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Catégorie : The Editors Cut

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The Editors Cut

Episode 083 – Wu-Tang: An American Saga with Marc Wiltshire

Episode 083 - Wu-Tang: An American Saga with Marc Wiltshire

In this episode Sarah Taylor, CCE sits down with editor Marc Wiltshire to discuss his editing career.

Marc Wiltshire is a TV and Film editor, passionate about storytelling. Most recently, he?s edited several episodes on season 3 of Hulu?s Wu-Tang: An American Saga, including the first-ever episode written and directed by co-creator The RZA, and season 2 of Peacock?s Bel-Air, including the season premiere and finale. As an editor, he is committed to making bold choices, protecting the story, and bringing the best version of the director’s vision to life.


Throughout his career, Marc has worked on an impressive list of acclaimed productions, including Emmy and Eddie award-winning Hacks, NAACP-nominated Our Kind of People, Lee Daniels? Star, the First Run Film Festival award-winner Oakland in Blue, and Fantasia Film Festival winner Bullshit.

Marc discovered his passion for editing while working on his first short film on a 16mm Steenbeck editing machine. While Marc pursued his MFA degree in Film & TV Production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, he wrote and directed several short films, including award-winner My Avatar, which premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival. Originally from Montreal, Canada, Marc has lived in Italy, Scotland, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

À écouter ici !

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 030 – ?What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown?

Sarah Taylor [00:00:01]

Hello and welcome to The Editor?s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. At the CCE, we began our journey of self education with Anti-Oppression training in 2019. It was invaluable for us as it provided us with tools to assess how we as an organization could set a course of action to root our unconscious and systematic bias in our operations. This training is now a permanent part of our budget so future board members and volunteers can continue this work, and equity can be part of the fabric of our organization. We are offering a Lunch and Learn Introduction To Anti Oppressive Communication with Tenniel Brown on July 27. Today I’m lucky to be able to sit down with Tenniel Brown and discuss what Anti-Oppressive training is and what we can expect from this webinar. Tenniel Brown is a passionate anti-racist anti oppression and mental health speaker dedicated to improving the experiences of marginalized people in all institutional settings. She is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication which specializes in providing anti oppressive, trauma-informed counseling, clinical supervision and organizational consulting, as well as customized workshops training and team retreats. I’m joined with Tenniel Brown, she is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication based in Toronto. And we just want to have a little conversation about why anti oppression work is important in this and all days but specifically right now. So can you just tell us a little bit about your background and why you started the Center For Anti-Oppressive Communication.

Tenniel Brown [00:01:41]

My background is as a psychotherapist. So I spent I’ve spent many many years working with individuals and couples and families and groups helping them to access more of their well-being by addressing different mental health issues specifically trauma. One of the things that I specialize in addressing is racialized trauma. But also trauma that comes from folks that have experienced different types of oppression. And I think for most people that are called to this type of work it’s quite personal for me right. So often when you don’t see the work that you know needs to happen in the community taking place you create it. And so that was me. You know I think I saw that there was a need for organizations to have somebody come in and not just talk about diversity inclusion but talk about what happens when certain identities have power and that unbalance of power and how to actually address that in our communication. I knew that out in the community there were therapists and social workers that were wanting to do better work. You know work in the best practice way with clients that are black, racialized, queer, and trans, and had nowhere to go to get supervision and support. And finally I knew personally that there were so many folks that when they were ready to do therapy work they needed to see someone sitting across the office that looked like them or had a very similar lived experience and they just were not going to come unless that was the case. So all these things I knew was happening and nobody was doing it. And I said someone’s got to do something and that was me. I think what needs to come out of what’s happened in June is for folks to see black professionals and black community in in the in sort of like the the brilliance of what we do and it’s not uncommon that in many cases where we don’t see ourselves we create it. So yeah that was the spirit of and I think that when I started the organization I knew that it was important for there to be a place where folks from those different backgrounds could come and get that support and information. So it’s a real passion of mine. It is my baby and it’s so beautiful to see folks wanting this information during this time.

Sarah Taylor [00:04:01]

Yeah so important. Can you tell us what Anti-Oppression means and what someone can expect by taking an anti oppressive workshop?

Tenniel Brown [00:04:10]

Sure absolutely. So when you sort of break down the word anti oppression anti oppressive practice we take a look at that anti part and essentially that that just means opposition to oppression and then the practice part. So AOP? the practice part pertains to the context in which you are practicing opposition to oppression. So you can apply an anti oppressive lens to just about anything. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations like Pride Toronto and work with your curators to apply an anti-oppressive lens to the way they do event organizing. I have applied an anti oppressive lens to the way I do therapy and clinical supervision with other therapists. You can apply an anti oppressive lens to teaching. You can apply it to student advising, you can apply it to just about anything. I’ve been working with fitness professionals looking at applying an anti oppressive lens to the way that they support folks that are on their fitness journey. So so it’s about looking at whatever practice whatever context you are working in and using that platform to be able to oppose oppression and all of its forms. So that’s essentially what it is.

Sarah Taylor [00:05:29]

And so when someone takes courses like anti oppressive communication course or participates in your courses what can they expect to be talking about or learning?

Tenniel Brown [00:05:37]

Absolutely so I think one of the most important things is to sort of pull back a little bit of you know the cover on this because I think anti oppressive language is its own language. It’s like Spanish. And you see so many people getting themselves into some rather serious trouble these days because they actually don’t know the language they don’t understand? in some ways the harm of some of the things that they’re doing and saying the deep harm of that. You get a lot of people who don’t really know how to talk about these issues. And so you go into a shame spiral and you just don’t talk. You just get very quiet and I always argue that you know the silence piece is a part of how we got ourselves into this trouble as a human society in the first place. So what I offer is something for everybody. I think over the years what folks have said to me is is even somebody who’s maybe got a social work background and knows about anti oppressive practice when they come to one of my trainings they find that they are moved further along in their application of that perspective around ?OK, well what does this mean when I’m interacting with somebody right here in a one on one context.? Other people that are completely brand new have never had the chance to learn any of this language or understand any of these concepts have said over the years that they felt like they left with a really good sense of what this topic is. But not just that practical skills. I’m all about practical skills. I want to offer things that folks can use tomorrow today and the next day and my mission is also for folks to leave his training and talk about it. Tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell a family member, and feel equipped to be able to engage in these conversations. So when someone is saying or doing something problematic, you have this confidence in the skills to be able to interpret what’s going on there and to be able to talk to them and to be able to address it. The other thing that I do is I couch everything that I do in my trainings in a self care and team care perspective. And I think this is very important. We have to look after our emotions. We have to look after ourselves and we have to look after each other. I always say you could be as anti oppressive as you want but if you haven’t had any lunch? if you haven’t eaten anything? you’re not good.

Sarah Taylor [00:07:57]

You’ve got the hangries!

Tenniel Brown [00:07:59]

Trust me, Anti-Oppressive work requires patience. It requires empathy. It requires compassion and self compassion. You will fall down a lot and I find you know and I talk a lot about cancel culture and don’t get me wrong really that could be its own podcast.

Sarah Taylor [00:08:19]

Totally. Especially in this industry.

Tenniel Brown [00:08:22]

Look we need to talk about this and I get why certain people are being canceled for sure. And yet as someone who does this work I recognize that I’m so thankful I wasn’t canceled because over the years I’ve done and said things before I knew before I took a course like this before I had an opportunity to learn what was problematic about my lens. I’m so thankful that I was able to make those mistakes in a safe environment and actually benefit from that and grow. So people get a safe environment to learn language and understand what is going on, what is oppression, if oppression is so bad why don’t we just stop this. Well I unpack that for folks. Why is this so complicated and why doesn’t this just stop. And then I provide practical skills for folks to be able to apply this to their lives and their communication. I think the other thing that I think folks get is not just sort of a general whatever, you’ll find that I’m really interested in applying it to film editors and what it is that you do on a regular basis and looking at how you can use your platform to be able to actually oppose oppression.

Sarah Taylor [00:09:31]

Yeah well it’s like it’s huge I know for myself we did anti oppression workshop as a board for the CCE. I’m in an interracial marriage and so I thought ?Oh I know a lot.? Like I’ve been unpacking this stuff for a while and understanding in my own way. But also like kind of like how do I say it to my white uncle who is racist like how do I approach that. And by taking that one course, like you said I got so much more understanding of where people might come from and the language and I could approach it not by just being angry because anytime I’d hear anything I was like ?You’re talking about my husband, you’re talking about my child! This is not OK!? And so it made a huge impact on me and I felt like I kind of knew some stuff but I realized that there was so much more to learn. And I think I’m still learning and it’s opened up even conversations I’ve had with my husband and my in-laws? and so I think people who are in my situation are like ?no I’m cool I got I’m married to so-and-so or I have my best friend or whatever.? You grew up in your lens and there’s way more to learn and unpack.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:41]

Absolutely. Absolutely it’s so true. And I always say that absolutely positively nobody gets a pass on this.

Sarah Taylor [00:10:48]

100 percent.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:49]

At all. You know myself as someone who identifies as a black fem queer woman, you know folks would be like well you know you of course you couldn?t oppress. And it’s like yes we are all susceptible to experiencing oppression and we are all oppressors. So I have aspects of my identity that allow me to have privilege. And the thing about this is that if you’re not aware of those things that’s how you harm people that’s how you engage in micro aggressions. You know what I mean? That’s how you you know get striking up a conversation with someone about your latest renovation in your house when this person is still renting and doesn’t even have access. These are the types of things that you’re never protected from. Right. Like you’re not protected from that in a certain way. So it’s really important to remember that.

Sarah Taylor [00:11:40]

Where should someone start if they’re like feeling overwhelmed they’re like wow I know that I need to make this change. I’ve seen all this information now on social media and I’m saying all the wrong things and like you said I’m just going to be quiet which is not the right thing to do. So where do they go and what should they focus on first to just like get into this mindset of making these changes?

Tenniel Brown [00:12:02]

That’s a great question. And what I would say is education. Not a coincidence right? So of course you know joining with you know your organization to offer this to the community because I think that’s step number one. I think we do need to have good information about? you need to educate yourself. I would say that it’s a really important first step to really listen, and I find even when you have more information and you have more training it even improves the way that you can listen because what you find is when you don’t have that knowledge there’s certain things that are sort of prevent you from even being open. So I find the training and the skills and the confidence that you get from doing the course like this allows you to even listen deeper right and understand more and I think that that’s step number one. I think that once? but don’t stay there! Because I think a lot of people oh I’m listening but really it’s just their guilt and shame. So yeah they’re still not doing anything but once you’ve had the chance to listen you now can start thinking more about your platform and I think that’s one of the most important thing for your listeners to know that if it’s like well I’m not a social worker I’m not a therapist what’s this got to do with me it’s like it has everything to do with you. You have a platform as a film editor and it’s important for you to acknowledge that there are big ways and small ways that you can make a difference. And we all have a responsibility. What’s happened in this world since COVID what’s happened in this world since June is we can no longer close our eyes to this. We have to look at this and all the years that we have stayed silent on this has been what’s caused the problem. So the reality is is that we all are called to use our platform to be able to address this to look around the room and be like who isn’t here? To look around your history of the films that you and different projects you’ve been involved in and being like how many of these people, how many of these stories featured stories that were outside of what we usually see? Right. And looking at the ways that you can use your platform and your influence to be able to make a change, so we’re all called to do that I don’t care if you’re a child care worker or a housekeeper do some working at a gas station, it literally doesn’t matter we’re all a part of this human society. We all have some sort of platform and so we all have a responsibility to do something. You know Sarah one of my favorite slogans that’s come out of the protest is ?Silence is Violence.? I love that one because I know what happens when people don’t have education and knowledge. They go into a shame cycle they go into a guilt cycle and they go into fear and you know what happens there? Shh. And you know what, that doesn’t help anybody at all. So I recognize that these are difficult things for us to unpack but we all have a responsibility to use whatever platform we have to make a difference. So starting by educating yourself, listening a lot, and then that’s going to help you to be more open to what you can do. And then looking at your platform whether that be personal or professional to make a change.

Sarah Taylor [00:15:20]

That was perfect. Yeah. That’s huge. And even since I took my training and even just since I’ve done my own inner work I noticed like I wouldn’t pick certain shots anymore or there’ll be things in my edit where I’m like ?that’s a stereotype? or ?No that’s not going to work. We can’t do that we can’t have that.? And so I think if everybody’s doing that then what we’re seeing on screen can start changing.

Tenniel Brown [00:15:45]

Absolutely. Absolutely and there’s these you know there’s there’s big ways and then there’s little ways like you describe. So it’s it is about really curating your lens, right and making sure that you’re seeing more and I think training like this just helps you to really open up your lens. So you’re not just seeing directly what’s in front of you work to the side of you but it’s more of like a panoramic view which you folks really need in the work that you do.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:09]

100 percent. Yeah. Well I hope that our membership joins us. I know we’ve already been getting people RSVPing which is very exciting. On July 27 2020 to learn and to unpack and to take part and just hopefully we can continue to do stuff with you and just keep educating and making the changes we can make.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:28]

Yeah. Join us. Join us. Don’t hesitate folks. Be a part of this. I’m really looking forward to working with everybody. And you know what we’re gonna have fun. I know these topics are really heavy but we’re gonna have some fun and we’re really going to connect with each other as a community so I look forward to meeting everybody at this training.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:46]

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and I look forward to seeing you on the 27th and continuing my journey. So thank you for doing this for us and thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with the world. So thank you so much.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:59]

You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Taylor [00:17:03]

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thank you goes to Tenniel Brown and a special thanks to Maureen Grant and Jane MacRae. If you’d like to connect with Tenniel, you can find her on Instagram @TennielBrown. If you’d like to bring Tenniel into your organization to learn more about anti oppressive work, you can check out her website at brownconsulting.com. I look forward to learning more from Tenniel on July 27 2020 at the CCE Lunch and Learn I hope to see you there. The CCE has been supporting BIPOC TV and FILM. BIPOC TV and FILM is a grassroots organization and collective of black, indigenous, and people of colour in Canada’s TV and film industry. From writers, directors, producers, and actors, to editors, crew members, and executives. Their members are a mix of emerging, mid-level, and established industry professionals. BIPOC TV and FILM is dedicated to increasing the representation of BIPOC both in front and behind the camera. If you would like to donate to BIPOC TV and FILM please head to their website at bipoctvandfilm.com. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in any way they can. 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

Outtro

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 082 – In Conversation with Avrïl Jacobson, CCE and Annie Jean, CCE

Episode 82: In Conversation with Avrïl Jacobson, CCE and Annie Jean, CCE
Episode 82: In Conversation with Avrïl Jacobson, CCE and Annie Jean, CCE

Episode 82 - In Conversation with Avrïl Jacobson, CCE and Annie Jean, CCE

Today?s episode is the panel that took place March 8th, 2023.

It is an in depth conversation with editor Avrïl Jacobson, CCE and Annie Jean, CCE as they discuss their work on crafting powerful documentary films celebrating two bold and visionary indigenous women in Ever Deadly and Mary Two-Axe Early. 

