Age: 30
Residence: Vancouver
Agency: Vanguarde Artists Management (Toronto), Paradigm (L.A.)
Buzz: Garnered his first Academy Award nomination for editing District 9. Just wrapped The Whistleblower (named as a TIFF Special Presentation), and waiting for upcoming partnership with D9 writer/director Neill Blomkamp

Julian Clarke was thrust onto the world stage after earning an Oscar nod for Best Achievement in Editing on alien flick District 9.

“[Editing] is one of the only parts of the film process when you feel in control of what’s happening,” he states. “A lot of the production process is chaos and I like steering the chaos.”

On D9, Clarke was faced with the enormous task of cutting more than 200 hours of tape. Aside from a few assistant editors and other effects folk, it was pretty much a one-man show, but one that he enjoyed. “You’re a single person telling a story, making something work and there are only a few jobs in film where you can do that as one person.”

Serendipity played a role in Clarke’s involvement with the film. Much of the key position recruiting was done in Vancouver, which was also home base for the film’s writer and director Neill Blomkamp. Clarke had previously worked with D9 composer, Clinton Shorter, who made the connection to Blomkamp.

“[Blomkamp] brought a lot of young blood into that movie: the composer, the director of photography, and many of the effects were done by Vancouver studios,” says Clarke. “A whole bunch of people went along for the ride with Neill and those kind of movies don’t come along too often, where it’s small enough that kind of up and comers could be hired, but came out to be so big.”

His hard work didn’t go unrecognized. Clarke was bestowed with an Oscar nomination from the Academy, along with nods from BAFTA, American Cinema Editors (U.S.), Satellite and the Online Film Critics Society.

He’s spent the last decade cutting film on a wide variety of projects, armed with his B.A. from University of British Columbia’s film program. Starting off with friends and colleagues’ short films, he eventually found himself in the Telefilm feature circuit, then eased his way to documentary TV. His long list of credits range from Carl Bessai’s drama Unnatural and Accidental (2006) – for which he snagged a Leo – to Barbie: Fairytopia.

Visualizing the big picture before it hits the big screen can be overwhelming, but Clarke relishes the challenge. “Any job which is a creative, exciting job… if it was easy, everyone would do it,” he says. “You have to want it to achieve good work. Certainly you have your moments saying, ‘Hmm, is this worth it?’ Then you end up with something great at the end and yes, it was.”