Randy Strobl: Welcome to Alumni Live The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University Film and Video

graduates about the industry, the Film & Video major, and alumni profiles.

Welcome to Alumni Live.

Thanks for coming everybody.

Today we're going to be talking with editor Mary Graff Ashley,

thank you for being here.

Mary Graff Ashley: Thanks for having me on here.

Randy Strobl: when we look at your resume, it reads like a list of all

my favorite stuff, and I've actually, I've seen a lot of your work, right?

So, you've done the behind the scenes for Lost, obviously Pacific Rim, you've

done the behind the scenes for the Hobbit movies, Lord of the Rings, and, of

course, King Kong, which was something that was a really important thing for me.

I think some of the, you know, the students and maybe alumni watching

might be wondering, how do you get involved with these, you know, huge

franchises, specifically doing that behind the scenes work that you do?

Mary Graff Ashley: Well, and for Lost, I would've loved to do behind the

scenes, but was promos for that one.

But behind the scenes, is pretty similar.

It's all marketing materials because they want to sell that DVD.

And I mean, things are obviously changing now, but DVD, Blu-ray and, you know,

streaming, I hope they'll start showing more behind the scenes, but I started

out at a trailer house and that's obviously movie advertising, marketing.

But I got to spend time in the home video department.

And then we got to do behind the scenes for X-Files and I just fell in love

with it, doing documentary, content.

There's so many different names for it.

And then just, kept in touch.

Like I know a lot of the other alums say it's all about who, you know, and

so people I knew would move to different companies and I'd keep in touch and kind

of just evolved to be at another place where they just mainly do DVD content.

I just call it DVD.

That's the phrase I use.

Yeah, so I just love learning from the stories.

I love telling stories and kind of hearing the the filmmakers'

and the actors' perspective and how they approach their work.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Yeah.

For all those same reasons, I love watching those.

And you can really feel in, in the work that curiosity and interest you put in

there, like the things that I would ask questions for end up showing up on screen.

So I'd get a lot of my questions asked.

How do you decide what goes into these, into these promos, into

these, behind the scenes pieces?

Mary Graff Ashley: There's a lot of different variables and elements.

It's the producer you're working with the boss, the production

company, cause I've been at a lot of different vendors and studios and then

obviously the clients on their end.

But if you're lucky, often they let the company do what they do.

Usually you send them a rough outline.

This is from the company perspective, not so much mine, but they say we're going to

do these pieces in this rough write up.

And then, it's really who's running the interviews too, you know, if you get to

submit questions or if your company is hosting the interview and shooting it

themselves and asking us the best, because then you can get the info you want.

A lot of times it'll come up that a client is like, didn't they talk about such

and such or can't we have them say this.

We're like, sorry, it wasn't asked and they didn't answer

it, so we don't have it.

Randy Strobl: Ah, sure, it's the same thing in documentary, right?

Yeah.

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, it's just whatever the conversation was and

how it kind of almost makes itself.

And then of course, sometimes there are certain points where you want to

mention certain stories from filming or not mention certain things that

can't be mentioned for political reasons or something like that.

Randy Strobl: Sure, yeah.

I imagine in a production there's lots of drama and conflict and things.

I mean, that's part of the reason we love celebrities so much, is you

get to see all that, but for promo materials, it sounds like you don't

want all of that in there, right?

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah.

I mean, it just depends.

I mean, for liability.

It's not often.

Once in awhile, there's something that went down that they're like, yeah.

We're just, and even if I know those things and even if I try to stay away

from them and sometimes I think it's clean and they're still like, no, we

can't also say I'm like, oh, okay.

But usually it's more just the stories, you know?

It's just the actor's perspective and obviously all the filmmaker's perspective.

It's rare that they interview editors, but that's always exciting when

they have the editor talking about something about the assembly of a film.

Randy Strobl: Right, right.

Which I'm really excited to get in with you.

We both do some editing.

Before we get into even some of your more recent stuff, I've got something that

I got to ask you about, because, very important for me, even before I went to

Grand Valley, I was, was gifted this DVD set of the King Kong production diaries.

And I understand that you are the person that helped put all these together.

You made a couple episodes of these.

So we we've got some, video footage here of that.

So this is from, I think, for the last episode.

So tell me a little bit about how these came to be.

They came, you know, they're really important to me.

And so what, what are we looking at here?

Mary Graff Ashley: Okay.