The panel was moderated by Sophie Farkas-Bolla.

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The Editor?s Cut – Episode 030 – ?What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown?

Sarah Taylor [00:00:01]

Hello and welcome to The Editor?s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. At the CCE, we began our journey of self education with Anti-Oppression training in 2019. It was invaluable for us as it provided us with tools to assess how we as an organization could set a course of action to root our unconscious and systematic bias in our operations. This training is now a permanent part of our budget so future board members and volunteers can continue this work, and equity can be part of the fabric of our organization. We are offering a Lunch and Learn Introduction To Anti Oppressive Communication with Tenniel Brown on July 27. Today I’m lucky to be able to sit down with Tenniel Brown and discuss what Anti-Oppressive training is and what we can expect from this webinar. Tenniel Brown is a passionate anti-racist anti oppression and mental health speaker dedicated to improving the experiences of marginalized people in all institutional settings. She is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication which specializes in providing anti oppressive, trauma-informed counseling, clinical supervision and organizational consulting, as well as customized workshops training and team retreats. I’m joined with Tenniel Brown, she is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication based in Toronto. And we just want to have a little conversation about why anti oppression work is important in this and all days but specifically right now. So can you just tell us a little bit about your background and why you started the Center For Anti-Oppressive Communication.

Tenniel Brown [00:01:41]

My background is as a psychotherapist. So I spent I’ve spent many many years working with individuals and couples and families and groups helping them to access more of their well-being by addressing different mental health issues specifically trauma. One of the things that I specialize in addressing is racialized trauma. But also trauma that comes from folks that have experienced different types of oppression. And I think for most people that are called to this type of work it’s quite personal for me right. So often when you don’t see the work that you know needs to happen in the community taking place you create it. And so that was me. You know I think I saw that there was a need for organizations to have somebody come in and not just talk about diversity inclusion but talk about what happens when certain identities have power and that unbalance of power and how to actually address that in our communication. I knew that out in the community there were therapists and social workers that were wanting to do better work. You know work in the best practice way with clients that are black, racialized, queer, and trans, and had nowhere to go to get supervision and support. And finally I knew personally that there were so many folks that when they were ready to do therapy work they needed to see someone sitting across the office that looked like them or had a very similar lived experience and they just were not going to come unless that was the case. So all these things I knew was happening and nobody was doing it. And I said someone’s got to do something and that was me. I think what needs to come out of what’s happened in June is for folks to see black professionals and black community in in the in sort of like the the brilliance of what we do and it’s not uncommon that in many cases where we don’t see ourselves we create it. So yeah that was the spirit of and I think that when I started the organization I knew that it was important for there to be a place where folks from those different backgrounds could come and get that support and information. So it’s a real passion of mine. It is my baby and it’s so beautiful to see folks wanting this information during this time.

Sarah Taylor [00:04:01]

Yeah so important. Can you tell us what Anti-Oppression means and what someone can expect by taking an anti oppressive workshop?

Tenniel Brown [00:04:10]

Sure absolutely. So when you sort of break down the word anti oppression anti oppressive practice we take a look at that anti part and essentially that that just means opposition to oppression and then the practice part. So AOP? the practice part pertains to the context in which you are practicing opposition to oppression. So you can apply an anti oppressive lens to just about anything. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations like Pride Toronto and work with your curators to apply an anti-oppressive lens to the way they do event organizing. I have applied an anti oppressive lens to the way I do therapy and clinical supervision with other therapists. You can apply an anti oppressive lens to teaching. You can apply it to student advising, you can apply it to just about anything. I’ve been working with fitness professionals looking at applying an anti oppressive lens to the way that they support folks that are on their fitness journey. So so it’s about looking at whatever practice whatever context you are working in and using that platform to be able to oppose oppression and all of its forms. So that’s essentially what it is.

Sarah Taylor [00:05:29]

And so when someone takes courses like anti oppressive communication course or participates in your courses what can they expect to be talking about or learning?

Tenniel Brown [00:05:37]

Absolutely so I think one of the most important things is to sort of pull back a little bit of you know the cover on this because I think anti oppressive language is its own language. It’s like Spanish. And you see so many people getting themselves into some rather serious trouble these days because they actually don’t know the language they don’t understand? in some ways the harm of some of the things that they’re doing and saying the deep harm of that. You get a lot of people who don’t really know how to talk about these issues. And so you go into a shame spiral and you just don’t talk. You just get very quiet and I always argue that you know the silence piece is a part of how we got ourselves into this trouble as a human society in the first place. So what I offer is something for everybody. I think over the years what folks have said to me is is even somebody who’s maybe got a social work background and knows about anti oppressive practice when they come to one of my trainings they find that they are moved further along in their application of that perspective around ?OK, well what does this mean when I’m interacting with somebody right here in a one on one context.? Other people that are completely brand new have never had the chance to learn any of this language or understand any of these concepts have said over the years that they felt like they left with a really good sense of what this topic is. But not just that practical skills. I’m all about practical skills. I want to offer things that folks can use tomorrow today and the next day and my mission is also for folks to leave his training and talk about it. Tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell a family member, and feel equipped to be able to engage in these conversations. So when someone is saying or doing something problematic, you have this confidence in the skills to be able to interpret what’s going on there and to be able to talk to them and to be able to address it. The other thing that I do is I couch everything that I do in my trainings in a self care and team care perspective. And I think this is very important. We have to look after our emotions. We have to look after ourselves and we have to look after each other. I always say you could be as anti oppressive as you want but if you haven’t had any lunch? if you haven’t eaten anything? you’re not good.

Sarah Taylor [00:07:57]

You’ve got the hangries!

Tenniel Brown [00:07:59]

Trust me, Anti-Oppressive work requires patience. It requires empathy. It requires compassion and self compassion. You will fall down a lot and I find you know and I talk a lot about cancel culture and don’t get me wrong really that could be its own podcast.

Sarah Taylor [00:08:19]

Totally. Especially in this industry.

Tenniel Brown [00:08:22]

Look we need to talk about this and I get why certain people are being canceled for sure. And yet as someone who does this work I recognize that I’m so thankful I wasn’t canceled because over the years I’ve done and said things before I knew before I took a course like this before I had an opportunity to learn what was problematic about my lens. I’m so thankful that I was able to make those mistakes in a safe environment and actually benefit from that and grow. So people get a safe environment to learn language and understand what is going on, what is oppression, if oppression is so bad why don’t we just stop this. Well I unpack that for folks. Why is this so complicated and why doesn’t this just stop. And then I provide practical skills for folks to be able to apply this to their lives and their communication. I think the other thing that I think folks get is not just sort of a general whatever, you’ll find that I’m really interested in applying it to film editors and what it is that you do on a regular basis and looking at how you can use your platform to be able to actually oppose oppression.

Sarah Taylor [00:09:31]

Yeah well it’s like it’s huge I know for myself we did anti oppression workshop as a board for the CCE. I’m in an interracial marriage and so I thought ?Oh I know a lot.? Like I’ve been unpacking this stuff for a while and understanding in my own way. But also like kind of like how do I say it to my white uncle who is racist like how do I approach that. And by taking that one course, like you said I got so much more understanding of where people might come from and the language and I could approach it not by just being angry because anytime I’d hear anything I was like ?You’re talking about my husband, you’re talking about my child! This is not OK!? And so it made a huge impact on me and I felt like I kind of knew some stuff but I realized that there was so much more to learn. And I think I’m still learning and it’s opened up even conversations I’ve had with my husband and my in-laws? and so I think people who are in my situation are like ?no I’m cool I got I’m married to so-and-so or I have my best friend or whatever.? You grew up in your lens and there’s way more to learn and unpack.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:41]

Absolutely. Absolutely it’s so true. And I always say that absolutely positively nobody gets a pass on this.

Sarah Taylor [00:10:48]

100 percent.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:49]

At all. You know myself as someone who identifies as a black fem queer woman, you know folks would be like well you know you of course you couldn?t oppress. And it’s like yes we are all susceptible to experiencing oppression and we are all oppressors. So I have aspects of my identity that allow me to have privilege. And the thing about this is that if you’re not aware of those things that’s how you harm people that’s how you engage in micro aggressions. You know what I mean? That’s how you you know get striking up a conversation with someone about your latest renovation in your house when this person is still renting and doesn’t even have access. These are the types of things that you’re never protected from. Right. Like you’re not protected from that in a certain way. So it’s really important to remember that.

Sarah Taylor [00:11:40]

Where should someone start if they’re like feeling overwhelmed they’re like wow I know that I need to make this change. I’ve seen all this information now on social media and I’m saying all the wrong things and like you said I’m just going to be quiet which is not the right thing to do. So where do they go and what should they focus on first to just like get into this mindset of making these changes?

Tenniel Brown [00:12:02]

That’s a great question. And what I would say is education. Not a coincidence right? So of course you know joining with you know your organization to offer this to the community because I think that’s step number one. I think we do need to have good information about? you need to educate yourself. I would say that it’s a really important first step to really listen, and I find even when you have more information and you have more training it even improves the way that you can listen because what you find is when you don’t have that knowledge there’s certain things that are sort of prevent you from even being open. So I find the training and the skills and the confidence that you get from doing the course like this allows you to even listen deeper right and understand more and I think that that’s step number one. I think that once? but don’t stay there! Because I think a lot of people oh I’m listening but really it’s just their guilt and shame. So yeah they’re still not doing anything but once you’ve had the chance to listen you now can start thinking more about your platform and I think that’s one of the most important thing for your listeners to know that if it’s like well I’m not a social worker I’m not a therapist what’s this got to do with me it’s like it has everything to do with you. You have a platform as a film editor and it’s important for you to acknowledge that there are big ways and small ways that you can make a difference. And we all have a responsibility. What’s happened in this world since COVID what’s happened in this world since June is we can no longer close our eyes to this. We have to look at this and all the years that we have stayed silent on this has been what’s caused the problem. So the reality is is that we all are called to use our platform to be able to address this to look around the room and be like who isn’t here? To look around your history of the films that you and different projects you’ve been involved in and being like how many of these people, how many of these stories featured stories that were outside of what we usually see? Right. And looking at the ways that you can use your platform and your influence to be able to make a change, so we’re all called to do that I don’t care if you’re a child care worker or a housekeeper do some working at a gas station, it literally doesn’t matter we’re all a part of this human society. We all have some sort of platform and so we all have a responsibility to do something. You know Sarah one of my favorite slogans that’s come out of the protest is ?Silence is Violence.? I love that one because I know what happens when people don’t have education and knowledge. They go into a shame cycle they go into a guilt cycle and they go into fear and you know what happens there? Shh. And you know what, that doesn’t help anybody at all. So I recognize that these are difficult things for us to unpack but we all have a responsibility to use whatever platform we have to make a difference. So starting by educating yourself, listening a lot, and then that’s going to help you to be more open to what you can do. And then looking at your platform whether that be personal or professional to make a change.

Sarah Taylor [00:15:20]

That was perfect. Yeah. That’s huge. And even since I took my training and even just since I’ve done my own inner work I noticed like I wouldn’t pick certain shots anymore or there’ll be things in my edit where I’m like ?that’s a stereotype? or ?No that’s not going to work. We can’t do that we can’t have that.? And so I think if everybody’s doing that then what we’re seeing on screen can start changing.

Tenniel Brown [00:15:45]

Absolutely. Absolutely and there’s these you know there’s there’s big ways and then there’s little ways like you describe. So it’s it is about really curating your lens, right and making sure that you’re seeing more and I think training like this just helps you to really open up your lens. So you’re not just seeing directly what’s in front of you work to the side of you but it’s more of like a panoramic view which you folks really need in the work that you do.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:09]

100 percent. Yeah. Well I hope that our membership joins us. I know we’ve already been getting people RSVPing which is very exciting. On July 27 2020 to learn and to unpack and to take part and just hopefully we can continue to do stuff with you and just keep educating and making the changes we can make.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:28]

Yeah. Join us. Join us. Don’t hesitate folks. Be a part of this. I’m really looking forward to working with everybody. And you know what we’re gonna have fun. I know these topics are really heavy but we’re gonna have some fun and we’re really going to connect with each other as a community so I look forward to meeting everybody at this training.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:46]

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and I look forward to seeing you on the 27th and continuing my journey. So thank you for doing this for us and thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with the world. So thank you so much.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:59]

You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Taylor [00:17:03]

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thank you goes to Tenniel Brown and a special thanks to Maureen Grant and Jane MacRae. If you’d like to connect with Tenniel, you can find her on Instagram @TennielBrown. If you’d like to bring Tenniel into your organization to learn more about anti oppressive work, you can check out her website at brownconsulting.com. I look forward to learning more from Tenniel on July 27 2020 at the CCE Lunch and Learn I hope to see you there. The CCE has been supporting BIPOC TV and FILM. BIPOC TV and FILM is a grassroots organization and collective of black, indigenous, and people of colour in Canada’s TV and film industry. From writers, directors, producers, and actors, to editors, crew members, and executives. Their members are a mix of emerging, mid-level, and established industry professionals. BIPOC TV and FILM is dedicated to increasing the representation of BIPOC both in front and behind the camera. If you would like to donate to BIPOC TV and FILM please head to their website at bipoctvandfilm.com. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in any way they can. 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

Outtro

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 081 – Joy Ride with Nena Erb, ACE

Episode 081 - Joy Ride with Nena Erb, ACE

In today?s episode Nena Erb, ACE joins Sarah Taylor to chat about her editing work on the hilarious film JOY RIDE.

From first-time director Adele Lim (screenwriter of Raya and the Last Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians), JOY RIDE follows four Asian-American friends on a trip across Asia in search of one of their birth mothers, who end up on the journey of a lifetime.

You can check out the trailer here.

The film stars Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu, Critics Choice Award nominee Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, and Sabrina Wu. The film premiered at SXSW in 2023 to critical acclaim, now boasting a perfect score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

NenaErbACE2021

Nena Erb, ACE, is a picture editor based in Los Angeles. Raised in an Asian immigrant family, Nena’s father wanted her to be a doctor and her mother wanted her to be a pianist with the LA Philharmonic. Nena wanted to be Andy Warhol.

Armed with an art degree, a friend brought her into the industry and she started working in various capacities in production. It was her stint as an associate producer that opened her eyes to the impact of editing. It combined her love of photography and storytelling into one and she was hooked. Since then, Nena has edited projects for Warner Brothers, Apple, HBO, and others.

In 2016, she received an Emmy award on HBO’s documentary series PROJECT GREENLIGHT. In addition, she has received three ACE Eddie nominations; two for her work on HBO’s comedy-drama series INSECURE and the third for CW’s acclaimed series CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND. Nena received her second Emmy award in 2020 for her work on season 4 of INSECURE and a third Emmy nomination in 2022 for the final season. She recently finished JOY RIDE directed by Adele Lim for Lionsgate. Her parents no longer ask if she’d reconsider medical school.

À écouter ici !

The Editor’s Cut – Episode 081 – Joy Ride with Nena Erb, ACE?

