Chessé was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and received a bachelor's degree in English literature from San Francisco State University. He attended Ygnacio Valley High School in the SF/EastBay city of Concord graduating with the Class of 1984.
After college he was invited to relocate to Los Angeles to assist Peter Kagan, a director of commercials, at Stiefel and Co.. He next worked as an assistant to Angus Wall, an editor at the commercial editorial shop Rock, Paper, Scissors. Chessé became an editor under the tutelage of David Lee and Lauren Zuckerman.[1] His first project with Marc Forster was on the film Everything Put Together (2000), which led to their collaboration on the very successful film Monster's Ball (2001).
He has been nominated, for an Oscar in 2005: Best Achievement in Editing for Finding Neverland (2004), an Eddie in 2005: Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic for Finding Neverland (2004), and a Satellite Award in 2008: Best Film Editing for Quantum of Solace (2008) which he shared with: Richard Pearson)[3]
