Michael Lippert Of Cutters Studios: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker

Interview with Guernslye Honorés

Be willing to change your plans and don’t be too stubborn about what you think your path is. If you are open to it, opportunities will present themselves that you never expected.

As a part of our series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Michael Lippert.

Michael Lippert is a multi award-winning director and editor whose films and documentaries have screened worldwide. For nearly two decades, he has edited major commercial campaigns at Cutters Studios, where his work has been featured on Ad Age Top 5, as well as the Super Bowl. His client roster includes Jeep, Ram, Blue Cross, McDonald’s, HP, Kohler, and IBM.

After writing and directing a string of award-winning independent sci-fi and psychological thrillers, Michael has spent the last several years documenting films about community and artistic perseverance, particularly through music. Sloane: A Jazz Singer is his multi-award winning feature documentary debut, and has played several prestigious festivals, including most recently Palm Springs International Film Festival. In addition to its many accolades, the film has been called “a superior musical tour de force and virtual shot in the arm” by the legendary Michael Feinstein.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit of the ‘backstory’ of how you grew up?

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I generally had a great childhood, but since most people in my family were not really into the arts, I often felt like a bit of an outsider. We’re a sports-oriented family with a heavy military background. But I wasn’t coordinated and I got made fun of when I would try to play sports. Which made making friends challenging at times. And joining the army was the furthest thing from my mind as a young man. So when all I wanted to do was draw dinosaurs and detailed comics as a kid, I think I threw folks for a loop. But I was lucky to have two parents who understood my passion, and encouraged me to follow that path from an early age. Whether it was fine art lessons, theater, or later, filmmaking, they were behind me. I think I owe a lot of my adult confidence to their early encouragement, despite feeling different from some of my family and peers.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I used to make little stop-motion movies with my dad’s camera as a kid. I’ve always been fascinated by movement and the manipulation of reality on film. And that expanded into a love of storytelling that I found through doing theater in high school and college. Music is also a heavy influence. I learned trombone and later guitar in high school. So all those influences have led me to where I am, because I am able to incorporate all of them when I’m making a film. Filmmaking is the one medium I can think of that allows you to use multiple artforms together cohesively.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your filmmaking career?

Some of the funniest memories were in my early days when I was just trying to get experience on sets in LA. (By the way, when you are young and hungry, it’s so important to immerse yourself and get all the experience you can, however you can.) I remember when I was a PA for a Bone Thugs ’N Harmony shoot in 2007, and I had to run to Starbucks to get them each their drinks. Each drink was labeled for their performer name: Lazy Bone, Crazy Bone, etc. And I got lost on the way back to set, which was actually in Compton, LA. Finally, I got there and the drinks were cold. That producer didn’t call me again, but it was one of many wild learning experiences. And some of my friends still call me “Lip Bone,” the nickname they gave me after that episode.

These kinds of experiences can seem insignificant or purely humorous, but they have also helped me build my knowledge of the industry from the ground up. I take these foundational experiences with me to every new project I work on, whether I’m always conscious of it or not.

Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?

During that same formative time in my life, I was a PA on Charlie Wilson’s War, so I got to see Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julia Roberts (not to mention the late great director Mike Nichols) work their magic firsthand on a massive Hollywood set.

A couple years ago, I edited the Jeep Earth Odyssey spot for director Lance Acord during the height of Covid. Everyone has their stories of working remotely now, but I felt a special kind of pressure to make it work, knowing this was for the legendary director behind the famous Darth Vader Volkswagen Super Bowl ad, among many others. He was also the DP for Being John Malkovich, Lost in Translation, and Where the Wild Things Are. I had a young daughter and newborn son at the time, so it was very stressful trying to make edits and talk to Lance on the phone while the baby needed diaper changes, etc. We got it done somehow! Luckily, he was very down to earth and fun to work with.

Last year, I edited a Super Bowl spot for Jeep, and Shaggy (of “Mr. Boombastic” fame) did the music, so we ended up editing with him in Miami, which was also wild. He told us all these great stories of his days in the army and how he came up with his signature sound and voice. He also gave us several lessons on the origins of Reggae in American pop music and how that came to be.