Nena Erb, ACE:

It is important to see yourself represented and to see women that are so like braved, they’re not afraid to be themselves. It was a good project for me. It kind of like gave me permission to speak my mind more. I have a tendency to like think something, and then, I count to 10. And by then, it’s like, who cares? So I don’t even say it, but now, I’m like, “No, I’m not gonna count to 10. I’m just going to say it.”

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Oh, I love that. Yeah, we should all just say what we need to say. This is great. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory, that has long served as a place where Indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honor, respect, and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions, and the concerns that impact Indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today, I bring to you an interview with past guest, Nena Erb, ACE. We sit down and chat all things Joy Ride. If you haven’t had a chance to watch this film, please do check it out. It is hilarious and also very heartwarming. For those who don’t know Nena, in 2016, she received an Emmy Award for HBO’s documentary series, Project Greenlight. In addition, she has received three ACE Eddie nominations, two for her work on the HBO Comedy Series, Insecure, and the third for the CWS acclaim series, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Nena received her second Emmy award in 2021 for her work on season four of Insecure and a third Emmy nomination in 2022 for the final season. Nena’s parents no longer ask her if she should reconsider medical school. Without further ado, here is Nena.

Speaker 3:

And action.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

This is The Editor’s Cut.

Speaker 4:

A CCE podcast.

Speaker 5:

Exploring.

Speaker 6:

Exploring.

Speaker 7:

Exploring the art.

Speaker 4:

Of picture editing.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Welcome back to The Editor’s Cut, Nena.

Nena Erb, ACE:

So good to be here. Thank you for having me again.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I’m so glad to chat more about what you’ve been up to over the last, I think we decided, three years like, Oh, it’s very exciting.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s been a while.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

So just to catch the listeners up, for the people that maybe haven’t listened to your previous episode, can you just give us a bit of a Cole’s Notes on how you made your way to Hollywood?

Nena Erb, ACE:

I have an art degree. I did not go to film school. And afterwards, of course, what do you do with that, right? So my friend’s like, “Hey, come work with me in the art department.” And that’s kind of how I got into the business. You know? And I jumped around a lot, did a lot of different positions, until I finally found editing. And once I discovered what editing was, it just completely, the whole world just opened up. And I? yeah, was like I felt like I had come home in a way.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I feel that. So how long has it been now since you’ve started editing?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh my gosh. I was thinking about that. 20.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I’m with you. I’m 20 as well, so yeah. That’s awesome.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah, I’m like, wow, time flew.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

It really does, doesn’t it? When you’re doing something that you love, it just flies by. Yeah.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

So today, I wanted to talk to you about the wonderful film, Joy Ride, which it got me in stitches, and I cried. And there’s oh, it was so wonderful. You did a wonderful job. I want to know, how did you get involved with Joy Ride? And what were your first impressions when you were given the script?

Nena Erb, ACE:

I was on my last season of Insecure, and you know, as always, when you’re coming to an end of a project, you’re like, “Okay, let’s see what else is out there.” And my agents brought me several different projects, and I kind of was looking at all of them. And I said no to many, and Joy Ride was one that I said no to, not knowing anything about the script or anything about the filmmakers. It was just like, “Eh, no, it’s comedy. Move on.” Because I wanted to do drama, right? That was my goal. “Let’s do a drama. It’s been several years, so I need to do a drama.” And so, um and so the whole, you know, I just said no to a bunch of stuff. And after a while, they came back, and they’re like, “You know, I think the producers really want you to just read the script. No pressure. Just read it.” I was like, “All right. I am reading other scripts, so I’ll read this one too.”

And yeah, I remember I was on the Sony lot. I was reading the script and taking a little break and waiting for, I think I was waiting to go back for notes or something. And I’m reading it and I’m laughing, and of course, if you’re walking by, and you don’t know what’s happening, you must think, you know, I’m losing my mind. I’m just laughing, um, like loudly. And then, it came to the end, and I was sobbing and crying uncontrollably. And I’m sure, again, people were probably like, “Oh, that’s an overreaction from someone messing up your coffee or something.” But, yeah, it grabbed me. It just resonated so deeply with me for so many reasons.

And I ran back into my edit bay, and I was like, “All right, let?s take a? I need a meeting. I need to meet these people.” Because it was the dirtiest but funniest script I’ve ever read. And then, just the way it hits you at the end, I was not expecting that. And plus, I’m also very good at compartmentalizing, when I’m watching dailies, to really be objective. So I did not expect for that to grab me the way it did and to make me that emotional, so.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Amazing. From reading the script initially to the final film, were there any major changes that happened in the script?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah. Yeah, there were. You know, my first cut was two and a half hours long. Because there?s ,you know, a lot of improv, and a lot of jokes, and jokes that led into other jokes. And so, I just wanted to put everything in there, so we can have a version where the words are on their feet, right? And so, that’s what I had. And then, after working with the director and the producers, you know, we very dramatically started cutting things out. And, and as expected, because no comedy would be two and a half hours long. So yeah, some of the change scenes that we lost were a scene between Lolo and Kat, scene between Lolo and Baron, you know, where he’s kind of letting her know that she?s, she has to be the calm one.

Like she’s usually the one that’s like very chaotic, and so, she needs to kind of find her inner peace and do something that makes her happy versus, you know, makes Audrey happy. And the other scene with Kat was when they’re both sharing their saki or soju and kind of realizing through their conversations that they’re more similar than not, right? And so, it was kind of like their bonding scene, the way that Deadeye and Audrey had their bonding scene were poker. So those were some of the scenes that we lost. But I had say the biggest difference is the slapping game, at the gay bar.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yes.

Nena Erb, ACE:

It was much, much longer. It was like we had seen the two guys that started, they go through their game, and then, you know, Kat and Lolo come up and they’re eyeing each other. And the first time they do their toss out their numbers, I don’t even know what you call that, but yeah, so it was a tie. And so, they both had to slap each other. So they did that, and then they do it again, it was another tie, so they had to slap each other again, and then, again. And then, finally, Kat wins, and then, she just you know, kind of socks it to her, one really, really good punch.

And that was a version that was in the script. You know, we had tried that. We have that definitely. And then, we tried it with much more of their improv, because they, they really went at it. They went off the improv script. They did the improv jokes that the writers wrote, and then, they just kept going. And they were goading each other on. It was hilarious, but too long. And so you know, we’re trying to find what’s funniest and what feels the best pacing wise. And so, we’ve gone through a lot of different iterations of that scene. And um, finally, towards the end, I remember just thinking, “What if they just beat the crap out of each other? What if there’s no dialogue, no tie, they just get in there and then, they start hitting each other?” And they’re like, “Well, if you can make that happen.” And of course, after I say it, I’m like, “Oh, can I make that happen? Do I have what it takes? Haha in the material, in the dailies, to make this happen?”

Um and it was a challenge. I was kind of kicking myself, I’ll be honest, after you know, after I was trying it, because they never shot it where it was a ton of different hits to each other. So I had the ones that I had, and you know, there weren’t that many takes. It was a very complicated scene at the club. So yeah, I had a lack of options. I didn’t have a lot of options to work with, in terms of variations of them slapping each other. So a lot of it was cheated by either removing frames or adding frames and sound design to make it seem like it escalated to the final like punch. You know so yeah, so that was definitely very different, and I’m relieved that I was able to carry it off. And next time, I will think twice before offering a suggestion. Hahaha?

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

That’s a good tip for editors out there listening. But sometimes, we challenge ourselves in the best way, because it makes like a really great scene. And that scene was fantastic. It made me laugh so hard. You mentioned improv a few times in your last statement, so you got to work with so many hilarious actresses and actors. I could tell that there was gonna be, you dealt with a lot of improv. So how did you like you did your first cut, you put everything in, but how did you maybe decide, in the end, what jokes could stay? How did you, you know, maybe try to end a joke of their improv before? Cause you know they always just keep going, keep going. I’ve dealt with that too. So how did you handle the improv?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh, yeah. There were definitely a lot of improvs that just kept rolling. You know they build off the improv, off the improv, and then, they keep building. Um and you know, most of the time, I just go with my gut. It sounds simply oversimplified, but it’s really how… Yeah, it’s what I trust. I trust my gut. If it’s making me laugh, great. If I feel like it’s going on too long, I’ll just find a good place to cut. Point gray are geniuses. I mean they’re so, like well-versed in comedy. And the way that they shot this improv, I honestly you know, I’ve worked on a lot of comedies, they shoot improv all kinds of different ways, but they had it so planned out that all the improv was in their singles. And it was just genius. It was so smart, because you can make it work easily, you know, rather than if it’s on a two shot or slide and you know.

And every once in a while, there’s a you know over the shoulder, and that’s fine. I figured out ways to get around that for continuity. But? yeah, so they did it that way. They cross shot, so it’s not like, “Okay, we’re on one side. You do your improv line. Then we turn around for the reaction.” The reactions are in the moment, and it was just so, so great um. So they made it very easy to try different jokes. At the end of the day, I rank my jokes. If it made me laugh really hard, then it’s a five or a six. If it didn’t make me laugh that hard, it’s like a one or two. And then, sometimes, if it was like, didn’t even make the chart, I just put okay, hahaha, in the locator notes.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I love it. That’s great. Yeah.

Nena Erb, ACE:

So yeah, I had a way of tracking it. I had a way of making up a lot of different versions. So for each scene that had improvs, there was probably like, 10 more versions, each version with different improvs and different combinations of improvs.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

So would you like then you’d cut the scene that was scripted, and then, you would do, say, 10 different versions of that same scene, so you could drop it into the cut if you needed to see? Is that kind of how you…

Nena Erb, ACE:

Kind of, kind of. Yeah, I would have the version that I like best, and then, I would kind of subclip you know the joke out, but a little padding on either side. And basically, what I would do then is like, okay, I would swap out another joke, and sometimes, you have to you know, change the going in and the entrance, and the exit to make it work, because people are suddenly in different positions, whatnot. Um so yeah, I had a lot of different versions of that. I realized, in the beginning, I was cutting and thinking like, “Oh my gosh, I’m moving so slow. I can’t believe I’m like, only getting through like X number of scenes.” Then I realized, “Wait a minute, I’ve actually cut like 45 minutes of content, because of all the different improvs, so I’m not actually moving that slow.”

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah that?s, that’s the most, I feel like that’s the most challenging part with comedy when you have actors that are hope that are good at improv. Um and yeah, I did a I did a feature recently, and our first cut was two and a half hours as well. And it was just like, “What jokes do we cut?” But on that note, I know that there’s a few jokes in this film I recently cut was called Hey, Victor and um, that still make me laugh today. So are there ones that just still hit you like they did when you first heard them?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh my gosh, there are so many different ones. I may have to think about this.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I sprung it on you.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, we’ll have to come back.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Who was the team that worked with you with end post? Did you have some assistance? And what was your day-to-day process like?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah. Yeah. I was fortunate and I had a whole team, first assistant, second assistant, and a PA. And I got really lucky. I found some really great people that really knew what they were doing, and it was a good team. It was a good team, and it was all female, which is great. And then, of course, if I needed like a male ADR, I would make sure they went around the building to see who was available and willing to do our temp ADR. And fortunately, we were at Pivotal Post and EPS, and there were other people around, so it was never a problem. But yeah, they were great. A lot of them were new to me, because I think the last time we talked, I was on Insecure, and my assistant, who received the Emmy along with me, she’s now editing. So I’m very, very excited for her, and so you know.

And so, obviously, I was like, “You go do your editing, I’ll find a different team.” and um so yeah so this was a whole new team to me. And learning everyone’s preferences and how they work was very fascinating. In the beginning, I would talk to them and see, “Okay, what are you really into?” And I found out that Tori, my first, was really into sound design.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Hmm great perfect

Nena Erb, ACE:

So I know, okay, the hard sound design, give it to her. I actually gave her all the sound design, and then, I found out that our second, Melissa Khan, was great at After Effects and TempVFX. So she got all that, and then, we had a little hiatus. I don’t know if you heard about that, but we had a hiatus and then came back for additional photography. And at that point, Melissa had already been got a job on another movie, so she couldn’t come back. So I had to find a new second. And we hired Joya Caruso. Fortunately, she was also good at VFX, so it was like, somehow, I came up with the perfect team.

Because editors care about sound design tremendously, but we don’t have the time to really dig into it. And I also try my best to have good TempVFX, but again, I can’t do a lot of it in the Avid. So it’s nice when I have an assistant that knows how to use After Effects or Photoshop or whatever other tools they have to make these temps happen. So yeah, so it was a good team. I got really lucky.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Sounds like a dream team. I love it. That’s great. You mentioned you took a break, and so, and so how much of like, were you I’m assuming you were cutting as they were filming, you took a break and came back and started cutting as they were filming again?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

How long after photography did you have to get to your like editor’s cut and stuff like that?

Nena Erb, ACE:

We started September 21st in 2021, and then, we took our hiatus like April 8th, I think it was that week. We had gotten the film to the second preview, and then, realized, “Okay, we need X, Y and Z to kind of you know to take the film into the direction that we want it to go in.” And so, the original idea was like, “Oh, I wish to do like a short six week break.” But then, of course, as you know, Ashley and Stephanie, Sherry, they’re all very, very busy. They’re busy actors. And Sabrina was touring, doing her standup.

So we had to, for schedule-wise, push it back a little bit, and then, we reconvened in November of 2022. And then, locked picture, I want to say like mid-January, mid-January, yeah. Yeah. Because we had another a third preview. And so, it was a lot, but additional photography, it was only for like, a handful of scenes. It wasn’t a lot. So I only got one day, after last day of dailies to get my editor’s cut together, because a lot of bulk of the film was not changed. So just the new material. So we had to get it together very quickly. And then, it was watching it down from the beginning to make sure that, “With the reshoots, are we repeating ourselves in the beginning? Or is something else not making sense now?” So it was a fascinating process.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

So you did three previews. So from those previews, what kind of stuff did you take into consideration in the edit?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Most of it was always for clarity. I think a lot of the issues that we deal with, it doesn’t matter what movie, usually, what we learn from previews is that, you know, the filmmakers, myself included, might’ve been a little too close to material. And so, there are things that we may have lost, that need to go back in, you know, to kinda really flesh out the setup or for clarity purposes. And, and sometimes, you know, you notice, I’m sure you’ve experienced this as an editor yourself, you see like, the smallest little nuance in the performance, and you know the difference, but is that coming across as clearly to the audience, right?

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah, so that’s always a question that we end up answering a lot.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

What would you say was the most challenging scene to cut?

Nena Erb, ACE:

All the set pieces, all of them. No, the one on the train with the drugs.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

That was so good.

Nena Erb, ACE:

And the one with all the?our main four with the basketball players at the hotel, that big long, yeah, I don’t even know what you call that, the orgy? But that’s not really an orgy for everybody. So yeah, it’s not really the right word for it.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah, they’re all individual moments, sexual moments. I don’t know what you’d call it.

