Meet August Freirich | Editor, Producer, and Conqueror

We had the good fortune of connecting with August Freirich and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi August, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
A positive attitude and just consistent applied pressure towards my growth and goals. I try to look at difficult situations and challenging tasks as opportunities to learn. I’ve read that a lot of times people who seem to mysteriously have this overnight success are really people that have quietly developed their skills over years of work and when there’s an opportunity they’re able to just rise to the moment. So I believe in keeping my head down and focusing on the work so I’m able to rise to the occasion when opportunities come my way.

Early on I realized that interpersonal skills make a huge difference in Post – the ability to make a creative feel like their project is in good hands, and communicating and exploring the project with them from a place with no ego is far more important than the technical side of things.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I came up in the digital world, editing on Snapchat’s biggest original series. That lead to a stint revamping the post production approach at First Media, when I started creatives were editing off of SD Cards (Never do that) and when I left the team was a well-oiled machine. I leveraged those experiences to cut series for Facebook, Youtube, Snap and more. Probably the most notable show I worked on was Cardi Tries, a docuseries for FB starring Cardi B. That show got me into the Editor’s guild and ran for a couple seasons, it did quite well.

I remember when I started cutting the show I was pretty intimidated – I was easily the youngest person in the production team, even one of the assistant editors was in his late 40s with white hair. It’s easy to have impostor syndrome when you’re The episode they gave me to edit, Cardi Tries Ballet, was really challenging – the dance scenes had classical music playing underneath that was baked into the mixer audio, so as I’m editing this scene I’m doing this incredibly complex dance to make sure the music still flows correctly as the story and comedy of the episode unfold. The episode was meant to air second, but the network ended up loving my work so much that they wanted to push it up as the premiere episode of the show, which was a major compliment and real validation for me.

I think the lesson I take away from that experience is that challenges only become problems when you give up. So many times in my career I’ve faced what felt like unfair or impossible situations and made the quiet choice to just tackle it head on and make it work, and I’ve been rewarded again and again for that mindset.

The industry slowed down early last year right when I was planning on making a shift into narrative work. Instead of being discouraged I just kept applying pressure and picked up an assist gig. That lead to another assistant editing gig on a feature film for Disney, which was a huge career milestone for me, and that has lead to my current project, an upcoming FX show where I’ll be credited as an additional editor on one of the episodes. I’m excited to be easing my way into narrative, which was my ultimate goal when I moved to LA a decade ago.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Any visitor to LA needs to experience 3 things: our food, our culture, and our nature. The Huntington Gardens is probably my favorite place in LA, and I think the Getty Villa is probably my favorite museum since it pairs nicely with a beach day. For an actual beach day I actually prefer Laguna Beach, it’s worth the drive. On the weekends I tend to love a walk up the Culver City Steps to explore the park up in that area.

Food? Well Porto’s is an LA staple, but I really think you have to eat a lot of tacos to really appreciate LA’s food culture. My favorite place is Angel’s Tijuana Tacos – my roommate and I joke that my “diet” is just seeing how long I can go in between visits to Angel’s. For Ramen I actually like this spot in Ktown – Slurpin Ramen. Recently a friend of mine took me out to Alhambra to try a restaurant called Chengdu Taste, and I think that’s my #1 meal in recent memory.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The hard part is narrowing it down to just one, so many people have been impactful in my life and career. If I have to choose, I would go with my friend Michael Weinreich. I first worked with Michael on a Snapchat show many years ago as his assistant, and over the years that relationship has grown from boss to mentor to producing partner and dear friend. Few people understand editing and post production in the way Michael does – every time I work with him I feel a little bit like I’m back in college taking another course.

Website: https://augustfreirich.com

Instagram: @afreirich

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/august-freirich/