Martin Nelson

Martin started as a print editor, correcting and refining bathroom graffiti on the restroom walls of St. Joseph, Missouri’s Central High School in the late 1970s. A decade later, after post-graduate work in food conveyance and interior relocation, he served as apprentice editor on two feature films and then at National Geographic Television. Here, he advanced to assistant and then film editor during the last days of flatbed editing. This classic apprenticeship taught him not only the nuances of rhythm, continuity, and the role of audio — earning him a national Emmy for sound editing — but also the ins and outs of narrative structure. He also learned here how to speak of himself in the third person.

Since 1990, working on Avid and Final Cut nonlinear systems, he has cut documentaries for NBC, PBS, Discovery, TLC, A&E, Animal Planet, Showtime, the SciFi Channel and others. He has done museum work for the Smithsonian Institution, the National Portrait Gallery, The National Park Service, The Oklahoma Bombing Memorial and others. His commercial clients include Time-Life Video, CableOne and various political campaigns. Corporate and event clients include the American Federation of Teachers, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, the Democratic National Committee, the Global Tech Summit, the Veterans Administration, and the American Diabetes Association. He has also cut for government agencies too numerous — or secret — to mention and on several narrative films for friends, college students and aspiring auteurs.

Martin spent the summer of 2003 in Rome cutting Iceman: Hunt for a Killer for Discovery Television, the summer of 2004 discovering Chicago and the summer of 2005 searching for his keys. Desert Bayou, his summer project for 2006 & 2007 enjoyed a national theatrical run in the fall of 2007 and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary in the Motion Picture Category. And They Came to Chicago: The Italian American Legacy, 2007’s winter project won five Silver Tellys including one for editing and aired for a while pretty much every other day on WTTW. Summer 2008, Martin co-produced, cut and mixed Good People, a twisty little half-hour fiction film which played to laughs, gasps and thunderous applause at film festivals around the country, eventually finding its way back home to the 45th Annual Chicago International Film Festival where Martin promptly proceeded to lose his glasses. The winters of 2008 & 2009 were partially spent enriching young minds at Columbia College, Chicago. Much of 2010 & 2011 were spent cutting a show he’s still not allowed to talk about, but believe me, when he can, you’ll hear about it. 2012 started with his first full-length fiction feature film, Between Western and California, a portrait of a young artist in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. No, it’s not about Martin. 2012 rolled into 2013 filled with perfect days as Martin cut, uh, Perfect Day, a beautiful short narrative written and directed by the Jeff Award-winning Derrick Sanders. It’s in festivals now; wish us luck.

And that 2011 thing he couldn’t talk about? It’s in eight festivals so far this year and heading for a theatrical release. Still not telling though. Check the resume.