Nena Erb, ACE:

So yeah, so those two were probably the hardest and not for any reason other than you have to make them funny. And for the drug scene, what I realized was, you know, my first cut, just following the script, not even adding any extras, it was too long. It was like two minutes, um and we had to cut down. And that was down to a minute, and it still just didn’t feel quite right. And then, finally, we’re like, “Why don’t we speed it up?” I was like, “Oh, that sounds kind of cheesy, but why don’t we all try.” So yeah, I added some speed ramps to the images, and that kind of made it funnier, in a very you know, childish kind of way, which I’m all for.

And and that was really helpful too, because as I’m cutting down, I’m realizing I’m making the shots shorter and shorter, and so, sometimes so short that you don’t really get the full action of what they’re doing. And so, that tends to kind of like make it a little more murky and unclear what’s happening. So using the speed ramps, you can see the full motion of you know, someone snorting coke or putting coke up someone else’s behind.  So there were definitely funnier shots too that we had to lose, because it didn’t help tell the story. They were just funny little asides.

Once we had a decent cut, the challenge was finding music. We went through so many different songs. It got to a point where I think… Toko Nagata is our music supervisor. I was like, “Toko, you have to be patient with me. We’re going to go through a hundred songs with just this one thing, so so you know just bear with me.” And she was great about… She’s such a good sport, just always finding stuff. We tried classical, like Blue Danube, and then, we’ve tried instrumental, we try we had the composer, Nathan Michael David, compose some stuff to one of the earlier cuts. And it was like, “Well, that’s not quite the right vibe, because we’re looking for something super frantic, but funny.” And then, ideally, it’s not just a driving beat, it has to have accents for certain moments, when Sabrina’s putting something up Kat’s butt.

So ? yeah, it was a lot of experimentation. And finally, Toko said, “Try this one. It’s a little quirky and a little off kilter, but maybe it’ll work.” It’s Burnt Rice by Shawn Wasabi. And it was perfect. It was completely off kilter, not what you expect to go with that scene. And yet, somehow it worked, and it had these great accents and stops and starts, that just like really helped elevate that piece for me.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah, so when you finally found the song that fit, did you then go in and cut to those moments in the song? Or did you manipulate the song to work with what you had already cut?

Nena Erb, ACE:

I made the song to work with whatever we cut, yeah and that was always fun.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

You’re like, “And I’ll move this here and I’ll move that here.” Yeah, that’s awesome.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And what was great was that we had a music editor too. We have two music editors, Jeff and Emily Kwong, and they were great. They’re such good sports. I would kick them stuff all the time and say, “Can you turn this around like ASAP?” And they would do it.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

I’ve never worked with a music editor, so I’m curious, and maybe other people would want to know too, so would you do your like rough cut of the track to fit what you needed? So if maybe it would needed to be 30 seconds, and this one thing had to happen at the 15 second work, you do your rough cut of it and then, ship it to them, and then, they would make it musically sound amazing?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes and no. For my editor’s cut, they hadn’t come on yet, so I did all my temp. And then, once we started doing notes and if we wanted to switch out songs, you know because once you’re in notes, you don’t have time to stop down for music editing, because it’s very time consuming trying to make certain things fit where you want it to fit versus where musically it wants to be. So that’s usually when I would send them that scene and say, “Hey, we want to try these five different songs. Can you just make it work?”

And so, they would kind of like listen to the songs and pick the right parts, and that was what I loved about them. And I think a lot of music editors are the same way. They don’t think that music is just laying down a track. I think they all listen to the whole thing and pick the right parts of the lyrics, pick the right parts of you know the chorus, the verse, and kind of put it together in their own little recipe, very similar to the way an editor would. So I just really appreciated how they work, because that’s what they did. 

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah, that sounds amazing. I might have to get myself a music editor on my next show. Anyway, what was the most enjoyable scene to cut?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Honestly, I enjoy the entire thing, but I think there’s one scene that was super, super special to me. And it’s a very simple scene, just um Audrey getting dressed the next morning, Lolo’s putting on her you know makeup and earrings and whatnot. They’re getting ready to go to the adoption agency. So it’s just a conversation, simple, innocuous conversation between the two of them, where Audrey kind of like bears her soul and talks about what it was like to be adopted. And she kind of wonders if her life would’ve been different had she not been.

And?and it really resonated with me, because my mom was adopted. And so, I remember having a lot of different conversations with her about like you know you know, “Do you know why you were given up?” And she was always wondering herself, too. And what that means, what being adopted means. You’re the outsider kind of in your family, that basically chose you. So it’s a whole, it?s a lot to unpack, right? Yeah. So the whole thing, belonging, identity, all of that, that was stuff that I talked to my mom about quite extensively. So when I saw that scene, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to really enjoy cutting this.” And I did.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

And I think that’s why Joy Ride also resonates with a lot of people out there. There’s not a lot of stories representing this ? this idea of growing up in America and then going to “where you’re from,” and that whole thing. And then, yeah, discovering this whole other side of you that… And we don’t get to see people unpack that on screen, and I think that?s? it’s so important. Yeah, I think Joy Ride did a good job at that.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. At South by Southwest, I expected people to laugh, and kind of sniffle at the emotional parts. What I didn’t expect was, during the Q&A, many adoptees came up and they just were very emotional about the whole thing, seeing their story unfold the way that it did. And and it was so touching you know. One of the adoptees, what she was talking about was so heartfelt that she came up to the stage, and Ashley part gave her a hug. And they had exchanged some words. No one knows what was said, but it was just such a sweet moment. I think everybody was crying.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

This is, and those are the moments where you’re like, “This is why we make 10 versions of a scene. This is why we do what we do, right??

Nena Erb, ACE:

Exactly.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Oh, that’s really great to hear that you got to see that feedback in real like in action and oh, that?s beautiful. Love it. I love it.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Made it all worth it. 

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Totally. Yeah. You have done a lot of TV, from what I have seen and what we talked about before. So was this one of your first major films? Or had you done like feature film work before?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah, but they’re mostly um smaller independents. This was probably my first studio feature. So there are different things to learn about the studio system versus independence, where you’re just kind of making it up as you go along in the studio to give notes.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yes. So what was the biggest change in your workflow that you had to do, maybe coming from the TV world to the feature world?

Nena Erb, ACE:

It’s very interesting. it’s um you know I think, from the outside looking in, you would think that features have all the time in the world, right. I think, um in television, if you’re doing a half hour, you have two days after last day of dailies. If you’re doing a one hour, you have four days, ideally three to four days after last day of dailies, to get your editor’s cut together. Um well, as you know, my first cut was two and a half hours, and I only had four days after last day of dailies to get that together, to really polish the entire everything and score the entire thing. So yeah, in that sense, I had less time than I would if I was on a TV show um, but in the grand scheme of things, you have more time after that to experiment, because you have 10 weeks with a director. On TV, you have two to four days, if you’re lucky, you know um, and then, you have maybe two weeks with a producer who’s a showrunner on TV shows.

And um this time, it was like, I think the producers came in around week six. Or no, they came in pretty early. They came in at week five of director’s cut, because our director just felt like she was ready to show it. And so, yeah, they came in, and so, they had quite a bit of time um, normally, I’m not really sure if there’s a standard, in terms of like how many weeks producers get, but yeah, they came in at week five during a director’s cut. And then, just kind of, from there to the end, they were very, very involved and a part of the collaborative process, so they had a lot of time versus TV.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Totally. So you still have to go quick at the beginning, and then, you get to have time to really massage your notes and go do all that stuff after the fact.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yeah, and you get a lot of time to experiment like, “What would happen if we just take out this complete storyline? you know Yeah, what would happen if we lost this entire scene?” you know And then, previews would be the biggest difference between the two. Films, you preview. In TV, you don’t really do that.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

No, no. You mentioned that you came to Canada to do the sound mix, and so, how has that experience like? Often in TV, do you have the time in TV to go and actually do a sound mix? Is that usually afforded?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Okay. So what was the difference coming to Canada to be part of… Well, not that it matters that it’s Canada, but I like that it’s Canada. What was your time like?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh, I love that it was in Vancouver. It’s the first time I’ve ever been there, and um you know the city is great. There’s so much good food. And then, the weather was pretty, it was cold, but it wasn’t wasn’t like blizzard cold. We only had a snowstorm for a few days that I was there. It was very easy to get around. People were so nice. It was bizarre. It was like, coming from LA, you’re just used to people honking and driving crazy on the road. And over there, I think I was there with Tori, my first, and after the first few days, I looked at her, we’re at dinner, I’m like, “Am I imagining this or no one honks here? Have you heard of anyone honk?” And she’s like, “No, I haven’t.” I was like, “Okay, okay, so no one’s honking.” So I think, at the last week we were there, I heard one person honk.

I was very excited. But that’s just my observation of Vancouver. But the sound mix itself, I usually try to make time for it on TV shows, but oftentimes, you’re doing dailies, so then, that just means your days are longer, if you want to go do your sound mix. For Joy Ride, it was such a luxury to have three weeks to work on your mix. you know and you’re there for ADR, you’re there for a large amount of time, and it’s nice. It’s nice to be able to have that time and not feel rushed like, and feel like you may miss something afterwards. Because if you did, that’s okay. We’ll be back next week to do it again.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Wow, that’s such a novel experience for me. I don’t know if it’s just a Canada thing or an Alberta thing, but I’ve been to only one sound mix in my whole career. And it was amazing. And I was like, “This is great.” And I was like, “I should do this all of the time,” but it’s just never afforded in the schedule. And so, unless I decide to just go on my own, which I could, but then, I’m always on something else. But yeah, for the people that haven’t experienced that, what is it like? You like sit there and you suggest sound effects, kind of, if you don’t mind, just a little process of what it’s like to be on the sound stage.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Um you know Some editors wanna be there, when they’re building it all together, but I like to just give them time to do their thing. And I’ll come back and give notes, ideally, before the director and before the producers. For TV, I definitely get in there for at least a day before the producers are there for playback, just because I’m looking for things that they may not be concerned about you know. And same thing for the movies. You go there, you watch. For features, because they work in reels, they’ll say, “Okay, we’re going to work on reel one today, day one, reel one.” So they’ll play it. You watch it, you kind of make notes and either time code or like film and feet, you know frames and feet and stuff, um and yeah, you just kind of listen for things. Is the entire line of dialogue clear? Is the sound effect right? Is it too loud? Is it not loud enough? You know how does music sound in combination with all of it you know?

Yeah, it’s a lot of that. And sometimes, you’ll have a great sound effect, but then like, in certain places, it sounds like a production mistake right. And so, you’ll catch those moments. It’s like, “Okay, so at this frame here, can you just lift out that little whatever it might be? Because it sounds like someone dropped a hammer versus what it’s supposed to sound like.” So yeah, it is really, really interesting how things like that come across. And so, I love the process. 

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Now, I’m going to have to see what project I can sneak in on, because yeah, I think there’s times where I’ll listen to the audio after and be like, “Oh, man.” I remember going to a screening of one show I did. It was a big launch, episode one played, and I was like, “Ah, the music’s too loud.” So yeah, maybe I should be allowed to do it. Yeah, I’m gonna, I?m gonna to advocate for myself to go to the sound mix. That’s what’s going to happen.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes, yes. No, I highly recommend it, because yeah, there’s nothing worse yeah, than watching something that’s already done and you’re just cringing, because the music is too loud or not loud enough. you know Yeah, or the ADR sounds like ADR, right?

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Nena Erb, ACE:

That’s one thing I look for a lot in the mix. It’s like, “Hey, can we make sure that blends a little bit better? Can we dirty that up, so it’s all sounds the same?” Because ADR has a tendency to sound very clean.

Sarah Taylor, CCE :

Yes, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, I’m going to take those tips into my next thing. Was there anything from this film that you learned that you’re taking  onto your next projects?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes. I have definitely learned a better way to organize myself when I have a lot of different options and all you know of a scene, because naturally, I do like different versions to myself, even without improvisation. But I think I hadn’t figured out a really efficient way to manage that until now. And honestly, I’m sure it’ll probably progress and evolve and change as things go on. But having to do that on a feature is, is like it’s it’s a lot, you know cause every scene, there’s something. And so, you have like 120 scenes, and it within that, are all these different versions. So so yeah, so I had to be really organized and quick about it, because when you’re working with them, they’re in the room. You wanna quickly be able to access that version and then, make changes and still keep it all organized.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

A hundred percent. Yeah. like okay. Take it from this bin and adding it to this. Yeah. Oh, I can see how that could get very complicated and wrong sequences could be dropped in. So yeah, organization is such a huge thing in the editing world and how like I find it’s constantly evolving for me as well. And having an assistant who’s really good at organizing is like so, so lovely. I love them when they’re organized. Yes. So anyway, shout out to my assistant, Blair, who does the best organization ever. Yay, Blair. So what what’s coming up next for you? Or what are you working on now? And what can people go watch?

Nena Erb, ACE:

Um I’m on a Marvel project right now. Um yeah, unfortunately, I can’t say too much about it.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

That’s okay.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Or like the Navy SEALs’ gonna crash through my ceiling and take me away.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah like something really very dramatic will happen.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Right. But hopefully, you know it’ll be ready to come out sometime in 2024, provided that hopefully the strike ends soon, we can all go back to work.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yeah. So what’s been happening for you right now with the strike?

Nena Erb, ACE:

I’m not working right now. I’m just enjoying a little time off. Yeah. I was very fortunate to be working up until the end of July. So yeah, time off for me is a welcome thing right now, so but I know that it’s been really hard for a lot of people in this industry. So as terrible as it is, I mean we all know that it’s difficult, but it’s the right thing to do to strike.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Hopefully it doesn’t last too much longer, and we can get back to creating really funny, hilarious movies like Joy Ride that also impact people and have themselves being seen on screen, which is so important. So um yes. So thank you for all of the amazing work you’ve done on Joy Ride. Anybody out there, please go watch this film. You can rent it now online. I’m sure there’s other places you can stream it from, but oh my gosh, it’s so funny. So go check it out. Is there any last nuggets that you want to share with us today, Nena? Oh, we got to circle back to your funniest joke. Circle back to the joke.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Funniest joke? I think it’s the, “You’re thinking about a penis.”

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Hahaha, yes.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Or the chubby bunny thing.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Yes. Oh, okay. Very good.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Yes, yeah. And the most obscure jokes are, there’s so many that are very culturally specific. But yeah but yeah, the chubby bunny one is definitely one that gets me every time still.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Oh, I love it. Can I ask you, what was it like for you, as an Asian American, getting to work on this film that was pretty much a full cast of Asian people?

Nena Erb, ACE:

It was weird, I’ll be very honest with you. I don’t think I’ve done many projects for like where I see Asians everywhere. It’s all over my dailies. It’s like, “What?” Usually, it’s like you have one or two. You know um, And so, it was refreshing. It was? It was great. It was really, really great. Um and I hope that happens more, because you know I think, for not just Asians, but for everybody, cause it’s important to see yourself represented and to see women that are so like braved to do whatever you know to say things, they’re not afraid to be themselves and it was just a really, it was a good project for me. It kind of like gave me permission to speak my mind more. Um I have a tendency to like think something, and then, I count to 10. And by then, it’s like, who cares? So I don’t even say it, but now, I’m like, “No, I’m not gonna count to 10. I’m just going to say it.”

