Christina Jean "Chris" Innis is an American film editor and filmmaker.^[1] She was awarded the 2010 Academy Award, BAFTA, and A.C.E awards for "Best Film Editing" on the feature film, The Hurt Locker, shared with co-editor, Bob Murawski.

Early life

Innis was born and raised in San Diego, California, the daughter of architect Donald Innis and his wife, teacher and floral designer, Virginia.^[2]

Chris Innis moved to the Bay Area where she graduated from U.C. Berkeley, majoring in film studies. While a student at Cal Berkeley, Innis interned for several San Francisco production companies, including the commercial company owned and operated by cinematographer Ron Eveslage (most famous for George Lucas' lighting and camera work on American Graffiti).^[3]

Career highlights

Music video director David Rathod was directing and editing his first independent feature film, West is West. Rathod first introduced Chris Innis to a cutting room, and she was hired to work on the film as an assistant editor. Innis would later apprentice under film editors Pietro Scalia (The Quick and the Dead), Joe Hutshing (Indecent Proposal), Jay Freund (The Wash), and DesiLu I Love Lucy TV series editor, editor of Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Dann Cahn Sr.^[1] Dann Cahn had also famously trained Steven Spielberg's long-time film editor, Michael Kahn.

Innis completed post-graduate film studies at The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), the school started by Walt Disney. At CalArts, Innis received a MFA degree in filmmaking. While at CalArts, in addition to directing and producing several student films and experimental videos, Chris Innis would go on to edit music videos featuring rappers Ice Cube, Onyx and DMX, as well as edit the first music video directed by film director Ridley Scott's daughter, Jordan Scott (Fine "Industrial is Dead"). Innis also directed and/or produced almost two dozen karaoke videos of favorite hits for Japanese firm Pioneer Electronics, including karaokes for Prince and Aerosmith.^[1]

After a move to Hollywood, Innis worked on several independent films, before being asked to work as an apprentice editor on director Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning film, JFK. Chris Innis was mentored for the following six years by multiple Academy Award-winning film editor, Pietro Scalia. The two would work as a team on films such as director Ridley Scott's film G.I. Jane starring Demi Moore, White Man's Burden starring John Travolta, as well as the TV pilot American Gothic, among other film and commercial projects.^[1]

Innis progressed as an assistant editor, music editor and film editor for cult film director Sam Raimi (known for The Evil Dead series of films and later to become well known for the successful Spider-Man films). Innis was promoted to first assistant editor on Raimi's western genre-bender, The Quick and the Dead (starring Sharon Stone), which started a long-term working relationship and friendship with Sam Raimi. Innis was then promoted by Raimi to the job of editor on the CBS/Universal cult horror TV series, American Gothic. Innis has since edited several films, including the Academy Award winning Iraq war film about EOD military bomb techs which was shot in Jordan, The Hurt Locker for action film director, Kathryn Bigelow (of Near Dark fame).^[1]

Innis has worked as a co-producer, writer, and editor with Bob Murawski and Sage Stallone on the distribution of cult horror films for Grindhouse Releasing and Murawski's Box Office Spectaculars distribution companies. The companies have meticulously restored and digitally remastered classic European cult horror films Make Them Die Slowly (aka Cannibal Ferox (1981)) and Lucio Fulci's spaghetti-horror masterpiece, E tu vivrai nel terrore (aka The Beyond) (1981) as well as Cannibal Holocaust (1980), homegrown American cult favorite, I Drink Your Blood (1970) (directed by David E. Durston), director Juan Piquer Simón's Spanish slasher film, Pieces, Cat in the Brain also directed by Italian horror filmmaker, Lucio Fulci, Gone with the Pope directed by Duke Mitchell, and An American Hippy in Israel directed by Amos Sefer. She has also worked on the digital restorations of the rare spaghetti western, The Big Gundown, starring Lee Van Cleef and The Swimmer, starring Burt Lancaster.^[3]

Innis has also written and directed several films and experimental videos. One of Chris Innis' videos was featured in the group show "About TV: Appropriation and Parody in Contemporary Video Art" which screened at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park (along with fellow experimental video artists Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, and Nancy Buchanan). Innis was also a past quarter-finalist and semi-finalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Don and Gee Nicholl's Fellowship in Screenwriting Awards, as well as a past semi-finalist in The Chesterfield Writer's Film Project. Innis has also screened at LA Freewaves.

Personal life

Since 2008, Chris Innis has been married to fellow film editor and film distributor Bob Murawski. The two editors were first introduced to one another by film director Sam Raimi and met while both were editing the Universal/CBS cult television series executive produced by Raimi, American Gothic^[4] The couple married shortly after completing work on The Hurt Locker. Her sister is well-known Bay Area artist, Cynthia Ona Innis, who has also served as production designer on some of Innis' films.^[3]

Selected Filmography

Film & music editor

• JFK (1991) Apprentice Editor (Team received Academy Award/BAFTA/ACE "Best Editing")
• Indecent Proposal (1993) Apprentice Editor
• Dead Beat (1994) First Assistant Editor
• The Quick and the Dead (1995) First Assistant Editor
• American Gothic (1995) TV Pilot Associate Editor
• American Gothic (1995–1996) TV Series Editor
• G.I. Jane (1997) Associate Editor
• The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes (aka X-Treme Teens) (1999) Editor
• The Gift (2000) Music Editor
• Spider-Man (2002) Music Editor
• Straight Into Darkness (2005) Consulting Editor
• Spider-Man 3 (2007) Assistant Editor
• The Hurt Locker (2009) Editor (with Bob Murawski)
  (Academy Award/BAFTA/ACE "Best Editing," "Best Picture")
• Gone with the Pope (2010) Associate Producer
• It Must be Nice (2012) Editor/Director/Producer, short film

Awards and nominations

• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - Academy Award - Best Film Editing ^[5]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - BAFTA - Best Film Editing^[6]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - ACE Eddie Award - Best Film Editing^[7]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - The Online Film Critics Association - Best Film Editing^[8]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - The Las Vegas Film Critics Association - Best Film Editing^[9]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - Boston Society of Film Critics - Best Film Editing^[10]
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - The International Press Academy's Golden Satellite Award -
  Best Film Editing^[11][12] - (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Won) - International Cinephile Society Award - Best Editing
  (shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)^[13]
• The Hurt Locker - (Nominated) - The Broadcast Film Critics Association
  Critic's Choice Awards - Best Film Editing^[14](shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)
• The Hurt Locker - (Nominated) - Hollywood Post Alliance Awards
  Outstanding Editing - Feature Film^[15][16](shared with co-editor Bob Murawski)

See also

• List of Academy Award winning couples

References

External links

• Chris Innis at IMDb
• "Tech Support Interview: The Crafts of The Hurt Locker", Incontention, by Guy Lodge, January 7th, 2010
• Below the Line Magazine - "Contenders - Editors Bob Murawski and Chris Innis, The Hurt Locker", by Mary Ann Skweres, March 2, 2010

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