Craft leaders: Adam Gough, Editor

Fifteen years ago, 22-year old media student Adam Gough landed his first professional work as part of the TV news team at IBC in Amsterdam. Two years later he was making tea for Alfonso Cuarón. Next week, the film he crafted in the edit room with the director is odds on to win the Best Picture Oscar. He shares his extraordinary story and the making of Roma with IBC365.

“It’s incredibly exciting to experience the reaction to what is a very personal story told in Spanish about an indigenous domestic worker,” Gough says of Cuarón’s acclaimed picture. “When we won [Best Film] at the Bafta’s and before we all went on stage there was a moment when we couldn’t believe it. It’s been a lot of hard work.”

All roads lead to Roma
Like many kids, Gough fell in love with the movies watching Star Wars and Mary Poppins but it wasn’t until he was a teenager in Cornwall where he began making short videos [on tape] that he got the bug.

At Southampton [now Solent] University he studied film and video, a technical degree that gave him a solid grounding in everything from waveform to workflow.

“I could wire a cinema for sound and this technical knowledge was a massive advantage to me as an assistant editor and helped me get my foot in the door.”

Through the University he was one of a handful of students selected to intern with Shooting Partners to produce daily news as part of IBC TV at IBC 2004. Gough was a boom operator.

“I remember going over to the Avid and Final Cut Pro stands and just being in awe of the software,” he says. “The experience convinced me more than ever to…