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Oh, I love that. That’s amazing. Yeah. We should all just say what we need to say. This is great. Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing your journey on Joy Ride. It was quite fun. And I hope that we can maybe connect and talk about your next project when it’s all out and ready to go.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I love talking to you. You’re amazing.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Have a good one.

Nena Erb, ACE:

Thanks.

Sarah Taylor, CCE:

Thanks. Bye. Thanks so much for joining us today. And a big thanks goes to Nena, for taking the time to sit with me. Special thanks goes to Alison Dower and Kim McTaggart at CCE. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall, additional ADR recording by Andrea Rush. Original music created by Chad Blain and Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. 

 

The CCE is proud to support CREATIVES EMPOWERED. CREATIVES EMPOWERED is a nonprofit collective of artists and creatives. They are Black, Indigenous, and people of color empowering each other as an allied community. They are film and TV, media and arts professionals from emerging to established based in Western Canada. They’re the first and only organization of its kind in Alberta. CREATIVES EMPOWERED is inspired by and embodies what is truly possible when racialized talent are empowered to thrive.

Speaker 8: 

The CCE is a nonprofit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 080 – Framing Agnes with Cecilio Guillermo A.S. Escobar & Brooke Stern Sebold

The Editor's Cut - Episode 80
The Editor's Cut - Episode 80

Episode 080 - Framing Agnes with Cecilio Guillermo A.S. Escobar & Brooke Stern Sebold

This episode is a conversation with Brooke Stern Sebold and Cecilio Escobar, the editors behind the genre-blending and award-winning FRAMING AGNES.

This episode was recorded virtually on June 21, 2022.

FRAMING AGNES won the 2022 Sundance NEXT Audience Award and the NEXT Innovator Award, and recently screened at Hot Docs. This empowering and stylish documentary explores the legacy and impact that one trans woman left from the 1960s and onwards. 

With moderator Maureen Grant, this episode will dive into the intricate layers and structure of this innovative hybrid documentary.

This episode was generously sponsored by Integral Artists, IATSE 891, AQTIS 514.

Integral Artists Logo CCE Sponsor
IATSE 2018 Sponsor Event logo
AQTIS 514 IATSE sponsor logo

Cecilio Guillermo Escobar is a video artist, editor, and technician who works and lives in Toronto. He is an original member of the Toronto Queer Film Festival and works as their Technical Media Director. His recent work as Editor on Chase Joynt’s documentary FRAMING AGNES premiered at Sundance 2022. The film won the NEXT Innovator Award and the Audience Award: NEXT at the festival. His work focuses on QTBIPOC stories that push the boundaries of documentary.

Brooke Stern Sebold Headshot

Brooke Stern Sebold (they/she) is a nonbinary filmmaker whose work investigates gender and identity in both doc and narrative spaces. Brooke co-produced and edited the feature documentary FRAMING AGNES, which premiered at Sundance in 2022, winning both the NEXT Audience Award and Innovator Award. Brooke also cut and co-produced FRAMING AGNES the short, which premiered at Tribeca and won the Experimental Award at Outfest. In 2007, Brooke co-directed their first feature doc, RED WITHOUT BLUE, which won the Audience Award at Slamdance and the Jury Award at Frameline and screened at 150+ festivals worldwide. Brooke's narrative shorts have won awards at Palm Springs ShortsFest and the Florida Film Festival, and Brooke was the recipient of the Cine Golden Eagle Award for Excellence in Directing. When Brooke isn't writing and pitching shows, they’re editing the Emmy nominated series, BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR, which airs weekly on PBS NewsHour. Brooke received their BA from Brown University and their MFA from Columbia University. Brooke grew up in the Sonoran desert and loves crystals, doggies, tiramisu and she or they pronouns.

Maureen Grant Headshot

​​Maureen Grant brings a background in visual art, film production, and an MA in Media Studies to her work as an editor for film and television. She is a five-time nominee of the Canadian Cinema Editors Awards, and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talents 2019 and the 2013 Canadian Film Centre Editors Lab. She has worked with many notable directors on projects that have received international acclaim. PERCY was the top film in Canada on Apple TV iTunes. PYEWACKET premiered at TIFF 2017 and ranked amongst the year’s top horror films internationally. Recent work includes the Canadian Screen Award (CSA) nominated web series QUERENCIA, the CSA winning sketch comedy series TALLBOYZ, the Peacock / Family musical comedy series TAKE NOTE, and the Lifetime movie STOLEN BY THEIR FATHER. Forthcoming work includes Director V.T. Nayani’s feature film THIS PLACE, starring Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs and Priya Guns.

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The Editor?s Cut – Episode 030 – ?What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown?

Sarah Taylor [00:00:01]

Hello and welcome to The Editor?s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. At the CCE, we began our journey of self education with Anti-Oppression training in 2019. It was invaluable for us as it provided us with tools to assess how we as an organization could set a course of action to root our unconscious and systematic bias in our operations. This training is now a permanent part of our budget so future board members and volunteers can continue this work, and equity can be part of the fabric of our organization. We are offering a Lunch and Learn Introduction To Anti Oppressive Communication with Tenniel Brown on July 27. Today I’m lucky to be able to sit down with Tenniel Brown and discuss what Anti-Oppressive training is and what we can expect from this webinar. Tenniel Brown is a passionate anti-racist anti oppression and mental health speaker dedicated to improving the experiences of marginalized people in all institutional settings. She is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication which specializes in providing anti oppressive, trauma-informed counseling, clinical supervision and organizational consulting, as well as customized workshops training and team retreats. I’m joined with Tenniel Brown, she is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication based in Toronto. And we just want to have a little conversation about why anti oppression work is important in this and all days but specifically right now. So can you just tell us a little bit about your background and why you started the Center For Anti-Oppressive Communication.

Tenniel Brown [00:01:41]

My background is as a psychotherapist. So I spent I’ve spent many many years working with individuals and couples and families and groups helping them to access more of their well-being by addressing different mental health issues specifically trauma. One of the things that I specialize in addressing is racialized trauma. But also trauma that comes from folks that have experienced different types of oppression. And I think for most people that are called to this type of work it’s quite personal for me right. So often when you don’t see the work that you know needs to happen in the community taking place you create it. And so that was me. You know I think I saw that there was a need for organizations to have somebody come in and not just talk about diversity inclusion but talk about what happens when certain identities have power and that unbalance of power and how to actually address that in our communication. I knew that out in the community there were therapists and social workers that were wanting to do better work. You know work in the best practice way with clients that are black, racialized, queer, and trans, and had nowhere to go to get supervision and support. And finally I knew personally that there were so many folks that when they were ready to do therapy work they needed to see someone sitting across the office that looked like them or had a very similar lived experience and they just were not going to come unless that was the case. So all these things I knew was happening and nobody was doing it. And I said someone’s got to do something and that was me. I think what needs to come out of what’s happened in June is for folks to see black professionals and black community in in the in sort of like the the brilliance of what we do and it’s not uncommon that in many cases where we don’t see ourselves we create it. So yeah that was the spirit of and I think that when I started the organization I knew that it was important for there to be a place where folks from those different backgrounds could come and get that support and information. So it’s a real passion of mine. It is my baby and it’s so beautiful to see folks wanting this information during this time.

Sarah Taylor [00:04:01]

Yeah so important. Can you tell us what Anti-Oppression means and what someone can expect by taking an anti oppressive workshop?

Tenniel Brown [00:04:10]

Sure absolutely. So when you sort of break down the word anti oppression anti oppressive practice we take a look at that anti part and essentially that that just means opposition to oppression and then the practice part. So AOP? the practice part pertains to the context in which you are practicing opposition to oppression. So you can apply an anti oppressive lens to just about anything. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations like Pride Toronto and work with your curators to apply an anti-oppressive lens to the way they do event organizing. I have applied an anti oppressive lens to the way I do therapy and clinical supervision with other therapists. You can apply an anti oppressive lens to teaching. You can apply it to student advising, you can apply it to just about anything. I’ve been working with fitness professionals looking at applying an anti oppressive lens to the way that they support folks that are on their fitness journey. So so it’s about looking at whatever practice whatever context you are working in and using that platform to be able to oppose oppression and all of its forms. So that’s essentially what it is.

Sarah Taylor [00:05:29]

And so when someone takes courses like anti oppressive communication course or participates in your courses what can they expect to be talking about or learning?

Tenniel Brown [00:05:37]

Absolutely so I think one of the most important things is to sort of pull back a little bit of you know the cover on this because I think anti oppressive language is its own language. It’s like Spanish. And you see so many people getting themselves into some rather serious trouble these days because they actually don’t know the language they don’t understand? in some ways the harm of some of the things that they’re doing and saying the deep harm of that. You get a lot of people who don’t really know how to talk about these issues. And so you go into a shame spiral and you just don’t talk. You just get very quiet and I always argue that you know the silence piece is a part of how we got ourselves into this trouble as a human society in the first place. So what I offer is something for everybody. I think over the years what folks have said to me is is even somebody who’s maybe got a social work background and knows about anti oppressive practice when they come to one of my trainings they find that they are moved further along in their application of that perspective around ?OK, well what does this mean when I’m interacting with somebody right here in a one on one context.? Other people that are completely brand new have never had the chance to learn any of this language or understand any of these concepts have said over the years that they felt like they left with a really good sense of what this topic is. But not just that practical skills. I’m all about practical skills. I want to offer things that folks can use tomorrow today and the next day and my mission is also for folks to leave his training and talk about it. Tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell a family member, and feel equipped to be able to engage in these conversations. So when someone is saying or doing something problematic, you have this confidence in the skills to be able to interpret what’s going on there and to be able to talk to them and to be able to address it. The other thing that I do is I couch everything that I do in my trainings in a self care and team care perspective. And I think this is very important. We have to look after our emotions. We have to look after ourselves and we have to look after each other. I always say you could be as anti oppressive as you want but if you haven’t had any lunch? if you haven’t eaten anything? you’re not good.

Sarah Taylor [00:07:57]

You’ve got the hangries!

Tenniel Brown [00:07:59]

Trust me, Anti-Oppressive work requires patience. It requires empathy. It requires compassion and self compassion. You will fall down a lot and I find you know and I talk a lot about cancel culture and don’t get me wrong really that could be its own podcast.

Sarah Taylor [00:08:19]

Totally. Especially in this industry.

Tenniel Brown [00:08:22]

Look we need to talk about this and I get why certain people are being canceled for sure. And yet as someone who does this work I recognize that I’m so thankful I wasn’t canceled because over the years I’ve done and said things before I knew before I took a course like this before I had an opportunity to learn what was problematic about my lens. I’m so thankful that I was able to make those mistakes in a safe environment and actually benefit from that and grow. So people get a safe environment to learn language and understand what is going on, what is oppression, if oppression is so bad why don’t we just stop this. Well I unpack that for folks. Why is this so complicated and why doesn’t this just stop. And then I provide practical skills for folks to be able to apply this to their lives and their communication. I think the other thing that I think folks get is not just sort of a general whatever, you’ll find that I’m really interested in applying it to film editors and what it is that you do on a regular basis and looking at how you can use your platform to be able to actually oppose oppression.

Sarah Taylor [00:09:31]

Yeah well it’s like it’s huge I know for myself we did anti oppression workshop as a board for the CCE. I’m in an interracial marriage and so I thought ?Oh I know a lot.? Like I’ve been unpacking this stuff for a while and understanding in my own way. But also like kind of like how do I say it to my white uncle who is racist like how do I approach that. And by taking that one course, like you said I got so much more understanding of where people might come from and the language and I could approach it not by just being angry because anytime I’d hear anything I was like ?You’re talking about my husband, you’re talking about my child! This is not OK!? And so it made a huge impact on me and I felt like I kind of knew some stuff but I realized that there was so much more to learn. And I think I’m still learning and it’s opened up even conversations I’ve had with my husband and my in-laws? and so I think people who are in my situation are like ?no I’m cool I got I’m married to so-and-so or I have my best friend or whatever.? You grew up in your lens and there’s way more to learn and unpack.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:41]

Absolutely. Absolutely it’s so true. And I always say that absolutely positively nobody gets a pass on this.

Sarah Taylor [00:10:48]

100 percent.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:49]

At all. You know myself as someone who identifies as a black fem queer woman, you know folks would be like well you know you of course you couldn?t oppress. And it’s like yes we are all susceptible to experiencing oppression and we are all oppressors. So I have aspects of my identity that allow me to have privilege. And the thing about this is that if you’re not aware of those things that’s how you harm people that’s how you engage in micro aggressions. You know what I mean? That’s how you you know get striking up a conversation with someone about your latest renovation in your house when this person is still renting and doesn’t even have access. These are the types of things that you’re never protected from. Right. Like you’re not protected from that in a certain way. So it’s really important to remember that.

Sarah Taylor [00:11:40]

Where should someone start if they’re like feeling overwhelmed they’re like wow I know that I need to make this change. I’ve seen all this information now on social media and I’m saying all the wrong things and like you said I’m just going to be quiet which is not the right thing to do. So where do they go and what should they focus on first to just like get into this mindset of making these changes?

Tenniel Brown [00:12:02]

That’s a great question. And what I would say is education. Not a coincidence right? So of course you know joining with you know your organization to offer this to the community because I think that’s step number one. I think we do need to have good information about? you need to educate yourself. I would say that it’s a really important first step to really listen, and I find even when you have more information and you have more training it even improves the way that you can listen because what you find is when you don’t have that knowledge there’s certain things that are sort of prevent you from even being open. So I find the training and the skills and the confidence that you get from doing the course like this allows you to even listen deeper right and understand more and I think that that’s step number one. I think that once? but don’t stay there! Because I think a lot of people oh I’m listening but really it’s just their guilt and shame. So yeah they’re still not doing anything but once you’ve had the chance to listen you now can start thinking more about your platform and I think that’s one of the most important thing for your listeners to know that if it’s like well I’m not a social worker I’m not a therapist what’s this got to do with me it’s like it has everything to do with you. You have a platform as a film editor and it’s important for you to acknowledge that there are big ways and small ways that you can make a difference. And we all have a responsibility. What’s happened in this world since COVID what’s happened in this world since June is we can no longer close our eyes to this. We have to look at this and all the years that we have stayed silent on this has been what’s caused the problem. So the reality is is that we all are called to use our platform to be able to address this to look around the room and be like who isn’t here? To look around your history of the films that you and different projects you’ve been involved in and being like how many of these people, how many of these stories featured stories that were outside of what we usually see? Right. And looking at the ways that you can use your platform and your influence to be able to make a change, so we’re all called to do that I don’t care if you’re a child care worker or a housekeeper do some working at a gas station, it literally doesn’t matter we’re all a part of this human society. We all have some sort of platform and so we all have a responsibility to do something. You know Sarah one of my favorite slogans that’s come out of the protest is ?Silence is Violence.? I love that one because I know what happens when people don’t have education and knowledge. They go into a shame cycle they go into a guilt cycle and they go into fear and you know what happens there? Shh. And you know what, that doesn’t help anybody at all. So I recognize that these are difficult things for us to unpack but we all have a responsibility to use whatever platform we have to make a difference. So starting by educating yourself, listening a lot, and then that’s going to help you to be more open to what you can do. And then looking at your platform whether that be personal or professional to make a change.