On my most recent project, Sloane: A Jazz Singer, I was fortunate to interview a living legend, Carol Sloane. As someone with a six decade career behind her who has been called “one of the greatest living jazz singers” by The Washington Post, and was hailed by luminaries like Johnny Carson and Oscar Peterson in the 1960s, it was truly a gift to spend time with her in her home near Boston for a week. And later we would follow her to New York City, where she would perform her last live recording at the age of 82. Carol knew everyone in the 60s, from Barbra Streisand to Ella Fitzgerald and the Rolling Stones. She had stories of escaping rabid fans with Mick Jagger and the gang, of going on the first North American tour with the Beatles, and singing with Ella Fitzgerald in an airport lounge. And yet, she was this incredibly approachable and modest woman with very little means in her older age. During our short time filming with her, the whole crew really got to know her and we all became good friends. We watched old movies and even spent a day watching The New England Patriots and drinking wine. The best thing about her was her blunt honesty. One night, when we’d kept her up too long, she cussed us out and told us to leave, making us take her trash with us when we went. I’ll never forget moments like that, or the many history lessons she had to pass down to us. I kept in touch with her afterwards, too, by sending pictures of my kids and talking on the phone semi-regularly, until she passed away last year.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve had so many mentors in each of my disciplines. As an editor, I count myself lucky to have had several at Cutters Studios, where I currently work. Watching people like Kathryn Hempel, who edited the Like a Girl campaign, and Grant Gustafson, who has done some of the most iconic Super Bowl ads of all time, has been invaluable. They taught me how to interact with clients, how to manage stressful situations without wigging out, and mostly, how to have fun. It’s easy to forget, but part of the reason we chose to do this is because it’s the most fun job in the world. I also learned a lot from Nadav Kurtz, another Cutters editor/director who has such a unique approach to both directing and filmmaking. I constantly think back to the people I admire not only creatively, but those with likable personalities. You should strive to be someone who people want to hang out with for hours on end, in addition to being technically good at your job.

As a director, one of my mentors was a college professor, Lubomir Kocka, who came from the Czech film industry. He said, “If you want to be a great filmmaker, do something else first. Then you’ll have to stories to tell.”

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I keep a little quote on the bottom corner of my desktop monitor in my home office. It says, “A calm sea does not make a skilled sailor.” It’s a reminder that times will get rough, but those are the moments to shine. How you do in the most challenging situations says a lot about you. Anyone can focus when it’s peaceful all around, but can you keep it together when you have edit revisions coming every five minutes from several cooks in the kitchen, and you somehow need to have a full polished posting for a meeting in one hour? Can you rethink your whole shot list when your location falls through at the last minute, or pivot on an interview when some key person you’re talking to isn’t saying what you hoped and you only have 10 minutes left with them?

I am very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

I can’t stress enough how important diversity is, and not just because it’s a “trending” topic. We’re finally seeing a much bigger push, I think, but we’ve needed it for years, both in front of and behind the camera. As a white male, I’ve had to take a step outside myself and try to understand that I come to the game with inherent privilege not afforded many other folks. If we’re only hearing voices like mine and not making space for others, then we’re going to get the same stories over and over with the same perspectives. Of course, each person has something to offer, regardless of race or gender. But the point is, the more diverse the crowd is, the more diverse the offerings on our screens will be. This encourages learning and seeing things from others’ worldview, which can create empathy, and that’s the most important legacy filmmaking and storytelling can offer.

For Sloane, I knew we needed a diverse group of experts to discuss a topic like jazz. And we needed to hear their various perspectives. Our film was about a white singer, Carol Sloane, whose heroes were mostly Black women, but I wanted to know: how does the Black community feel about that? How has race played a role in jazz through the years? It was so vital to the telling of this film. But it’s vital in any project, and it’s the responsibility of the filmmaker to always be thinking outside the box about how their film can be as inclusive as possible.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

As I mentioned, I just directed a feature documentary called Sloane: A Jazz Singer, about little known jazz legend Carol Sloane. She was hailed by all the greats in the early 60s, but her star really faded when rock took over, and she spent many years suffering financially, still making her art, but never seeing major dollar signs or recognition. The film follows her quite intimately as she is preparing for the performance of a lifetime in New York and looking back emotionally on her remarkable career involving so many jazz greats, including Ella Fitzgerald, Camera McRae, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan. We have seen the film really take festivals by storm over the last year, leaving audiences in tears. They often have stayed long after the credits to ask questions or tell us stories about how they knew her, or how they didn’t, but are so glad they do now. The film has screened at several highly regarded film festivals (including Heartland, Doc edge, and Cinequest), and has won 13 “best of” awards at festivals all over the world. We most recently played three sold out screenings at the prestigious Palm Springs International Film Festival and are currently seeking distribution.

Which aspect of your work makes you most proud? Can you explain or give a story?

I am most proud of my honesty, I think. I don’t try to be anything I’m not. I do my best editing work when I’m not hiding behind too many filters or heavy animations, and my best directing work comes from an honest back and forth with my crew and actors/subjects. In my doc work, when I let raw moments unfold on their own, rather than trying to control every aspect, is when I think I do best. A good example is one scene from Sloane in which we had her listen back to her old first major recordings, which brought real tears to her eyes. She held my hand as she listened, and we kept that in the film because it was just so real. Those are the moments I’m after as a storyteller — the times that truly show the essence of a person and expose some of their innermost feelings.

