Pasadena Convention Center
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Darren Holmes, ACE (He/Him)

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Darren Holmes is a film editor with over forty-five years experience in post-production. He has worked in all areas of editorial from sound effects and music, to TV pilots, live action feature films, and animated features. His time in the cutting room includes twenty years in live action and over two decades in animation, both 2-D and 3-D. Darren’s love of animation has taken him from cutting The Iron Giant for Brad Bird at Warner Bros., to Disney’s Lilo&Stitch, Pixar’s Ratatouille, How To Train Your Dragon and The Croods at DreamWorks Animation and Cartoon Saloon’s Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner, and Wolfwalkers. Darren is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (The Academy) and American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.). He recently completed editing Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn for Skydance Animation/NETFLIX in Los Angeles. IMDB link: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391789/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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Movie Magic: Editing for Animated Films

Room 211 | ASIFA-Hollywood | Jennifer Jew | Nathan Schauf | James Ryan ACE | Bret Marnell | Darren Holmes, ACE | Nathan Schauf ACE

In animation, the edit is the movie. Long before final frames are rendered, editors shape story, timing, and emotion using storyboards, animatics, and scratch dialogue—working closely with directors to build the film from the ground up.

But how do you cut a scene that doesn’t exist yet? And how can understanding editorial make you a stronger, more hirable artist?

Tailored for LightBox Expo’s community of aspiring and professional animators, this panel explores how animated films are crafted in the edit—how sequences evolve, how decisions impact the entire pipeline, and what skills studios are looking for today.

Featuring Bret Marnell, ACE (Ultraman: Rising, Smurfs: The Lost Village), along with editors from Netflix, Disney, and Pixar.

Skill Level: General Audience

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