The Work That Made Me: Rebecca Luff
Rebecca discovered her love for editing at a young age through contemporary dance. After landing a job on reception at edit company Final Cut, she knew she’d found her path and quickly developed her talent, earning her first best editing nomination at the UKMVA's whilst still on reception.
Her career continued from strength to strength, honing her edit skills while working at tenthree and Cut&Run. She has developed long standing relationships with directors including MJ Delaney, Max Fisher, Liz Murphy and Fern Berresford and has worked on many worldwide campaigns for brands such as Amazon, Samsung, Singapore Airlines, and Women's Aid.
Rebecca is now happy to call WORK her edit home and is represented by them globally. She is based in London.
LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Rebecca> Growing up in the '80s /'90s it was a really rich time creatively so it’s hard to just to pick one. But Rolo ‘Elephant’ is one that definitely stuck with me, starts off cute, ends cheeky and funny with a big life lesson for a kid! What’s not to love…
LBB>The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Rebecca> We didn’t have MTV in our house growing up, so seeing Missy Eliot -‘Get Ur Freak On’ at a friends house when I was 15 blew my mind. It was just so captivating in every way, the music, choreography, and edit. I was already cutting my own films to project behind my dance performances, so I had an interest in juxtapositon and musicality and this let me see that there was a commercial world for that and something I could pursue …
LBB> The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting…
Rebecca> Arrival directed by Denis Villeneuve - I love the storytelling and concept of this film. Editorially it’s one of my favourite films and the type of thing that drives me towards cutting features.
LBB> My first professional project…
I was a receptionist at Final Cut at the time and Tim Mattia had this video that he trusted me to cut. It’s still one of my favourite projects to have worked on, its made up completely of stills, I found it so much fun animating every frame to bring the sequences to life and make them dance musically. It also got nominated for best editing at the UKMVAs so I was very lucky that my first professional project was so successful and one that I hold dear to my heart.
LBB> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that still makes me jealous…
Rebecca> All of Juan Cabral’s work! Imagine getting to cut his rushes, his work is so imaginative and surprising, he pushes the creative so far.
Here’s one I’m jealous of…Ikea ‘Beds’. Excuse the pun but it’s so dream like, surprising, and the world is so big! Enjoy…
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
Rebecca> It’s hard to solo one project as the career changing moment, you learn something from every project and all of them have contributed to where I am now.
I’d say Singapore Airlines directed by Liz Murphy. Huge global campaign, shot across five countries, over a span of 30 days with hours of roaming footage. The launch of it happened globally over the Super Bowl weekend in New York Times Square, Hachiko Square in Tokyo, Ion in Singapore, Los Angeles Times building and Piccadilly Circus in London.
Liz’s beautiful way of directing allows the talent space to have real unguarded moments, so cutting this volume of footage down into its most authentic moments while keeping true to the beautiful script from TBWA Singapore was a great editorial challenge and one that I really enjoyed. The whole team were so amazing to work with too…
LBB> The work that I’m proudest of…
Rebecca> Again, tough to choose just one as there are lots of projects I feel proud to have been part of. But Women’s Aid ‘World’s Strongest Women’ directed by Fern Berresford has to be up there. Powerful creative idea, important message, and with Fern’s incredible directing vision it was a real honour to be part of the team that brought this to life…