In my commercial work, it’s the same. I think clients appreciate me because I am who I am. I’m a genuine dude, and we’re all just trying to come up with creative solutions together. They trust me because they know I come to the table with ideas, but I’m also willing to try all different ways of doing things. As an editor, you learn to be malleable. You’re a shape shifter, and you need to constantly be willing to change your pose and not be too precious about any one idea. That also informs my directing work, because I can go to set and have a thousand things go wrong, but still be ready with just as many backup plans. It helps me talk to actors, too, and my own ideas of a character can evolve when I’m able to be flexible.

Because of this, the script (if there is one) is never the final word on any matter. Often, it’s just a jumping off point, and things evolve in completely unpredictable ways when you actually go and make the thing.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?

Oh man. Here goes …

1. Take the opportunities when they come, because they don’t come twice!
2. Be willing to change your plans and don’t be too stubborn about what you think your path is. If you are open to it, opportunities will present themselves that you never expected.
3. This is a business. Film school might prepare you for how to tell a story or use cool gear, but it won’t prepare you for the business. I just wish I’d taken a business course before diving in.
4. Don’t be a fake. I wish I’d known that I didn’t have to “fake it” so much in the beginning. If you’re honest, you’ll gravitate to honest people, and they will gravitate to you. Just be you, and ask questions. I found myself too many times trying to make everyone believe I already knew the answer, only to pay for it later.
5. Don’t forget to live your life, too. You’ll be a better filmmaker and storyteller if you have other hobbies, keep close relationships with friends, and make sure to find joy outside of filmmaking.

When you create a film, which stakeholders have the greatest impact on the artistic and cinematic choices you make? Is it the viewers, the critics, the financiers, or your own personal artistic vision? Can you share a story with us or give an example about what you mean?

I think it sounds selfish, but for my own films, the first stakeholder, or the first person I need to impress, is me. If I don’t love it, I don’t think I can make others love it. So that’s number one. I can’t involve myself for hours and hours and years and years on a project if I don’t personally want to see it. Probably next in line is the viewers. Of course, the bigger the budget and the wider the scope, then the more people you’ll have to make happy. On commercials, my main audience is my client, so that is who I’m thinking of. And I genuinely enjoy making them happy. It’s a collaborative process, no matter what, and at the end of the day, I always hope to be working in a way where everyone is just trying to make something they believe in.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Goodness. I can’t think that big. But I do think a lot about how the film community, those who want to support better communal experiences, and how it could all be strengthened. I am such a lover of old movie theaters, old palaces that feel special. The Music Box in Chicago is one of my favorite places on earth, and I wish there were more places like that. So I guess if I had a lot of money and influence, I’d really love to work to restore some old spaces, and make going to the movies a more magical experience. Some multiplexes are just not even fun.; no one working there likes their job, the floors are sticky, etc. But if it felt more like going to a play, with better ambience and food/beverage options, we’d all go to the movies more often and remember what it feels like to laugh, cry, and clap together. Does that make the world a better place? I don’t know, but then again, I think having spaces where we show our appreciation for the arts in an artful way, and not just by having a giant popcorn and a reclining seat, can have a big impact culturally.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. :-)

It’s impossible to narrow it down to just one, but I would love to meet Terry Gross. I have listened to Fresh Air for many years, and I think she is one of the best interviewers in the business. I would also love to spend an afternoon with Ethan Hawke. What a career that guy’s had, and he has such artistic integrity. And of course, sitting down with Sir Paul McCartney would be something else. I only have about 100 other people on the list. Barack and Michelle, Ira Glass, Christopher Nolan … Should I keep going?

How can our readers further follow you online?

You can go to my website, lippertfilm.com, or our film website, sloanefilm.com. Follow my instagram page @lippertfilms.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Thank you! This was so much fun!

About the interviewer: Guernslye Honoré, affectionately known as “Gee-Gee”, is an amalgamation of creativity, vision, and endless enthusiasm. She has elegantly twined the worlds of writing, acting, and digital marketing into an inspiring tapestry of achievement. As the creative genius at the heart of Esma Marketing & Publishing, she leads her team to unprecedented heights with her comprehensive understanding of the industry and her innate flair for innovation. Her boundless passion and sense of purpose radiate from every endeavor she undertakes, turning ideas into reality and creating a realm of infinite possibilities. A true dynamo, Gee-Gee’s name has become synonymous with inspirational leadership and the art of creating success.