Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors (ACE) is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing. Members use the post-nominal letters "ACE". The organization's "Eddie Awards" are routinely covered in trade magazines such as The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The society is not an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E. (specifically the Motion Picture Editors Guild or MPEG), to which an editor might also belong. The current President of ACE is Kevin Tent, who was elected in 2020.
Membership
Eligibility for active membership may be obtained by the following prerequisites:
Nomination or win of ACE Eddie award and/or
Desire to be a member
Sponsorship by at least two active members
Minimum of 72 months' (6 years) editing experience on Features and/or Television
Interview by the Membership Committee
Approval by the Board of Directors
Acceptance by the general membership
Members use the postnominal "ACE" as part of their signatures, as well as on motion picture credits. Thus the president of the society in October 2012 was Randy Roberts, ACE. Until 2014, the Acronym was separated by dots "A.C.E.", but this was dropped in order to conform with the more modern format used by many other industry organizations, such as ASC. The society publishes its current membership on its website.
Board of directors
, the board of directors consists of:
Officers
Kevin Tent (President) Sabrina Plisco (Vice president) Lillian Benson (Secretary) Andrew Seklir (Treasurer)
Board of directors
Kate Amend
Anita Brandt-Burgoyne
Richard Chew
Dorian Harris
Maysie Hoy
Bonnie Koehler
Michael D. Ornstein
Tatiana S. Riegel
Stephen Rivkin
Terilyn A. Shropshire
Associate Board
Dana E. Glauberman
Mark Helfrich
Nancy Richardson
John Venzon
Executive Director
Jenni McCormick
Eddie Awards
Beginning in 1950, the ACE held an annual dinner to honor the film editing Academy Award nominees. When the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) created a film editing category, the ACE invited them to the dinner as well.
In 1962, the ACE began giving its own awards. The awards and nominations are typically covered in entertainment industry newspapers and journals such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
The following awards are either currently given or have been given in the past. The American Cinema Editors does not publish an archive of these awards; it refers readers to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for archival information.
As of 2021, the ACE presents 16 categories for film and television alongside special ones, these have gone through several name changes to make distinctions between genre, running time and commercial/non-commercial television productions depending on the category. The list below shows the categories under their current names respectively.
Film
Best Edited Animated Feature Film
Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy or Musical
Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic
Best Edited Documentary – Feature
Television
Best Edited Comedy Series for Commercial Television
Best Edited Comedy Series for Non-Commercial Television
Best Edited Drama Series for Commercial Television
Best Edited Drama Series for Non-Commercial Television
Best Edited Documentary – (Non-Theatrical) Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Television Best Edited Non-Scripted Series Best Edited Variety Talk/Sketch Show or Special Best Edited Animation (Non-Theatrical)
Special Awards
The ACE Student Editing Competition winner
Career Achievement Awards
The ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award
Magazine
Since 1951, the ACE has published the quarterly magazine CinemaEditor. It began as an in-house publication, but grew to 5,000 subscribers in 1963. In the early 1990s the magazine collapsed into a four-page newsletter. In 1994, Jack Tucker was appointed as editor and transformed the publication into today's magazine. Walter Fernandez Jr. leads the magazine's team, with publications committee chair Edgar Burcksen.