So this last one is kind of staged, but it's Andy Serkis turning the

camera around on us because we were the behind the scenes crew.

So it's basically the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes.

So the production diaries were something that were little, I guess, webisodes

that seemed kind of new at the time.

It was 2005 and they were put online on KongIsKing.net, which is also the same

as TheOneRing.net and the same guys.

So they were put on there every week to get you excited

about the movie coming out.

And because obviously Kong is a remake a few times over, nothing

could ever really be a spoiler.

So it was a rare situation where you could do something like that, where

you could just show any green screen footage, anything from set, and it's

not obviously gonna spoil the story.

They tried not to show the actual facts or what it was actually going to be like,

'cause they saved that for the release.

But, yeah, so we did all different ones, like the extras, the vintage cars on

set, some were just on Jack Black or the actors would host, those were the

most fun or coming back for pickups.

I always thought they're the best way for students to see all the different

areas of a production behind the scenes.

They really talk to everybody, all the Kiwis on set, even the guy

who would have to call for them to stop filming if there's airplanes

flying overhead in Wellington.

And so they would just show pretty much anything you can do and, you

could do it on a film production.

Randy Strobl: I mean, you're in New Zealand filming this stuff, right?

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, because I got to work in LA on Lord of the Rings

behind the scenes, the same company I got to stay on to do Kong, which it kinda

went straight into that the next year.

So, yeah, luckily, it's rare because my boss just happened to want

his own editors there with him.

So, yeah, we got to go over, and different, different ones of us would

fly over at a time and switch out.

I went over twice, so each time was about seven weeks.

That was such a great experience to get sent over there.

We did a little bit of traveling while we're there.

Randy Strobl: And so you're, you're not just, telling the stories of, of being

behind the scenes are also, engaging in those stories yourselves, right?

You you're, working with Jack Black, Peter Jackson what are these celebrities

like when you work with them?

Mary Graff Ashley: So we would just run, it looks like we're friends, but

we really just would run into each other at some wrap party type events.

But, yeah.

So that was the first time I was kind of really close to a film set because

being in post, you know, I'm usually in a dark room by myself, which a lot

of the times I enjoy, but that was kind of fun to be near a production and

just have the actors coming and going.

It was kind of surreal.

Jack Black would come into the kitchen and not know what to do with his plate.

And I offered to take it, and he's like, no, no, no.

I'll put it.

He just didn't know where.

I was, I just felt like I'm a PA again, just let me help you.

But he was just totally down to earth and friendly.

So it was just really, I don't know, really energizing to

be there during the shoot.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and, and all of those production diaries were, were

really energizing to watch.

Like I mentioned, that's a huge reason that I wanted to become a filmmaker.

It, helps take away the veil of mystique, seeing, the troubles they were

having, and, working through some of that, like you did a great job telling

those stories and, making them really engaging and accessible for young people.

So that's a little bit about how I got into the business.

How did you get into the business?

Like, as a start?

Mary Graff Ashley: So I finished all my coursework at Grand Valley in

December '96 and then still needed to do an internship, but I went through

commencement and everything, knew I was going to do an internship.

So I took one of the American Cinema Editors catalogs, and at that time

it had editors home addresses in it.

I doubt they would do that now, maybe they would.

But, I just sent a bunch of cold letters through the mail.

So at that time, obviously it's just, postal systems.

You print out your resume on nice paper and, just really put feelers out there to

see if I could do an internship anywhere.

And, so the one editor that wrote me back was Tucker Wiard at Murphy

Brown, the original Murphy Brown.

It was still going in the late nineties.

So this was early '97 and he is originally from Lansing and went to MSU and his

mom still lived in Holland at the time.

So that's one of the main reasons he even made the time to reach out.

So he said, yeah, we can do an internship.

It's going to be unpaid, kind of an apprenticeship where I'm

just learning, but it was great.

It got me out to LA and that's my start.

Randy Strobl: That is so interesting and, so had you been to LA before, or was

that, you know, kind of like the first time you'd ever even thought of that?

Mary Graff Ashley: No, I mean, I had been to LA in the eighties and I flew

out when I was like 14 and went to an old eighties show that's I guess a

little bit like Glee, but for young kids, because it had all popular songs in it.

Kids Incorporated.

And it has a lot of future actor stars that started out on that one.

So I just flew out to, actually as a fan, to be in the audience on that show.

