Christopher Bove, BA '97

From Matchbox cars to Spielberg

Film editor Christopher Bové, BA’97, shot his first movie when he was just 7.  Sneaking his mother’s 8 mm camera from her dresser drawer, the aspiring filmmaker carefully staged an elaborate chase scene using Matchbox cars, with high-tech equipment that included a tripod made of pillows and a skateboard for motion shots.  The experience cemented Bové’s love of the craft while also providing an invaluable lesson:  “It was a few weeks later that I learned that cameras needed film in them to work,” laughs Bové.  His career has come a long way since that first failed effort.  Now a staff editor at Buffalo’s public television station, WNED, and freelance editor of independent films, his work airs nationally on PBS, is seen at international film festivals, and has won many awards. His resume even includes work for Steven Spielberg.

Wonderfully creative time

As a teenager, Bové worked behind the counter at his father’s video rental store.  More accurately, his father worked while Bové watched movies all day.  “Sure I was a lazy kid,” admits Bové, “but I ended up developing a critical eye for the filmmaking process.” 

So when the West Seneca, NY native graduated from Erie Community College, majoring in media study at UB was an obvious choice.  “UB had facilities like the Center for the Arts,” Bové says, “and the teaching staff was made up of professionals who were currently working in their field.  One of my film professors flew in every Monday morning from New York City.”  A commuter while at UB, Bové says of his undergraduate years, “To this day I miss the 18-hour days and nights on the editing machines, the support and camaraderie of my fellow students, even the gallons of coffee and chicken soup from the vending machines.  It was a wonderfully creative time.”

Bové believes that he also benefited from the size and diversity of the media study department and its students.  Initially undecided on a specific career, Bové took nearly every class in the major, ending up with two full concentrations in 16 mm filmmaking and video documentary production.  “It quickly became clear that any artistic education is best served with a larger peer group to critique your work,” Bové says.  “My graduating class was the most diverse crowd I’ve ever worked with, and having an open, unrestricted dialogue with them opened my eyes to exactly how much I didn’t know.  I strived to do better.”
 

An exercise in artistic expression

While still at UB Bové worked as a freelance editor in Buffalo, eventually landing a part-time studio job at WNED.  Within a couple of years he had risen through the ranks and was working on national projects for PBS.  Bové says he absolutely loves being an editor and that, on one level, his job is “to take some film or video footage, remove all the bad parts and arrange what’s left into some kind of story.” 

National edits are a more complex team effort, requiring collaboration – and sometimes dissention – between many artists, Bové says.  During the process an editor takes on multiple roles.  “I need to be as much the film’s surgeon as its psychologist.  I need to be a student of the director’s ideas and a mentor of my own,” Bové says. “It is an exhilarating exercise in artistic expression.”

Notable projects on Bové’s resume include Driven to Play, a documentary on the North American Rock Guitar Competition; Fort Niagara, an Emmy-nominated documentary; and Polonia, an award-winning documentary which studies the Polish population of Western New York.  Bové also does freelance editing from home as well as consulting for independent films destined for national and international festivals.

Professional joy

Bové’s latest project, an intense six-month edit of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo, is also the one of which he is most proud.  This national PBS documentary examines the friendship between the renowned architect and his Buffalo-based financial backer and client, Darwin D. Martin.  “Many historical documentaries are too busy describing detailed events in a timeline and never get the chance to delve beneath the surface,” Bové says.  “This one taps into the emotional core of these characters and allows the events to act merely as the backdrop.  The chance to tell such an intellectual, yet emotional, story has been a professional joy.”

Bové lives with his wife, who also works at WNED, and their infant daughter in South Buffalo, which he calls “a great place to push a baby stroller.”  He visits UB’s North Campus frequently since graduation, most notably for the North American Rock Guitar Competition.  Bové edits the videos played at the annual competition, and he appreciates the opportunity to see these pieces screened in front of a live audience.  “There is not a better condition than to see first-hand the audience’s responses to my work,” Bové says.  “If they laugh at the right times, I know I’ve done the job well.”

Written by Jessica Dudek, BA '94
October 2006

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