Header Image: Damon Claussen during his time in Film Club at Cal Poly.

Damon Claussen (Graphic Communication, ‘96) has worked as an editor in Hollywood for more than 20 years, cutting unscripted shows, promos, trailers, and behind-the-scenes special features for tv, films, and agencies, and just wrapped cutting a feature-length documentary.

He grew up in Burbank and his father was a publicist representing various celebrities and television shows. It was almost natural that as a kid he picked up a Super 8 film camera and started making stop-motion short films in his backyard.

“I loved stop-frame animation. I was a huge fan of Gumby. Loved Will Vinton’s portfolio of work, especially his character ‘The Noid’.  The ability to tell a story, that's what I love.”

Claussen wanted an education focused on the creative side of business such as advertising and marketing. He attended Cuesta College before transferring to Cal Poly as a business major. After taking some classes, he realized the courses for a marketing degree were not satisfying his creative itch and soon transferred to the Graphic Communication Department (GRC).

“GRC offered a business element blended with technology, which connected with me.  I took all the classes I needed to, but really it was the auxiliary connections that I made at Poly that fostered the direction where I'm at now.”

Those connections were formed through his involvement in the Cal Poly Film Club and with an informal group of students who bonded around creating video games.

"I found my people with two different groups. One was the Cal Poly Film Club, who were all closet film school students and shared this love not just for watching films, but for storytelling and creating fun shorts. It was this little community of misfit filmmakers. I was also a huge gamer at the time and was involved with a small but talented group of five or six students who were building a video game. And some of them eventually went on to work for ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and LucasArts.”

He fondly recalls his time on campus with his friends, shooting videos, working the club booth to recruit other film fanatics, and even hosting an underground screening of the Star Wars trilogy on the rooftop of Agriculture Sciences, Building 11. After graduation he was hired for his first job, which happened to be on campus, building content for interactive CD-ROMs and educational videos. That was where he had his first taste of editing.

“That job showed me how to edit with higher-end equipment, still very old equipment, but higher end than the SVHS student edit booths in the AV Department. I learned a bunch just by doing it. You know, that's the Cal Poly way.”

After returning to LA and working on a few different projects, Claussen soon collaborated with a client out of Santa Barbara who was a former second unit director on Baywatch with connections in Hollywood. Claussen worked with him on a variety of documentary/reality shows for networks like The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, TLC, History, and The Food Network. This led to other gigs, editing promos, trailers, and what he enjoyed most, behind-the-scenes special features for Warner Bros. & DC Animated Universe.

“If you buy a Blu-ray or download a season pass of a tv series like ‘The Flash’, ‘Superman & Lois,’ or ‘Arrow’, all the extras content, all those featurettes, that's what I edited. Those were fun because they were more cerebral. We had access to the stars of the shows, but also dug deep with questions to the writers, producers, art dept, showrunners, about the characters, story arcs and subversive topics. Fans really connected with that content.”

Recently, he connected with a longtime producer friend with whom he has worked with on several shows for the Smithsonian Channel. This time it was for a project for the visitor's center of Redwood National and State Park, which led to a much larger project, a full-length feature documentary that Claussen has edited called “Giants Rising”. It’s a film about the secrets & superpowers of redwood trees,” and recently premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and continues to receive accolades on its festival circuit.

“I'm really proud of how it came out. I was present for a couple of screenings and heard from some audience members who were incredibly moved by it. And that's hugely rewarding, to contribute to something that has impact and takeaway,” he said.

Claussen admitted he has been lucky to have worked steadily over the years in his chosen profession, but it has not been without its ups and downs. He explained that recent changes and disruptions in the entertainment industry, including mergers, strikes, and the rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence) may lead to more adjustments in the future.

" AI is changing every facet of every part of the industry, not just in TV and film, but in creative, engineering, even accounting. It's an interesting time and it's moving quickly so we must be open, malleable, and ready," he said.

Even though Claussen ultimately didn’t pursue a career directly in his field of study, he still credits his time at Cal Poly as formative and essential to his career path as an editor.

“I truly believe that the best way to approach so many things is just to get in and start doing it and working with it,” he said.  “Because theory is great. But hands-on, nothing beats that.”