders, and we need a a US-based federal tax incentive. And so please follow that campaign because we deserve it in America.
We deserve to protect our American storytelling, which is really unique to, to us. So please do follow that. Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes so you can follow up and and, and connect with AJ’s content. And speaking into the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And AJ thanks again for coming on. Of course. Thank you.
