Michael McCusker
Biography
Michael "Mike" McCusker (born June 23, 1966) is an American film editor. He has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005) and Ford v Ferrari (2019), winning the latter. McCusker frequently collaborates with director James Mangold.
McCusker stated that editing is "a dance of the eyes. It's not just splicing two pieces of film together but compressing time, leading the audience, and telling the story through images and dialogue."
Michael McCusker attended New Canaan High School in New Canaan, Connecticut, where he first began writing and making films. After graduation, he attended Emerson College, obtaining a bachelor of fine arts degree in film theory and production in 1988.
McCusker was mentored by film editor David Brenner.
After graduating from Emerson, McCusker drove across the country to West Hollywood, California, where he obtained work as a production assistant. Mike McCusker later worked on the television series The Simpsons. He became interested in film editing and became an assistant editor on a Showtime anthology called Fallen Angels.
After joining the Motion Picture Editors Guild, McCusker teamed up as an assistant film editor with one of Oliver Stone's bevy of hotshot film editors, Academy Award-winning film editor David Brenner. Mike McCusker quickly became David Brenner's first assistant film editor, running the cutting room for five years on films such as The Patriot (2000) and Kate & Leopold (2001). Eventually David Brenner promoted McCusker to the position of associate editor.
When film director James Mangold asked editor David Brenner to cut Walk the Line, Brenner was unavailable. Mangold, in need of an editor with whom he was familiar, propositioned Mike McCusker, offering him the prestigious promotion to film editor. McCusker won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for Ford v Ferrari with Andrew Buckland.
McCusker is married to film producer Deirdre Morrison, whom he met while he was an additional editor on the film The Day After Tomorrow.
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