Alumni Spotlight: Tom Cabela (Film Studies '01), editor and VFX editor

Tom Cabela poses in his office backed with editing software and equipment for 47 Ronin

March 4, 2016

Tom Cabela was one of the first film studies majors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the late 1990s, and has since gone on to a stellar career in Hollywood, with great personal and professional success. 

Interested in film since childhood, Cabela started making his own films in while attending Lincoln Southeast High School, where he helped found Southeast's first film program. He soon realized he wanted to pursue a career in filmmaking, and decided to come to UNL after graduating.

Cabela joined the film studies program at UNL, where Professors Gwendolyn Audrey Foster and Wheeler Winston Dixon helped shape the way he viewed and analyzed cinema. They also helped prepare him for the rigors of the industry and in finding his own artistic voice.

"Professor Foster was always so encouraging and supportive, and really helped shape me intellectually and as a person," says Cabela. "Thanks to her I was one step ahead on post-modern and feminist film theory when I got to the University of California. Professor Dixon also helped prepare me for the demands and high expectations of the industry. His lessons have always held me in good stead."

After graduating from UNL in 2001, Cabela moved to Santa Cruz and completed the production program at UCSC. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked briefly for production designer Jennifer Williams. Williams introduced him to a friend, Oscar nominated editor Peter Honess, who soon hired Cabela as a Post Production Assistant.

Honess and his team trained Cabela, got him into the union, and brought him up to assistant editor. As a part of that team, Cabela worked on films like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Aeon Flux, and Poseidon. He also worked on Blades of Glory, Get Smart, and Red Dawn under editor Richard Pearson. Eventually he went to work for James Cameron's company C.P.G., where Cameron and his partner Vince Pace trained him as a stereo (3D) picture specialist. There, he worked on Transformers 3, Sin City 2, Walking with Dinosaurs, Cirque Du Soleil, and others.

However, the 3D "bubble" soon burst, and he found himself looking for work elsewhere. His background in 3D/VFX as well as editorial made VFX Editing a perfect fit. Since becoming a VFX Editor, Cabela's editing and visual effects work has appeared in Entourage the Movie and the new Todd Phillips film War Dogs.

He continues to make his own films, which have shown at festivals like Mill Valley, Sarasota, and South by Southwest. You can view samplings of his work on Vimeo. But for Cabela, this is only the beginning. "Who knows what the future holds?" Cabela wonders. "The possibilities are limitless." 

Professors Dixon and Foster write, "Tom Cabela is a perfect example of the fact that you can get a foothold in the industry if you study hard, work hard, make the most of opportunities that open up for you, and make a path for yourself. Tom is yet another Film Studies success story, and we're proud and happy that he's gone on to such great accomplishments. Bravo!"