So yeah, I never thought of this before as part of my career journey, but

when I first got to LA and went to my internship, this Kids Incorporated.

poster was on the wall.

So this post house I was in had cut the show.

So that was just a funny moment where I thought, okay, I'm in the

right place, doing the right thing.

Cause it was just something a show I used to be jazzed about, and then they

had cut it there and the, the poster was still on the wall in that time, because

the show had ended in the early nineties, long after I had stopped watching it.

But, yeah, the editor of the show was still there.

And, later a close friend of mine grabbed that poster for me out

of the closet that no one wanted.

Randy Strobl: We're taking a short break to tell you about the Chuck

Peterson Memorial Fellowship.

The fellowship was established by Chuck Peterson's family and friends to assist

the upper level students in the film and video program at GVSU, who are working

on creative projects that support the nonprofit sector in their community.

Kyle Macciome the 2020 recipient of that fellowship describes the

benefits of the support he received.

Kyle Macciome: When going through this fellowship, there are three separate

parts of yourself that I think get to experience a lot of development.

The first is as a student, because this is a learning process.

You get to learn how to work with a client on your own independently,

out in the world, away from the classroom, like you would in

something like producing for clients.

And the second one would be as a video maker, as a video producer, as someone

who has respect for the work that they're doing and wants to improve on

themselves and produce a final product that can be used out in the real world.

And then the third one would be as a citizen.

You know, you're not making video for an entertainment value or for some

kind of commercial purpose, it's for a non-profit it's for a direct benefit

in your community and being a citizen of that community, understanding how

you can directly impact and improve it, is a really valuable experience that

I think the fellowship teaches you to be as, as a student, as a filmmaker

and as a citizen, all three of those things are directly a part of this

process that you get to learn and ask yourself, how do I want to be seen?

And how do I want to act as these three roles?

Randy Strobl: For more information and to donate to the scholarship, visit the link

in the description now back to the show.

So throughout your career, you've been on a lot, a lot of productions

and, and hopefully we were able to cover a lot of those today.

I mean, you've worked at a couple different companies.

You've been freelance.

What are some things you can tell us about the industry maybe, you

know, difference between freelance and staff work, things like that?

Mary Graff Ashley: Mainly, the difference is security versus

freedom and, health benefits and 401k versus paying into your own future.

And then it depends what type of company, like I've been at trailer

house I've been at promo houses.

I've been at places that only do behind the scenes or maybe they do both.

So it depends, you know, do you enjoy coming back onto the same projects?

If you're on staff, they'll just keep giving him more and more and more

shows or movies or projects, there's always stuff that needs to be done.

Whereas freelance, you're free to make your own schedule and travel when you

want and take the jobs when they're available, hopefully, and apply for

certain ones that you want to get and, work with people you want to work with.

So, there's pros and cons either way.

Yeah, just all different opportunities.

And I've worked at actually so many different places by choice that it's

probably different from someone that had a very clear, straightforward career path,

who may be like a close friend of mine, just worked at the one trailer house.

And then he's been at Disney this whole time because he loves it.

That's what he wants.

That's what he does, and I, I actually like variety.

I love moving around and doing all kinds of different projects.

And right now I just love security.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Mary Graff Ashley: So you can, I mean, it's just easier to have a more set

schedule at the same place where I am now.

Randy Strobl: Definitely.

Let's talk a little bit about the career path there.

We've got a question from Facebook here.

Elisa asks, um, do you have any advice for editors just

starting out in their careers?

So now you're at Disney and ABC, right?

So what do you see there?

New people in their careers?

people just starting out?

Mary Graff Ashley: Good question.

It depends if you're saying how to start out when you've already gotten

the job or if you're looking for them.

But I know they have an internship program at ABC that

I didn't know everything about.

We just had three or four interns start and I know a lot of the other coworkers

I have now started out there as interns.

So they just want to find people that they're going to keep and

a lot of companies do that.

So that's the best way to just get your foot in the door any way you

can, even if it's an area you don't want to do, or you're not going to

end up doing that, just try it out.

Every job is an opportunity for experience and knowledge.

Randy Strobl: Yeah, definitely.

Do you, do you have a demo reel, like of all this different

stuff that you've put together?

Is that something that is a tool for you?

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, I have, I have just some clips and in

the Vimeo page I sometimes send.

I mean, I've been lucky that I often have so many contacts that people

really want to go with someone they know or someone that's referred.