Sarah Taylor [00:15:20]

That was perfect. Yeah. That’s huge. And even since I took my training and even just since I’ve done my own inner work I noticed like I wouldn’t pick certain shots anymore or there’ll be things in my edit where I’m like ?that’s a stereotype? or ?No that’s not going to work. We can’t do that we can’t have that.? And so I think if everybody’s doing that then what we’re seeing on screen can start changing.

Tenniel Brown [00:15:45]

Absolutely. Absolutely and there’s these you know there’s there’s big ways and then there’s little ways like you describe. So it’s it is about really curating your lens, right and making sure that you’re seeing more and I think training like this just helps you to really open up your lens. So you’re not just seeing directly what’s in front of you work to the side of you but it’s more of like a panoramic view which you folks really need in the work that you do.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:09]

100 percent. Yeah. Well I hope that our membership joins us. I know we’ve already been getting people RSVPing which is very exciting. On July 27 2020 to learn and to unpack and to take part and just hopefully we can continue to do stuff with you and just keep educating and making the changes we can make.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:28]

Yeah. Join us. Join us. Don’t hesitate folks. Be a part of this. I’m really looking forward to working with everybody. And you know what we’re gonna have fun. I know these topics are really heavy but we’re gonna have some fun and we’re really going to connect with each other as a community so I look forward to meeting everybody at this training.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:46]

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and I look forward to seeing you on the 27th and continuing my journey. So thank you for doing this for us and thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with the world. So thank you so much.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:59]

You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Taylor [00:17:03]

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thank you goes to Tenniel Brown and a special thanks to Maureen Grant and Jane MacRae. If you’d like to connect with Tenniel, you can find her on Instagram @TennielBrown. If you’d like to bring Tenniel into your organization to learn more about anti oppressive work, you can check out her website at brownconsulting.com. I look forward to learning more from Tenniel on July 27 2020 at the CCE Lunch and Learn I hope to see you there. The CCE has been supporting BIPOC TV and FILM. BIPOC TV and FILM is a grassroots organization and collective of black, indigenous, and people of colour in Canada’s TV and film industry. From writers, directors, producers, and actors, to editors, crew members, and executives. Their members are a mix of emerging, mid-level, and established industry professionals. BIPOC TV and FILM is dedicated to increasing the representation of BIPOC both in front and behind the camera. If you would like to donate to BIPOC TV and FILM please head to their website at bipoctvandfilm.com. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in any way they can. 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

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The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 079 – The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

TEC EP079: The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez
TEC EP079: The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

Episode 079 - The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

In this episode Sarah Taylor sits down with the editor?s of one of the most successful series this year - THE LAST OF US!

Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez share their favourite episodes, how they co-edited together and what it felt like to work on such a popular series!

TEC EP079: The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

Film editor Timothy Good, ACE recently finished editing the hit series THE LAST OF US, cutting episodes including the first season finale and the acclaimed third episode, featuring the characters Bill and Frank. He has edited a wide variety of TV series and miniseries, including WHEN WE RISE, THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY and FRINGE. He also worked on classic series such as the original GOSSIP GIRL and THE O.C.

TEC EP079: The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

Emily Mendez grew up near Fort Worth, Texas, where she spent most of her childhood creating family videos with her siblings. After graduating as a film major from TCU, she made her way to Los Angeles where she received her masters degree in film editing at the American Film Institute. It was at AFI that she was lucky enough to study under many talented editors, including DONN CAMBERN, ACE, and FARREL LEVY, ACE, who encouraged her interest in visual storytelling to bloom. This mentorship led to Emily?s eventual entrance into television, where she has worked on the editorial teams for THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, THE RESIDENT, LIGHT AS A FEATHER, ROSEWOOD, and most recently THE LAST OF US. During THE LAST OF US, Emily was given the opportunity to rise from assistant editor to co-editor alongside TIMOTHY GOOD, ACE, for four episodes. Her partnership with Tim has allowed Emily?s understanding of editorial architecture and design to flourish.

This episode is sponsored by DGC Alberta and Annex Pro.

À écouter ici !

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 079 – The Last of Us with Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by the Director’s Guild of Canada, Alberta District Council and Annex Pro. If you reside in the province of Alberta like I do and are interested in editing, connect with the DGC Alberta to learn more. Come edit with me at the DGC Alberta District Council. 

Did you both anticipate the show to be as big as it was?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Okay. So, no, but it was funny because Craig’s like, “You guys, it’s good. And I know.” And we go, okay. The moment where I knew it would be a little bit bigger than I thought it would be was at the premiere when we were all together in this ridiculously huge tent. At midnight, the review embargo ended and all of the reviews could be released and we were still there. I remember being right next to Craig and Bella Ramsey and all the reviews started piling in and they were looking at them and they’re reading them and they were like, oh my God.

Sarah Taylor:

Also fan art started coming out more every week. That to me has just been awesome.

Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honour, respect and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today.

We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions and the concerns that impact indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action. 

Today I bring to you an interview with the editors of the series that broke record after record and the service I used to stream it here in Canada – The Last of Us. Timothy Good, ACE and Emily Mendez share their favorite episodes, how they co-edited together and what it felt like to work on such a popular series.

 

And action. Action. This is the Editor’s Cut.

Speaker 3:

A CCE podcast.

Sarah Taylor:

Exploring, exploring, exploring the art-

Speaker 5:

Of picture editing.

Sarah Taylor:

Tim and Emily, thank you so much for joining us on The Editor’s Cut. I am very excited and I think so are our listeners to talk all things The Last of Us, but also learn a little bit about the both of you and how you got into the world of post-production. So I think just to start things off, I’m curious about how you each became part of this epic record-breaking series, The Last of Us.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Well, thank you again, Sarah, so much for inviting us to be a part of this. We’re so excited to talk to everyone. We came as a package deal because originally Emily came as my assistant editor, and during the process of season one, she was elevated to co-editor alongside me, which was a tremendous experience for both me and I know for her. So we came together through a very strange happenstance way, which is I happen to be married to a screenwriter, and he is very good friends with Craig Maison, Craig Maison being the showrunner of The Last of Us. So I actually hung out with Craig in social situations where he and his wife and other writers would come over to our house and have little dinner parties and game nights. So at the time I was just sort of like the guy serving drinks and the husband in the corner who’s just making things happen for them.

Then one time Craig showed everyone the trailer for Chernobyl, his previous series, and I was floored. So I said to him, “I know I may just be the guy who’s helping being cool here, but I’m also a really great editor who I think I would love to work with you if the chance ever happened again.” And he says, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen your work. I’ve watched The Umbrella Academy. My kids are fans. Maybe that can happen.” I said, “Okay, well I’ll keep in touch then.” And over the next three years or so, while that all happened, I kept in touch and things weren’t going to work out at the time. There was some scheduling issues, blah da da da as usual. But then one of the directors from The Umbrella Academy, which we were just previously working on, said, “Hey, I just got hired on The Last of Us and I would love it if you guys could come and be a part of the team that works on my episodes.”

I said, “Well, I’ve been trying to get on this as well, so maybe there’s an opening here.” He went to them and they said, “Oh, unfortunately we’ve already hired everyone.” And we’re like, oh, no, disaster! So we said, all right, well that is what it is. But then as luck would have it, one of the editors had a scheduling issue themself and they had to drop out and then suddenly there was a spot available. I get this call saying, “If you can be in Calgary in four weeks, we think you can get you in here.”

Of course, I had to meet with everyone. I had to have the interviews. Then they said, ‘Well, who’s the assistant editor you want to bring?” I said, “Well, Emily is the assistant editor I’ve been working with and she’s been co-editing with me. She’s really fantastic. You will not regret this choice.” They said, “Okay.” And so we got the job and then next thing we knew, I was in Calgary working alongside the production. Emily was working remotely in Los Angeles as the assistant editor, and the first episode they gave us was episode three.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s an amazing first episode to work on. Holy moly.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yes. No pressure.

Sarah Taylor:

No pressure whatsoever. Again, breaking records. So Emily, what was your journey? You’re assisting with Tim, you’re hearing about this Last of Us show. What were your thought processes when all of this was going on?

Emily:

When I first heard from Tim that he was in the talks of potentially going onto the show called The Last of Us, I was super excited because I played the games, I loved the games, and so I was like, “Tim, we have to do this.” So for me it was really just excitement and just feeling lucky that Tim wanted to take me on to the show with him. We’d been working for several years together at this point, so we’re kind of like a duo. So it just made sense for us to go together onto the show, and I’m really glad that he took me with him.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s wonderful. Tim, were you a fan of the game?

Timothy Good, ACE:

I have never played the game, nor have I since played the game. It was an odd – it wasn?t an odd decision. It was what turned out to be a really good decision. Because we were so sort of late to the hiring process, I didn’t really have time and I didn’t know anything much about the video game. Whereas Emily was like, “Tim, come on. We got to do this thing.” She’s like, “You don’t understand.” And I’m like, “I don’t understand.” But that’s kind of what made it interesting. When we were about to do it, I said, “Well, what if I decide not to play it?” Then everything that’s coming into the room, I will approach from the perspective of someone who knows nothing. Then along the way, what organically happened is that Emily would point things out to me that really helped me in terms of her knowledge of the game and what was important from the game’s perspective.

So suddenly there were, even when I was using certain techniques, she said, “That’s like the game.” Then I remember as I’m going through dailies and I see this red shirt that’s being lifted up out of a suitcase, I’m like, ahhh. And she goes, “No, no, no, no, no. That shirt is really important and you have to use it because it’s going to be a wonderful tease because it’s the most iconic shirt from the game of what Ellie wears. And if you show it a little bit earlier, I think it’s going to make the game folk go crazy. Meanwhile it still tells the story of what you’re doing at the moment, which is them packing up the truck.”

So having that kind of dynamic between the two of us was just a wonderful way to approach it because we were kind of satisfying both sides of the audience, the audience that knows nothing about it, and then the audience that is very much looking forward to seeing how the game is adapted. Emily, do you have anything else to add to that?

Emily:

Yeah, these are details that Craig and Neil would’ve eventually gotten into the cuts if we’d missed them, but I think it was very helpful because Tim and I were able to get those details in at an early stage for the cuts, so they were just ready to go. So there were things, even in that episode three where Ellie and Joel are in a gas station, she runs up to an arcade game and she’s like, “Oh, I used to have a friend that knew everything about this game.” I said to Tim, I was like, “You know who she’s talking about, right? This is an important character that, you know, she’s talking about Riley.” So we would have discussions like that just to get those details in early on, and I think that really helped our process a lot.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Well, I feel like that was the big commentary that I heard is that there were so many great moments in the series that were from the game that people just were so excited about. So –

 

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yep.

 

Sarah Taylor:

Good job, both of you.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

What were the episodes that you cut? You cut episode three.

Timothy Good, ACE:

I did the pilot and then episode three, episode four. Then Emily and I started teaming up on five, six, seven and nine.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow, so you basically did almost all of them.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah. What was crazy is I did episode three and episode three was a beautiful script, the most beautiful script. They had hired Peter Hoar, who’s an amazing director from the UK who did this series It?s a Sin. He also did The Umbrella Academy pilot. So I kind of knew him sort of tangentially through that. So we did this episode and Craig was like, “This – You guys have unlocked what I’m trying to do, and I didn’t even really give you a roadmap, and I really am trying to figure out what the series is, and if it’s okay with you, I really kind of want to put you guys in front of as many episodes as possible. I think you guys get it.” That was a blessing, and it was also terrifying because then it’s like, oh gosh. So now we have to do all of these things, as many as we could.

And of course, we had some fantastic editors who would pinch hit and do an episode here or there to help us out. But in general, Craig wanted me to be doing as many as I could. Ultimately what I said to him is, at a certain point when I was juggling three episodes at once, and then we were about to start a fourth, I said, “There’s really no way to do this without losing the quality of what we’ve been putting into all of the episodes. So here’s an episode we’re about to start filming, and it’s the Riley episode.” So it’s something that Emily is so fond of, and she’s already proven to Craig through her sound design sort of amazing work. Also, I’ve been giving her scenes to edit along the way because that’s what I’ve always been doing with every assistant I work with, but specifically with Emily, because she has such a talent, such an eye, and such a fantastic sense of editing that I’ve been mentoring her along the way.

So Craig was aware of her talent. So I said to him, “Wouldn’t it be great if Emily can do this with me? Because number one, it’s another gay love story.” I did the gay love story between Bill and Frank, and that was between two men. It’s something I understand very intimately. And Emily is lesbian and understands very clearly what it would be like between two girls at a certain age. I said, “That’s going to really help the storytelling here. As much as I can do a good job with it, I bet you that she’s going to find things that other people will not.” And specifically me, I didn’t think I could find the details as much as she could. Craig said, “You know what? That’s a really good idea.” So he’s very open to giving chances to young artists, and I was just so excited about that, that I believe Emily, didn’t I call you, was it Christmas?

Emily:

It was around Christmas, yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Little present for you.

Emily:

Yeah, it was the best present ever. So yeah, it was Christmas and then we went back after the break, and then we basically got started on Left Behind very soon after that.

Sarah Taylor:

So how did it feel for you, Emily, going through this process working – how long did you and Tim work together as assistant editor?

Emily:

We had been working together for a few years, right, Tim?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, like three years.

Emily:

Yeah, like around three years.

Timothy Good, ACE:

We co-edited before as well. That was the thing. It was really easy. I had known her through, she used to be the assistant to another editor, so I knew her even more than that. I actually knew her probably five years.

Emily:

Yeah.

Timothy Good, ACE:

And therefore I was very aware of her talent.

Sarah Taylor:

What did you feel like when you found out, okay, this is my episode now and I’m taking the reins? Was there pressure? Were you excited?

Emily:

It was really surreal. The good thing is I had been with Tim for three years at that point working with him, and Tim is so great as a mentor. He’ll let his assistants come in and just sit and he’ll talk through everything he’s doing. So up to this point, I had really taken advantage of that. So whenever I’d finish my work for the day, I would almost always go to Tim and be like, “Can I sit with you for a bit?” And stay in his room and just watch him edit, learn from him. I’ve been lucky enough to adapt a lot of the things Tim does in his work, because I think a lot of his approaches are really fantastic. So luckily for me, what Tim was doing for The Last of Us was really working for Craig.

So a lot of how I edit is very similar to him. So I felt that if I stayed that course, things were going to go well. There was a little bit of pressure, but ultimately I was co-editing with Tim, and so I had him to work with, and I just decided, I was like, well, this is it. I always kind of tell myself, you can sink or swim and this is my time to swim. So that was kinda how I approached it, and it really worked out, and it was so exciting. Honestly, I was mostly just excited.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, and what a great episode too to work on. One of the things that I reflected when I was thinking about chatting with both of you was how all these episodes we meet these characters that you fall in love with. I fell in love with Riley, I fell in love with Bill and his partner. We have not even an hour, maybe some of them are a little longer, but how are you creating these amazing characters that your audience is devastated, but already knowing that they’re probably going to die because it’s a zombie show.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

So you?re editing, and I’m sure the writing and everything else too, it all comes together. But what was your process going into these episodes knowing that these characters needed to be impactful, but also that it was just kind of like one episode they’re done?

