Ken Sallows – Editor

Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1955 Ken began working in the film and television industry in June 1973, having deferred a scholarship to the University of Melbourne to study Arts.

He initially worked on staff at Crawford Productions as a trainee script assistant, transferring to assistant editing after three months, graduating to editing the first 128 episodes of the Australian television serial The Sullivans, from early1975.

Ken turned to freelancing in 1976 to combine work as the first assistant editor on 10 feature films including The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and The Man from Snowy River and several television mini-series, with work editing television mini-series and serials.

In 1982 he changed direction and worked editing and post-producing documentaries.

In 1984, he edited his first feature, The Slim Dusty Movie. Since then he has been able to combine editing work on cinema released features, television mini-series and tele-features, documentaries, short films, music videos, cinema trailers and commercials as well as lecturing and writing about editing.

Ken initiated the publication of Walter Murch's book In the Blink of an Eye which is about editing and also initiating, co-producing and post-producing the award winning short film, Feathers, based on the short story by Raymond Carver in 1986.

In late 2000, the Australian Screen Editors Guild presented him with Honorary Life Membership and the year 2000 ASE honour for his contribution to editing. In 2002, he was allowed to add ASE after his name on film credits. Ken has edited in addition to many documentaries and television, some thirty feature films, the most recent being, the feature documentary about the boxer Lionel Rose, Lionel and, The Combination His credits and awards include Malcolm, Proof, Love and Other Catastrophes, Chopper, Getting' Square and Tom White.   Ken has also worked in America and France.

“A lot of the actors in this film were performing in a feature film for the first time. The huge advantage of David's experience as a dramaturge on other films and as an actor in his own right, spilled over into the performances. There was never a large number of takes filmed, there was no reason. The performances often varied within these takes and that allowed me to choose between them. I never found myself having to cover a bad performance, as the actors were always in character on screen.”