So, that will definitely help to have a nice website, and to show that you kind

of, they can kind of see who you are and, kind of get a sense of the kind of

cutting style and the work that you do.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Okay.

So that's, that's great advice.

So thanks Elisa for that question.

Over the course of your career, what have you seen change in the industry in terms

of either technology or even positions?

Right.

So are, have assistants been the same and things like that?

Yeah.

So what have you seen change?

Mary Graff Ashley: Everything.

So, yeah, I mean, when I started, well at Grand Valley, we were on a

Media 100, learning that, so that felt really new to do nonlinear editing.

And then--

Randy Strobl: What is a Media 100?

Mary Graff Ashley: That's nonlinear editing, similar to Premiere and Avid.

So that was just another brand.

I don't know what it would be similar to today.

Suzanne Zack could tell you.

So I learned that, a few classes before graduating and then coming out

to LA, everything was on Avid, and Avids were humongous and took up like a

small room, and there'd be a humongous R-MAG that was, could carry three

gigs that you'd have to put all these different ones in to get your media.

Insanity.

And now look at what our phones do.

Just insanity.

They do everything.

Randy Strobl: Yeah, that whole room is inside of one phone now, right?

Inside of one app, even.

Mary Graff Ashley: I mean the whole universe's room.

Randy Strobl: That's a good point.

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, and then, oh yeah.

So, things would evolve obviously in editing.

So then I ended up just being on Avid several years and then that one evolved.

And then a lot of companies move to Final Cut and now Premiere, but

coworkers, most people are always moving up, doing more interesting things.

Going from PA to assistant editor and then editor, depending on the path.

Sometimes they want to be producers.

And I'm actually in, you know, the whole marketing path, which

you never really think about in film school, but everything's

got to be advertised and sold.

Social media didn't exist when I started.

It's such a free, easy way to market things, but everything was on tape.

Even though we were cutting on Avid, everything went to three

quarter tape and we'd have to physically drive it over to Disney.

So that the execs could watch a 30-second spot.

It's kind of funny.

Randy Strobl: Not as fast as an email, huh?

Mary Graff Ashley: Right.

So, yeah, everything's digital and it's so handy for so many things.

So there's a lot more possibilities of, of job opportunities as well.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

I'm really curious about you, you were talking about cutting trailers.

How was it, cutting a trailer different than some of those

more long form pieces we saw?

What do you look for when you make a trailer?

Mary Graff Ashley: It depends.

It depends on the whole marketing plan for the movie.

Even execs sometimes aren't sure and they'll try a bunch of

different routes and premises.

Sometimes you'll have to come up with the story for the movie to

tell it differently or tell it more, in a more exciting fashion.

Trailers are a lot more intense than TV promos.

So it's long hours.

It's really getting a sense of how the movie should be marketed.

And I haven't done a lot of big movie trailers.

There's a podcast of people who, who have.

Yeah, there's a podcast called Trailer Geeks and Teaser

Gods or something like that.

That's really cool.

. It's really for insiders, behind the scenes of the trailer industry.

But when I worked at trailer houses, I would cut, TV spots for

the films or help on trailers.

And yeah, it's hard to put it into words.

Randy Strobl: So things that I'm thinking of is, like, what do they

hand you to edit those TV spots?

Like what, what is the raw material you're working with?

Mary Graff Ashley: Well, we have the film and it will be in different stages.

So they'll send whatever the current state of the film is.

So when I started in 1997, it would be, the recent cut of the film.

And because with Avid, you had to put things in at a low resolution.

So there'd be just titles all over it, saying which company you're at

and ways to make, you know, everything was so low res, there wasn't so much

worry that things would be pirated, although that still could happen.

Everything was just in a super early state with a lot of X's over it.

And you just cut together from what you can sense it's going to be, like

animation would come often as drawings, sometimes Disney would start marketing

a whole year before, and then as the animation gets finished, it would come in.

So every month or so, there'd be a new version of the feature.

And then there's times when certain things you put in a trailer, you

know, won't even end up in the movie.

It'll get cut, but they still let it stay in the trailer.

So that's why that happens sometimes because you've been working with

it all this time and the clients like it and for some reason, the,

the filmmaker will take it out.

Randy Strobl: That is so interesting.

And I'd imagine that's even more fast paced when you're doing television stuff.

Some of those changes, I understand go pretty close to the air date.

