[1] Schmidt had an extended collaboration with director Robert Zemeckis from the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990) to Cast Away (2000).

[2] Schmidt was born in Los Angeles on June 17, 1937, the son of film editor Arthur P. Schmidt;[3] it is said that the son's education in editing began when he watched his father editing the film Sunset Boulevard (1950).

Schmidt received the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Forrest Gump (1994).

In addition to these Oscars, Schmidt has won several "Eddies" from the American Cinema Editors for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (with Craig Wood and Stephen E. Rivkin, 2003), Forrest Gump, and for a television special The Jericho Mile (1979).

[6] Schmidt died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, on August 5, 2023, at the age of 86.