A panther has taken down the Titanic, and Michael Shawver ’07<\/strong> is among those responsible.<\/p>\n That’s right. The URI grad co-edited “Black Panther,” the futuristic superhero flick that has surpassed “Titanic” in earnings, making it the third-highest-grossing film in North American history. “Black Panther” is Shawver’s fourth collaboration with superstar director Ryan Coogler.<\/p>\n Shawver said Kristine Cabral’s<\/a> communication studies<\/a> classes at the Harrington School<\/a> laid the foundation for his approach to storytelling. \u201cI learned I could evoke emotion in people. I learned how to find the truth in every moment,\u201d he said. \u201cI use what I learned at URI every day.\u201d<\/p>\n A year after graduation, Shawver enrolled in the University of Southern California and soon thereafter began editing classmate Coogler\u2019s student films. While other student filmmakers were making movies about death or breakups, Coogler was tackling issues of race and society. \u201cI went up to him and said, `You\u2019re making the kind of films I want to make\u2014movies that shift the paradigm. I want to do that,’\u201d Shawver recalled.<\/p>\n After the two collaborated on one of Coogler\u2019s student films, \u201cFig,\u201d which aired on HBO, Coogler offered Shawver the job of co-editing \u201cFruitvale Station,\u201d which won 39 awards including Sundance\u2019s Grand Jury Prize. \u201cCreed\u201d was next and earned Sylvester Stallone an Oscar nomination. And then came \u201cBlack Panther.\u201d<\/p>\n Shawver, who\u2019d been studying directing at USC, had to learn much of editing on the job.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s been my career: getting a chance and having to figure it out,\u201d Shawver said. \u201cWhat I showed [Coogler] is that I was willing to do everything it took for him to achieve his vision.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not unusual for Coogler to hand Shawver eight hours of film to be whittled down to a three-minute scene. \u201cIt\u2019s like putting the puzzle together, but you don\u2019t have the picture on the box,\u201d Shawver said. \u201cBut (Coogler) trusts my opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy. I\u2019m the luckiest person in the industry,\u201d Shawver said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A panther has taken down the Titanic and film editor Michael Shawver ’07<\/strong> is among those responsible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":5192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,8,12],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-profile","category-front-page-big-thinkers","category-news","tag-communication-studies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}