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, it can.

Although there's not as much pressure and not as much weighing

on it because it's already a show.

So those spots go through faster.

There can be intensity in certain things they want to push to make

sure everyone knows about it.

And then there was extra pressure on Lost, of course, like a

high profile show like that.

But, generally, you work with a producer and they give you a script and you come

together collaboratively, come up with spots that kind of are done in more

like a week or less rather than maybe some trailers can take months to do.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

So, so you kinda, you get that footage and, within a couple of days you've

already got to start getting versions out.

What is that experience like for reality shows?

Mary Graff Ashley: For the one show I was on, More Than Human, a

bunch of us had different segments.

And so I think there was just a regular schedule.

I think, I think they were cutting a show once a week,

or maybe in a couple of weeks.

I can't recall because it was like 15 years ago, but we each would do a segment

and have our own little area doing it.

And then, we put it all together and send it, and see what the notes are.

Randy Strobl: I'm curious about what, what is that team dynamic?

So, when you're editing either with a, with a trailer house or

you're at ABC Disney now, what does that team, what positions

are there who's working with you?

Mary Graff Ashley: Again, it depends on the project, but usually

you have a creative producer and you'll collaborate with them.

Not always, a lot of times, editors are expected to do their own producing.

So it just depends, how they're doing it.

in some cases you'll get handed a script, whether it's for a promo or

a trailer or behind the scenes, or sometimes you'll not get anything and

you, pull together what you think is going to work and then show it to people.

And sometimes it, it's fine and they love it.

And sometimes then they start thinking about it and then you have to start over.

My favorite situations are when it's collaborative, like it's a good hybrid of

the two, you get to work on it yourself and feel what the materials should be.

But then you've got someone to check in with who's guiding you

and has a sense of it as well.

Randy Strobl: When you're working with these, these other teammates, what,

what is that dynamic usually like?

Are you working in the same room?

Is everybody, pretty collaborative or do egos clash?

What kind of a feel is it in, in those editing rooms?

Mary Graff Ashley: I've been in so many different editing rooms.

It depends.

Sometimes you're in a room late together and have to get something done.

They don't live in your room.

They...

I've been in a few places where there's a desk in the room for the

producer, but ideally they have their own office and they'll check in.

So it's hard to be, I don't mean to be nebulous, but it depends on

the gig and it depends how, I guess, whatever the producer knows, and

the boss and the whole layer of approval, it depends what they know.

Maybe they know info that you don't know, like who they need

to feature, and often they share that, but sometimes they forget.

What needs to be said, what the marketing brief is.

Yeah, every project is different.

It just evolves out of that space.

Randy Strobl: Hm.

What role does music play in, in the pieces that you put together?

When, when do you bring that into the process?

Is it always the same track?

What, you know, how do you work with music?

Mary Graff Ashley: Music is so integral, right?

For promos, often you can't spend much money on it.

So we have a whole library at ABC of library music, we call it or needle

drop that is already paid for or, someone gets a small royalty for it.

For trailers, there's a much bigger budget, so they can use regular songs

that you would know and you can just pay for those if you've got the budget.

Like for Bug's Life, I was there when the Disney client wanted to use The Who, Baba

O'Riley, and I think it cost 50 grand and blew the whole music budget on that.

But they buy it in perpetuity so they can use it for all the marketing.

Yeah, he always added classic rock songs.

Doing behind the scenes, you can often use the film score, like for

Lord of the Rings that worked well.

For Kong, it didn't work as well because there wasn't enough orchestral

stuff that could be underscored.

It was very intense from this feature.

So we were just, we were like, what do we do?

We need something else.

So the studio just sent us Waterworld that we could just use.

Randy Strobl: Really?

Mary Graff Ashley: They owned it, so in-- not in the production diaries,

but I also cut the Origin of Kong piece on the DVD, so you'll hear it

in that at least in the first one.

And it worked.

So I'm glad we had something to use.

Randy Strobl: I do have that Origin of Kong here.

You mind if we play a little bit of that and maybe talk about it?

Mary Graff Ashley: Sure.

Go for it.

Randy Strobl: Alright, so here it comes.

And so things that I'm going to be kind of curious about as we watch

this is, you know, what are some of the decisions you make, how did you

decide to order different things?

So here it comes.

Video: First time I saw the original Kong was in New Zealand on TV, Friday night.

