Heidi Saman (Editor: Seen)

THE MAGAZINE'S THE THING

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When you chat with a filmmaker who has become a magazine editor you start to note the parallels between filmmaking and magazine making that you never considered before. Ok, that I hadn’t considered before.

The relationship between editors and art directors, and the relationship between a director and cinematographer, well, that’s actually almost the same thing. Editors and writers. Editors and actors. Copy editors and film editors. On and on. It’s uncanny.

Seen is a magazine about the art of film and filmmaking that comes from BlackStar Projects, home of an annual film festival in Philadelphia and a creative space that “uplifts the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists.” Seen grew out of the program notes for the festival and it is everything cinema magazines used to be: thorough, intellectually stimulating, challenging. 

Heidi Saman, the editor, trained as a film maker and then worked at Fresh Air for over a decade. She doesn’t come from the magazine world. But she’s a storyteller. And after you listen to our chat, you, too, will see, perhaps, that making a magazine is a lot like making a movie.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

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