We were lucky to catch up with Alli Holland recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alli, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
When I first started in this industry, like a lot of people, I didn’t know anyone. My sister was working as a barista at the time and one of her regular customers was a producer. Somehow they got to talking about me and that I was going to school for film. He told her that if I was interested in getting started in the industry to give him a call once I was done with school. Cut to five years later and I had gotten too comfortable at a job I hated when I finally took a look at myself and wondered why I was doing this when I could possibly doing something I enjoyed instead. So even though my sister no longer worked as a barista, her friend worked there and said the producer was still a regular customer there. She managed to get his business card and I got in contact with him. Within a week of moving to the same city, I met up with him and he offered me my first job as a PA. Soon after that I was getting calls from other productions asking if I was interested in being a PA, to others asking if I would be an assistant editor on some small projects, to getting bigger editing projects of my own. Now seven years later I’m working full time as an editor. All of this because a producer who didn’t know me or my work was willing to take a chance on me. Because of his generosity, I try to pay that forward as much as I can.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
For the past couple of years I have been an editor for a YouTube channel and around the same time I started going down the rabbit hole that is K-pop. It’s just coincidence that I started these both at the same time, and never did I think I would be editing anything with these groups I’ve fallen in love with, but recently the YouTube channel has been doing collaborations with some of the most popular K-pop groups, like Tomorrow X Together, Aespa, and Itzy, and I’ve been incredibly excited to get to edit these.
I’m also editing my first feature film this year, and we’re almost to picture lock! I’ve been working with this director for a few years now editing her short films, so to have this be my first feature has been a lot of fun and I look forward to doing more in the future.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
First and foremost, kindness is so important. I once had someone tell me they enjoy working with me because, “you’re good, you’re fast, and you’re not a jerk,” and that’s stuck with me. I’ve worked with some crews that had people with a bit of a superiority complex and the atmosphere on set was just really tense amongst everyone. If you treat everyone kindly, no matter their position, you can create some really cool stuff while also having fun, and why wouldn’t you want that?
Secondly, problem solving, especially as an editor is a great skill to have. Editing is essentially like solving a puzzle or a riddle, right? So being able to figure out how to get the answer of that riddle is important. Sometimes that’s cutting a scene together a few different ways to see which way works best, sometimes it’s asking for help or opinions about what you’re working on and what they suggest that could make it better. Sometimes it’s taking feedback from a director or producer or client and figuring out how to best implement that into the edit to fulfill their vision. Or it could even be, “Hey, I know you said you wanted this, but that’s not working, so how about we try this way instead,” but never just a, “No, that won’t work.”
Lastly, knowing when to take a break. Rest is important, and sometimes we forget that and it can be hard when everyone wants everything done so quickly. If I’m working on something and I can’t seem to figure it out no matter what I try, I will just step away for a bit. I’ll take my dog outside, or have a snack, or just do anything else. Then whether it’s a few minutes, a few hours, or the next day that I come back to it, I can usually figure it out with fresh eyes and a fresh mind.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
I definitely face imposter syndrome. I often think, what if I’m not doing this well enough? What if this other person could do this better than me? Am I trying hard enough? Etc. etc. But then I remind myself that I have a pretty steady stream of clients that keep coming back to me with more work, so obviously they like what I’m doing, right? And I think back to where I started and what I’m doing now and all the projects I’ve been able to work on. So I just tell myself, hey you’re doing pretty well, keep going.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: alli_holland
- Other: Email: alli.holland@yahoo.com
Image Credits
Chris De La Rosa (for the group photo only)
