Pietro Scalia | |
---|---|
Born |
Catania, Sicily, Italy |
March 17, 1960
Residence | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Film editor |
Spouse(s) | Teresa Sparks |
Children | 3 |
Pietro Scalia (born March 17, 1960) is an Italian-American film editor.
He was born in Catania (Sicily), but later he moved to Switzerland with his parents and attended Swiss-German schools until high school. After graduation, he decided to move to the United States to pursue his college education. He spent two years at the University at Albany, The State University of New York, after which he was accepted as an undergraduate at UCLA. The Swiss government's scholarship helped him through five years of UCLA and in 1985 he earned his Master of Fine Arts from the UCLA Film School.
After his MFA, a couple of short films, a screenplay, two video documentaries, and a 16 mm thesis film, he returned to Europe to pursue his desire to become a film director. Shortly afterwards, he returned to United States on a work visa to pursue his career in Hollywood as a film editor. He began as an editor on Andrei Konchalovski's Shy People. Later, he received an assistant editor position working with Oliver Stone. However, it was not easy to get the job. Scalia admired Oliver Stone's work, especially Salvador, so he decided he wanted to work with that director. He got a contact through the sister of one of the assistant editors. Scalia worked on such films as Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988). He later continued as an associate editor on Born on the Fourth of July and as an additional editor on The Doors.