Michael Brown and Michael Oliver on Editing Welcome to Wrexham | Interviews

How did you end up as an editor?

Michael Brown: I came into it through a technical background. I was in middle school cooking up VHS tapes, VHS machines together and connecting things in the back and figuring out how the cords worked, the TV and everything, and I really enjoyed the technical aspect of it.

I realized I needed to shoot things if I wanted to do stuff, so I ended up wanting to be a director. Like, oh, I graduated high school, moved out to L.A., and went to a technical AVID school. So I was learning AVID at this place called Video Symphony. And it was all things AVID, training you up to be an assistant. I fell into love with the editing process, just putting together stories and puzzles and figuring out how to tell stories that way. I grew up with the digital revolution as it was going from tape to digital, so it was at a good time.

Michael Oliver: I basically got my hands on it in high school. My high school had a little TV production class, and it sparked my interest. I got to do the tape-to-tape editing for the first time. But where I really fell in love with it is when I went to college at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. It’s actually one of the top sports TV production colleges in the nation. And when I went there, I didn’t know what I was wanting to do, but I went in there, did a tour and everything, and then saw that they had a full TV production program, and I’m like, ”You know what? I really enjoyed it in high school. Why not give it a shot here?” I lived in the TV studio because I loved it so much. And I ended up being one of the many people to learn AVID for the first time. I actually had to teach our professors how to use it because I was just in there so much and just playing around with it.

And I became in charge of a Division 1 hockey team broadcast that was all student-run. We competed against Fox Sports at the time. I absolutely loved it. And basically from there, I would work the hockey games on Fridays and Saturdays, and then Sunday mornings I would just go down to work for Fox Sports doing the Vikings games.

I was a TV nerd. All I wanted to do was be in production because I just loved the rush. I loved everything about it. I loved all the technical stuff. Once Fox Sports found out I graduated college, they brought me out here to Los Angeles and I’ve been out here since. What I usually work in is docuseries that are based on sports ideas and sports teams because I like to tell true stories. I like that inspiration.