Timothy Good, ACE:

So number one, it’s Craig and the scripts that he writes are really detailed, and the things that he values are very much about building characters. The other thing that I think that we did very well as editors is we didn’t just rush through the openings. The openings were critical in terms of the audience sort of attaching themselves to these characters. A lot of what I believe as an editor is that if people are talking while they’re being introduced, it’s hard to really get a sense of them because you’re not really getting a chance to study them without also simultaneously digesting what they’re saying. So a lot of the stuff that we would do is we would start things in a more silent fashion, either because they were scripted like that, or because it helped us like that, or I would find ways to slow scenes down when they became about character development so that you could actually focus on the faces of the characters without any dialogue.

So there’s an uninterrupted portion of time where you as the audience really get to think about who they are and wonder about their intentions and see their transitions. So it was about building the idea of the story from these characters? point of views. I can give you a good example. In the very first episode, the pilot, Sarah is the daughter, and you have to love her. The plan, the strategy that we employed here was I wanted to tell every scene from her point of view and always focus on her transitions, her perspectives more than anyone else’s. Even when Joel was in the scene, even when Tommy was in the scene, it was all about how she experienced things. So she got a majority of the closeups, usually way more than the other characters, because at the time, I was hoping the audience would say, this is who …

And again, not the gamers, because the gamers know what’s going to happen with her, but the audience that doesn’t know the game is going to think that this is the person they’re going to follow this story with. When she dies at the 35 minute mark or so, it’s hopefully horrifying. You realize at that point, the point of view is about to shift to Joel, and you have now had an entirely formed character of Joel based on how he interacted with Sarah. So a lot of it was about building the character through sort of surreptitious means. Specifically with Bill, you don’t meet Frank until Bill has a whole life that he performs. You show what satisfies him, what makes him happy. What makes him happy is a nice steak and a booby trap that works and that’s incredibly satisfying. Then you go, okay, this is what this guy is. He’s okay being alone, but is that a life?

That was the question and that’s the conflict that Frank brings into it. With the two brothers, Henry and Sam, it was about finding sort of silent moments with them. It was much easier because of course they’re using ASL to communicate to begin with that you had this sort of cinematic language between the two of them. I’m just really aware that allowing people to have moments where they can study the characters allows them to be more connected, and to see the transitions that they’re making really gives you a sense of why they’re doing what they’re doing. So by the time you get to the point where the plot kicks in at the very end, and if they die or whatnot, you feel like that’s not fair to you because you’ve really grown to love these characters. I think that’s one of the ways that we do it. Anything I’m forgetting, Emily?

Emily:

I also just think it’s a testament to how great our cast is. We have incredible actors playing these roles. So Tim and I, were always just supporting them in the way that we watch through everything. So we’re watching through footage, we’re throwing down markers, we’re like, oh, I like this look that Ellie’s giving at this moment, or I like this look that Riley’s giving. So we’re marking down things that we think feel real for the characters from what we’ve gotten from the script, and then when we’re watching the dailies and how that’s feeling. So it’s great when you have these actors that are just incredible. So you have lots of options for those things.

So really, I also think that’s a reason why these characters are sticking with people. We have great people that we’re working with. We have a great script we’re working off of, and then it’s just Tim and I are going through and just finding all those moments and putting them together. One thing Tim always talks about is it’s like preparing your ingredients for a recipe. It’s like you’re going through and you’re taking all this time at the beginning to find everything that is correct and right for the characters. So I think that really helps us too.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, that’s a good analogy. I like that idea. You kind of started talking about workflow, so I’m curious how you typically both work. You’re watching all the dailies, you’re putting markers down. What is it exactly that you’re looking for? Anything that strikes your fancy, any look? What are you looking for when you’re watching dailies?

Timothy Good, ACE:

What are we looking for? What I love about being an editor is that you just get to be an armchair psychologist.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Timothy Good, ACE:

It’s fantastic to be … and also as someone who I really, truly believe in the architecture of building scenes and sequences, I love to create sort of moments of, oh, this can be used for a moment where someone is feeling vulnerable. This can be used for a moment when they’re feeling strength. So all these little building blocks are accumulating. As I’m watching things, as Emily’s watching things, we go, this can be used to create this, this can be used to do this. All of these things are possibilities. So we just sort of have this wonderful amount of possibilities. And more than anything, when we watch something is I just try and react in the moment instinctually to what I feel is emotionally real and tells a really good story.

Any time I watch an actor in that character doing multiple things, I always go, this is a really great moment because this is A) really hard, I know for anyone to do. And for an actor and being in a character, I’m thinking specifically of when Ellie is being taught how to use the gun. She goes from crying in one moment to fascinated because she’s about to get the gun, to smiling about the gun, to then being like, I’m so cool with the gun.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Timothy Good, ACE:

So she goes from four different emotions in one shot. I said, well, isn’t this how you connect to a character? You see how they can shift from one thing to the next. So those are the kind of things I am looking out for. It’s about finding those little tiny nuances. Sometimes the actors don?t even know they’re doing them, and the director doesn’t even see them because they’re running? everything is a take and then the next take. As editors, we have the luxury of watching again and again and again.

Emily:

I think all the little details that we can incorporate, each one that works towards making the character feel more real is helpful. So the example that I’m thinking of is, I was lucky enough to cut Riley and Ellie’s dance and kiss in episode seven. There was a little piece, and there was a take and a wide shot after they kiss. Bella was holding onto the werewolf mask the entire time and then dropped it at the very end. I thought to myself, how cute is this that she was so nervous that she doesn’t want to drop this … She doesn’t drop the mask, she doesn’t even think about it, because that’s not what she’s thinking about. Then she drops it at the end after they’ve kissed, and it’s kind of like this release of this tension and this fear and first love and all this stuff.

I just thought to myself when I was watching the dailies, I felt something when I watched that. I was like, that just felt so real to me, like a teenager. So I kept that little … I marked that piece, and I made sure to get it in my cut. It’s still in there now in the scene. It’s actually one of my favorite little moments in that whole scene. I think it’s incorporating those little things that make us feel, we hope that the audience will also feel the same. So that’s where I think that kind of helps in that way.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, even you describing that makes me all misty.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Good.

Sarah Taylor:

So good. Yeah. I’m curious on the technical side of things, how many cameras were shooting for most of your scene? Was it 4K? Were you having to reframe anything? What were you getting on it?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Generally, we didn’t reframe much. I have to say the cinematographers were pretty incredible with their framing, as were the directors. I don’t remember if it was 4K or not.

Emily:

We’re working in Avid, we don’t get the 4K stuff because it’s-

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, for sure not.

Emily:

Yeah, I’m not sure about that either. But it was generally around three cameras sometimes, sometimes less. I’d say on average though, three cameras, right? Sometimes two.

Timothy Good, ACE:

It was mostly, I would say more early on, it was more like two. Then later on it was a little more like three. When we did the battle sequences, it was four, at least four, and sometimes they would have what we would call in the past IMO cameras, small little stunt cameras here and there for little pieces. But yeah, they were very smart in terms of getting really sharp, really good A cameras work. So that’s a majority of, they had a really great operator, Neil Bryant, who is just a really good artist when it comes to working with the camera.

The approach of The Last of Us was always this grounded approach where you’re with these characters from their level, and more than not, you’re experiencing the world from their perspective as opposed to very rarely would we go outside of their perspectives and show the world. Obviously we would once in a while because sometimes it’s just too claustrophobic to be that close with them. But more often than not, that was the strategy to bring you into that world. So a lot of times that A camera had this sort of lyrical movement that was more often than not the thing that we would go for.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, it’s great to hear that you didn’t have to battle any sort of technical issues.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Didn’t seem to be, no.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s great.

Timothy Good, ACE:

We always think about the creative aspect of it anyway. It’s like, what does this shot even mean from a psychological and emotional perspective? Do we need it? There may be three cameras, but the other two, even they’ll say, we had to get these other two because they were sitting around and we had to cover ourselves, but we don’t necessarily need them unless we need them.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Well, that’s so great. Okay, I want to dive into episode three and then episode seven since you two both worked on those.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Sure, yeah. Of course.

Sarah Taylor:

So when you read the script for episode three, Tim, were you instantly taken into that world of them as a … how did you feel when you read that script knowing that this was your episode?

Timothy Good, ACE:

This was the only opportunity I had as the editor to experience this episode. It was insanely moving to me, A, because I felt like I understood these characters. I truly am a Frank, and I am married to a Bill, which is really kind of weird.

Sarah Taylor:

Perfect.

Timothy Good, ACE:

We do have a little place on the East Coast, which I’m at right now actually, and it does have a fence. Craig’s writing was so just incredibly vivid in terms of the relationship he was building about a couple over time. I think that as someone who’s been together with my husband for 20 years now, I understood those scenes, those relationships. But I also very much remember the experience of when you first meet people and how you’re trying to … and especially 20 some years ago when it was a little bit harder and you weren’t sure if you would be safe by talking to people and trying to connect with them, you just weren’t sure. A lot of those scenes, to me felt so real and so just beautiful that I was like, I know I can make a difference in this episode. I feel these feelings myself. So when we started doing it, I just was determined to make sure that the episode reached its full potential.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, I think you were successful on that.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Thank you. It was a pure – just a wonderful opportunity to add nuance to what I felt was just a beautifully drawn script to begin with.

Sarah Taylor:

And something that we don’t always see on screen. I think that was pretty remarkable. Did you read the feedback coming out after it came out?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yes.

Sarah Taylor:

How did you feel about all that? That must have felt pretty good.

Timothy Good, ACE:

I loved it. And here’s the thing, this is what I love. I loved the positive and I loved the negatives. The positive was amazing to me because A) I didn’t understand the extent to which this would be felt by so many. I knew it was good. I knew that it would have an impact. I didn’t know the extent of it. For me, the best thing was to have people call me or write me and say, I talked to my mom the day after and she wanted to talk to me about this. I was connecting with my family more. My dad called me and said, oh, I kind of understand, and that those guys were great, and this is okay. I’m like, well, this is good. Because ultimately that was my goal personally, was to show not necessarily like, look, we’re equal people, blah, blah, blah.

These are – love is the same no matter who’s in it. A lot of people said, I recognize myself in these characters, which is again, what I was going for as an editor and what I think they were going for as on a story base as well. So for me, it was wonderful. Then the negative response was awesome because it meant to me that it worked and it meant that it was wildly successful and they recognized it was wildly successful. So they did their very best to try and say, this isn’t good, this isn’t good. So they tried to review bomb it, they tried to say, no, this is wrong, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, great, because this means that the loudest people are the ones that are losing. And therefore, I feel, I felt really good about it because I knew that they knew that it was showing a universal human condition.

Earlier today, I just spoke to students in Denmark because they were obsessed with how the episode made them feel. These are people far, far away, half way across the world. So I just love the fact that it has done that for so many, and it’s always going to have some people who hate you, and that’s okay.

Sarah Taylor:

Yep. I think I remember too, the numbers went up the next … the numbers progressively got higher and higher after that episode. So it’s like, success.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yes. It’s like, sorry guys, we can’t do that.

Sarah Taylor:

You’re wrong.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Emily, what was it like cutting episode seven? Your description of just that one dropping of the mask was, what a beautiful thing to capture. Also I know that feeling as a teenager, or even just anybody kissing somebody for the first time, right?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

So tell me what it was like for you to cut this.

Emily:

It was so meaningful getting to cut it. I have experienced that same thing of falling in love with your best friend as a teenager. Does she like me? Does she not? So I just felt like I just understood what those feelings were. So to be able to visually get those up on screen, it’s really great. I think that the Left Behind episode is so interesting because it’s a very unique episode and it just felt so different from everything else. So to get to work on that just alone I think was awesome. But the character of Riley is very special to me. The Left Behind portion of the game was always my favorite.

So getting to work on scenes with them, it was really kind of a dream come true for me. The mall is so cool. Just the fact that they’re in a mall, I just think that’s cool. That’s just a detail that I just personally love. I’ve always loved things set in malls. I don’t know why, but for me, I loved it.

Sarah Taylor:

Did you grow up in the mall? Because I spent a lot of my youth at the mall.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s nostalgic, right?

Emily:

Nostalgic, really cool. Then you have the arcades. So we have all these really cool scenes in that episode that are just fun to work on. I’m just watching the dailies, and I’m just like, this is just fun to watch. So that episode for me was just a blast. I had the best time.

Sarah Taylor:

So my daughter, who’s seven, I don’t know if it’s appropriate for her to be watching the show or not, but she did. She watched with us and I was like, “Hey, I’m going to talk to the editors today. Do you have anything you want to say or any questions?” She said, “In season two, if there’s another mall thing, tell them not to include too much American Girl dolls because they’re really scary.” The clip you put in was really scary. She was more scared of American Girl dolls than the zombies.

Emily:

Oh my gosh, that’s so funny.

Sarah Taylor:

Good detail.

Emily:

I agree. They are pretty creepy. I love it.

Sarah Taylor:

Anyway, I think episode seven and episode three were probably, I’m going to guess your favorite episodes. I could be wrong, but what was the favorite scene that you got to edit and why?

Emily:

My favorite scene has to be the dance and the kiss for Ellie and Riley. That scene to me, just ?cause since that was first episode that I was co-editing. When I got to that scene and I was able to cut that scene, and then I showed it to Tim and I got to hear his reaction. We were still remote when we were working on that scene, but he called me on the phone and he was freaking out, so excited. I was like, I got this. That was the scene where I kind of was like, okay, I can do this kind of in a way since I had been moving up and all this pressure. I think that that scene means so much to me on so many different levels of my life, and I am very, very proud of it.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh, yeah, she destroyed it. Then for me, it could be one or the other. One of my favorite sequences is the Bill and Frank meet cute in the dining room, which I just love because it has so many instances where timing was so critical that editorially, I had to make sure that when he bumps? he runs through the door of the kitchen, Frank has to be suitably like, oh, I was caught. But then Bill’s like, was I caught though looking too excited? Then there’s this sort of dance between the two of them throughout that dinner sequence where they’re trying to figure out … Frank’s like, “I think you might be?? and Bill’s like, “I hope he doesn’t think that he knows who I am.” So those two dynamics butting up against each other made for a really fascinating dynamic at first. And then when it goes into the piano sequence, Frank makes this really beautiful transition.

At first, he’s sort of playing with Bill and going, “I know who you are.” He’s like, “Oh, I think you are the kind of person who knows exactly what wine to put with these things.” And he?s like, ah, what is all this piano stuff? But then by the end of it, Bill shows who he is in this, using the piano song, a Linda Ronstadt song, and Frank has this beautiful transition where he realizes, oh, I was just playing with him and now he’s opened up and I recognize him as someone so beautiful and so worthy, and I never intended to feel this way.

