Editors – Ahmed Hafez, Joan Sobel ACE and Cedric Nairn-Smith
Marvel’s MOON KNIGHT editing team brought together their diverse background of experiences and talents to deliver a truly new take on what a superhero series can be. Working together for the first time, they overcame the challenge of collaborating over great distances, with editor Joan Sobel working from home in Los Angeles and editors Ahmed Hafez and Cedric Nairn-Smith both in Budapest, but still mostly separate from one another.
MOON KNIGHT follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Through those visions, Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with a mercenary named Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
AHMED HAFEZ
With an extensive career spanning more than 20 years full of local and international works in the film industry, Egyptian film editor Ahmed Hafez has presented the final cuts of over 20 films and edited numerous TV commercials and music videos. Hafez started his editing career with many TV commercials and music videos. He won 12 local and international awards for his work in six films. Hafez received international acclaim for his work in CLASH (2016) by director Mohamed Diab, which opened the Un Certain Regard section at the 69th Cannes Film Festival. American film critic Deborah Young described his editing style as “rapid-fire editing” in her Clash Cannes review in The Hollywood Reporter. For his work in Clash, Hafez received three awards at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), Cairo Film Society Festival and the Egyptian National Film Festival.
JOAN SOBEL ACE
Editor Joan Sobel ACE made her first foray into tv editing with MOON KNIGHT. Up until then it had all been feature work as both an assistant on films such as; BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997), ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (2000) and KILL BILL: Vol. 1 & 2 (2003-2004). From there she went on to work as an editor on NOCTURNAL ANIMALS (2016), WIDOWS (2018) and THE RHYTHM SECTION (2020).
CEDRIC NAIRN-SMITH
In addition to his work on MOON KNIGHT, Cedric is known for his work as an editor on; THE BOYS (2019-2020), LISEY’S STORY (2021) and BATES MOTEL (2015-2017).
Editing Marvel’s MOON KNIGHT
In our discussion with Marvel’s MOON KNIGHT editing team, we talk about:
- Breaking away from the MCU and starting fresh
- The onboarding process for a Marvel editor
- Replacing the Marvel theme with needle drops
- Remote collaboration between Budapest and LA
- The importance of push-ups in the editing room
The Credits
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