And I would have been about eight or nine years old.

Uh, probably about 1970.

It was King Kong that actually started my, my love of fantasy and science fiction.

So before that, even though I'd been making little, super eight movies,

they were mainly World War II films.

And, uh, Kong was one of those defining moments in your life where

everything changed after I saw Kong.

For starters, you know, it gave me a real sense of what I wanted to do

as a career, which was filmmaking.

Randy Strobl: So, a lot of that footage there is, is his home movies, right?

That's stuff that he gave you?

Mary Graff Ashley: Yeah, I'm glad to be, had gotten involved

in Peter Jackson productions.

Cause he's basically always been doing his own behind the scenes of

himself and he has more shots of him as a kid trying to make King Kong.

I mean, that's what this piece is about.

Yeah, so he sent us these photos.

Some of the previous footage he had already sent for one of his other

behind the scenes pieces for The Frighteners, and I think he, by 2005

or 2006, when we were cutting the special features, he didn't have any new

video to send us, but it still works.

It works well in there.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Is that, so and this was, you said 2005.

How has your, your process evolved since you were making this?

Do you feel like you've, changed how you work at all?

Mary Graff Ashley: Good question.

I'm pretty similar because I always put down, try to get all the audio in first.

I mean, I think a lot of people do that and it kind of goes without saying, but

I really just try to get the story down and then even music and sound effects.

I mean, sound effects can go last, but it just helps to know

what you're hearing, and then you just do all your B roll coverage.

So really just, it's really just having, the best interview clips of

Peter Jackson telling his own story.

I mean, he really does it for you.

There's a few different interviews from him in this piece that

we used kind of all of it.

And this last interview didn't come in 'til last.

So we weren't sure how it was going to get started.

So there were just different stages of the interview process where my boss

would ask him different questions.

So luckily we got this last and then it intros this whole time of his life.

His whole story.

Randy Strobl: When you do these pieces, you'd mentioned that there's

a producer you work with that always likes to put in classic rock music.

Do you feel like you have a style, um, are there like certain Mary Graff

Ashley-isms that, you can say, oh, that's, that's a piece of my work?

Mary Graff Ashley: I don't know, I love so many different kinds of music.

I, I kinda like slower storytelling, I guess that would be my, my vibe,

which worked for Peter Jackson.

He just likes to tell the story.

It didn't need to be flashy or over the top.

So, I don't know.

I just try to see what feels right.

And if it feels like it's the right pace, then I do it that way.

Randy Strobl: That's very interesting.

I appreciate you sharing that.

One of my last questions here as we wrap up, do you have any, just, just

really funny stories from working on stuff or, you know, times where you're

down to a deadline and, you know, great, great hero moments or anything?

Mary Graff Ashley: I mean, on the Production Diaries, that we did in New

Zealand, it was just a couple of us in a room with some laptops, really.

So it was so low tech, but it was a week long process for each one.

And we'd have to figure out what stories we could tell at the beginning of the

week, cut it together, show it to our boss, maybe Thursday and then Friday,

it would go on the website, right?

So there were times that, our boss wasn't able to look at it

until Thursday or Friday and then, then decide what he wanted to do.

And then we'd have to spend the next 36 hours just making it happen.

Uh, yeah, I did a whole 24 hour shift.

That was just one time that happened.

There's been other times.

My coworker was actually there longer than me.

He was there 36 hours.

So, but it felt at the time when you're young and you're in another

country, you just feel like it's kind of exciting, but also couldn't

we have done it like on Tuesday?

Randy Strobl: Well, Mary, thank you so much for being here.

It really is an honor.

I've seen, like I said, so much of your work and I'm maybe your biggest fan.

So I really appreciate seeing you and getting to talk through some of your work.

Mary Graff Ashley: Thanks for having me on your show.

Randy Strobl: Thanks.

And for everybody else out there, Alumni Live is on Facebook

and YouTube, and if you want to subscribe, we'd appreciate that.

And we'll have lots of other alumni coming out here to talk about their

process and ways to get in the industry.

So thanks everybody.

Mary Graff Ashley: Subscribe.

Randy Strobl: Subscribe.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Alumni Live the Podcast.

Subscribe to our podcast to hear more from our alumni across the industry.

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Let us know what topics you want to hear our alumni talk about.

The Grand Valley State University Film Video Alumni Network is here for

you, and we're glad that you're here.

Thank you for listening.