He is best known as the editor of the surreal mystery film Innocence (directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović), and for his multi-screen editing for filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien.
A lyrical “fantasia”[2] of ‘amour fou’ in the American south, the film was conceived as a cinematic triptych, shot in part with three laterally mounted cameras and intended to be shown in a gallery as three adjacent synchronised projections.
At the time, there was little precedent for editing synchronised multi-screen drama; the form had lain dormant since 1927 when Abel Gance's experiments with so-called Polyvision in his film Napoléon ran aground.
For The Long Road to Mazatlán, Finch and Julien worked on an innovative film form; in his words: "We developed a lexicon and a syntax for that kind of parallel montage".
Since then they have developed and expanded these early montage experiments in a body of work spanning more than 20 years and more than 20 films; in Julien's words: "Slowly the multiple screens have become our gateway into a more complete and more immersive kind of environment.