So that sequence ends on Frank and it didn’t have to. It could have ended when Bill left and we could have cut right upstairs. But I said, no, no, no, no. It has to end with Frank because he’s now recognizing that I just came in for a couple of lunches, but I don’t think I’m leaving because I think I’m falling in love with this person that I did not anticipate.

For me to be able to take a scene from that beginning to that end from one character’s perspective, I don’t know. As a gay man, being able to show the meeting of these two people together and able to show how that feels when you first meet, to be able to bring my own experiences into it, that’s going to have to be the most important one for me, just to think about what Emily just said, from a pure emotional standpoint from my own life. My other one is when Joel teaches her how to use a gun, but that’s because that was a really cool scene too. But emotionally speaking, it’s got to be the dining table.

 

Sarah Taylor:

For sure.

Emily:

Yeah. My second one, I have a second one too, by the way, Tim. It’s Ellie’s birth. That’s my second.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, that was so good.

Emily:

So I was able to cut that whole sequence of Anna running through the woods and into the house. Then she has Ellie. That is a close second for me. That was a very fun sequence to work on.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, once again, because I knew that she was such a big Ashley fan from the game. So I’m like, “Emily, I think you’re doing the opening.” And she was like, “Yes.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yes, I am.

Emily:

It was so much fun. That opening has … you’re scared because she’s running. There’s a horror element, and then she’s giving birth, and then you’ve got the whole thing once she gets in the house and gets upstairs. You have the infected breaking in, and so you hear the infected. So we got to play with sound a lot. Everything about that sequence was so much fun to work on.

Sarah Taylor:

This is awesome. Were you referring to them as the infected and not zombies?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, we were pretty good about that.

Emily:

We pretty much did. Yeah, yeah.

Timothy Good, ACE:

It was kind of like, once we understood from an early point, because in episode three, we had the sequence where Ellie has to kill an infected underneath the Cumberland Farms. Craig’s directive was, “I don’t want him to be scary. I want him to be sad. This used to be a person that is no longer there, and I want it to not be this thing that’s trying to get you. I want it to be this thing to be mourned.” So when I understood that, it was easier to think of them as infected, as opposed to zombies, because the way Craig was thinking about them himself was as these sort of … yes, they’re obstacles, but they’re obstacles because they’re behaving in a way that nature has made them. So they’re not necessarily zombie enemies. They are just obstacles and they once were human.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, that’s special. I like that.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

What would you say was the most challenging aspect of working on this show?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Ooh, challenging. That’s a really good question. I would want to say that it was time, but it wasn’t because I felt like once we had this rhythm going, Emily and I just were in a flow this whole time. And yes, there were times when we had to move a little faster than others, but not much. I think that overall, the biggest sort of challenge was making sure that we were consistent across episodes because there’s different directors who will come in and they’ll have different cinematographers who come in. So our biggest challenge was to make sure that everything was still feeling like it was connected to the same authorship. Craig had a really strong feeling of how everything was going to come together. So for us, it was making sure that everything, despite having multiple different creative people at different times, felt of the same cloth.

Emily:

I totally agree. Time is the first thing that came to my mind too, which is interesting because you’re right, we sometimes had a lot of time, but also sometimes didn’t. So time was one of those things that? it was a back and forth. But what is interesting is when we were co-editing, we were putting our scenes together and they were fitting together very well. Tim always says, you cannot tell which scenes are his or mine, which is I think always a nice compliment. But that would be something that you would think would’ve been a challenge. Although I’d say that it ended up working out really well.

Timothy Good, ACE:

A lot of that is because we would talk back and forth with each other’s scenes. So I will give Emily all the credit in the world for pushing me to make sure I’m finding character beats that I might have been missing. Then I would say, “Hey, what about if you did it like this?” So by feeding back with each other, we were heading towards the same goals.

Emily:

Always pushing each other and in a good way. Also, we have similar approaches, so we’re always focusing on story and character. I think when you’re doing that from the beginning, then all those things start to work together anyways. So yeah, I think that that process was really fun. It was just always so much fun.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, it really was. Craig Maison creates a whole feeling of a family. He’s really good to his crews. We would have Dungeons and Dragons nights that he would host, and he’s like, “If you’d like to stay and play some Dungeons and Dragons with me, feel free. If not, please go home and have a night off.”

Emily:

And 13 people would show up for Dungeons and Dragons on a Tuesday at six. We would all stop working and go and play in the kitchen, and it was the best thing ever. So much fun.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah. So we were all very, very connected together. And he wanted that. He wanted everyone as close to each other as possible. We became very close with the visual effects team who are all Canadian. It was awesome. They were so fantastic, and we were very close to the sound team. We would go to the sound mixes and make sure that they understood all of the things that we knew from the picture editing side. So he just wanted to make the sort of creative interconnections between all these characters, all of us together. It worked out really well because there was never any sort of miscommunication per se, because we were right next to each other and we would always say, oh, no, no, not that, this. As opposed to, oh my gosh, you did three hours of work, and that’s not what we asked for at all. No, it was always 10 seconds later, we’d be on the right direction.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s amazing. I think that’s a huge thing that I’ve noticed in my career too. When you’re working with a team that you truly feel like you can collaborate with, it just takes the projects to the next level. It’s always going to end up getting better if you can just be on the same page and feel that comradery that you’re describing.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Hundred percent.

Emily:

Definitely. Then Craig loves puzzles, and Tim and I love puzzles, and so sometimes it’s just us sitting there trying to figure out puzzles. Editing is kind of a puzzle.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally.

Emily:

That’s always changing, always evolving. So it’s the ultimate puzzle. So I feel like all of us kind of geek out and love it, so that also kind of connects us.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Taylor:

There’s been other editors who’ve mentioned that that’s something that they do as well. They’ll have a puzzle going on at the same time as editing.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh, wow.

Sarah Taylor:

So they could go and sit back at the table and work on the puzzle if they’re stuck in an edit. I was like-

Timothy Good, ACE:

Ooh, I love that.

Sarah Taylor:

Another person mentioned something about Lego, having a Lego set to build. So anyway.

Timothy Good, ACE:

I can see that. Totally.

Sarah Taylor:

Okay. So you mentioned that, Tim, you came to Alberta, which I’m from Alberta, so of course I want to talk a little bit about the landscape and where you got to shoot, but you also got to be here to cut. So tell me about your experience.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Well, it was so spectacular because they graciously set us up in the production offices just outside Calgary. So I had an editing room there, but then I also had, because we were still in the COVID era, I had an editing room in the apartment that we were in the BeltLine area.

Sarah Taylor:

Nice.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh, it was beautiful. I loved the BeltLine. I loved all of Calgary, actually. The first day I was there, I just went to the Beau River and I’m like, oh my God, this is absolutely beautiful. I just loved how easy it was to get around, how friendly everyone was. It was just a uniquely wonderful place to work and be. And having the Canadian Rockies just in your backyard is stunning. So on weekends, I would just go, I’m going to go up there. So I would go to Lake Louise and Banff, all those fantastic places. And of course the locals would say, “Oh, you have really go out further if you want to see the real deal.” And I go, well I’m not going to risk that one.

Sarah Taylor:

You’re like, I do have to work still.

Timothy Good, ACE:

I want to come back. So you guys can probably do that. But it was really great. All of us were there as a team, and the visual effects team was there. Like I said, they were all either from Vancouver or Calgary. So they really took me under their wing and showed me around and showed me all about what’s the best kind of poutine, the very best of this. Oh, don’t have that. Have this. If you’re going to go here, go there. So I really had a wonderful experience there. They were filming all over Alberta. They would go as far as Olds up north and Fort McLeod in the south, and then up to, oh gosh, in the mountains before Banff. It’s called Canmore.

Sarah Taylor:

Canmore, yeah.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah. Canmore was where they filmed the fort in episode six where Tommy is with Maria. So all of that was absolutely stunning. Then, oh gosh, the eighth episode was filmed in this really cold area. It’s a national park. I forget what it’s called, but I remember the very first shot. I’m like, “That is a visual effects shot, right?” They’re like, “Nope, that’s real. That’s a real shot. That’s a really cold, cold, cold place.”

Sarah Taylor:

That’s a winter.

Timothy Good, ACE:

I think they had to add something in visual effects just to make sure people knew it was real, which was ironic, is that they literally were like, this looks too much like a visual effect. How can we make it look more real? Oh my gosh. I’m like, but it is real. So that was a strange thing. But I absolutely loved being in Canada. It was a uniquely wonderful experience to be around. The crew was all Canadian, Calgary based, wonderful individuals.

I remember walking down a street in the BeltLine and the art department’s having a party in one of the bar houses. I forget what it’s called. It’s a really cool little house bar. They said, “Hey, we’re having a party. Come in. We saw you outside.” I’m like, oh my gosh. So next thing you know, we’re all hanging out together. Again, this whole idea of your crew is all together and everyone is in the same place so that you can collaborate in the most efficient and creative way possible. So from that perspective, I was so excited about being in Calgary, and I look forward to season two when unfortunately we’re going to Vancouver, but I will always want to come back to Calgary. I know it so intimately at this point, and I really want to return as often as I can.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, we will welcome you with open arms.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

What is something that you will take away from this experience that you’ll take to your projects going forward? Any techniques you learned or a way of being?

Emily:

One thing that Tim and I started using on … this is more technical Avid thing, but one thing that we started using was real time de verb in our tracks, which we had never really used before, but helps with things for transitions and music that you want to end. You just have this track that anything you throw down, you get a long de verb tail. And so that was one thing that we were using a lot and I think we’ll probably continue to use that.

 

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh, we’ll continue to use that. That was a great, wonderful thing because a lot of times, and especially with the way Gustavo … I’m going to screw up the name, Santoaya. It’ll be close enough. How he scores is he doesn’t score necessarily to the pictures. He just creates themes and thematics and relies on you as the editors of the piece or the music editors to create the structure of the cues. So when we were trying to find endings for things, we would say, well, this will be the last note of the piece. Then if we just throw that note on the bottom track, it can ring out and then they can fix that on the mixing stage. So that’s why we use that quite a bit. It was easier to create score that way. That was a lot of fun.

From my perspective, what I’ve learned a lot, and a lot of it was from what I call … not what I call, what is the brilliance of Craig Maison in my opinion, is that he just understands how not to push too hard on an emotion. He says it’s going to be better if you allow the audience to experience the emotion versus telling them how to feel in this moment. So what I learned from him was restraint and the ability to not try to force things. I always tell Emily, I don’t stop learning. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, but I’m never going to stop learning. Because every time you work with someone else, you get their entire lifetime of knowledge, their entire creative life, and they’re going to start exposing what they have learned. Then that can be osmasized into your own processes. I find that that’s always the case. In this specific instance, that was the thing I really, really, truly felt like I learned so much from Craig was how to just really allow the audience to do a lot of the work.

Emily:

And not only just restraint in picture, but also I was learning a lot of restraint in sound design too. That was something that I think we used with Craig a lot. I think that was also a really awesome tool, was to make things feel a little more real, sometimes it is about holding back and not doing it too much or too loud. Sometimes it’s leaning into the silence. That was something we also worked on a lot with Craig that I definitely will use in the future.

Sarah Taylor:

Did you both anticipate the show to be as big as it was?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Okay. No, but it was funny because Craig’s like, “You guys, it’s good. And I know.” We go, okay. I said, “Well, we hope it’s good.” He goes, “Yeah, me too. Obviously we all hope it’s good.” I think the moment where I knew it would be a little bit bigger than I thought it would be was at the premiere when we were all together in this ridiculously huge tent. It was pouring rain outside in Los Angeles, which makes no sense, but that’s what it was. At midnight, the review embargo ended and all of the reviews could be released. We were still there at that moment.

I remember being right next to Craig and Bella Ramsey and all the reviews started piling in and they were looking at them and they’re reading them, and they were like, “Oh my God.” They were just going, “This is really good.” Bella Ramsey is a revelation. And they’re like, “Wow, you guys, this is going to be something.” And I was like, okay, maybe this will work. That’s when I knew it would be something. But when it really came out of the gate like that, and then when I saw that every week it was gaining viewers, that just doesn’t happen.

Sarah Taylor:

No.

Timothy Good, ACE:

That’s why I was like, wow, okay, this is really something.

Emily:

Yeah. Then like, also fan art started coming out more every week. We would be playing Dungeons and Dragons, and then everyone would be sharing the fan art from the week that they’d been seeing posted. We’d all be looking at it and be like, oh my God, that’s so cool. So it’s like, as the episodes were coming out, we were still working. That was really fun to see the fan … some of the fan art is just incredible.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh yeah.

Emily:

The scenes, how they touched people and what it means to them, like a specific scene. That to me has just been awesome.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow. Did it shift how you were working after all of the hype was happening, you were still finishing things. Did it shift any feelings when you were working?

Timothy Good, ACE:

No, we were really close to the end. We were mostly doing sound mixes at that point. What was great, and I don’t think we would ever change how we worked, I hope. But it was a very detailed process the whole time to the sound mixes are, Craig processes things through sound. He loves sound so much. So all of our sound mixes were big detail fests and again, best about – do we need this sound or should we remove this sound? So it was always, everything was picked over to the point where he was really happy with it. So near the end, we were just finishing those sound mixes and it was great to know that the last episode, as we were putting the last little touches on it, we’re like, I think it’s going to work. I think people are going to like it.

Sarah Taylor:

And they did.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

My last question, what’s the next thing for both of you, other than season two, but is there anything coming in between that we should keep our eyes open for?

Timothy Good, ACE:

Oh my goodness, I have nothing. It’s the weirdest thing because I was working kind of straight through for three years once COVID hit. So I was doing multiple things with overlaps, and I told myself this year, you need to take for yourself and to return to the wild, as I like to call it, and become a human being again, and re-experiencing life. Not only that, but because of the enormous success of the show, we’ve been so lucky and grateful that we’ve been able to sort of go to places and talk about the work we’ve done. We were just in Las Vegas altogether for NAB. We were on a panel there. And tomorrow I will be flying to Norway to be part of a panel in Bergen about Nordic Media Days, where again, they have invited me as the editor of episode three because they really want to discuss the processes of how editing helped make it a wonderful episode.

I’m so excited about doing that. So I’m trying to keep myself open to these opportunities because one never knows when these things are ever going to happen again in their lives. So I might as well just enjoy it while I have it, and luckily I can do that right now and so I can be ready for a season two when it comes.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, love it. What about you, Emily? Anything on the horizon?

Emily:

I’m in the same boat as Tim. I am also taking a break. I was also working all that time that he was working, and so I’m mostly just spending time with family, like my wife, my dogs, working on some house projects, getting caught up on all those things that I wasn’t able to do when we were working before.

Timothy Good, ACE:

And not only that, but she was working harder than I was because she was sometimes doing two jobs on those times.

Emily:

Yes, right.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, she gets all the benefits.

Sarah Taylor:

I think that it’s really great to hear this, that you’re choosing to take a break. I think often we forget that we are human and we’re allowed to stop.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Yeah, and also how can we have any kind of insight into experiences without experiencing things ourselves.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, and I think your conversation about episode three and episode seven is a reminder that who we have behind screen, who we have in our crew in the writer’s room really makes a difference to the quality of the messaging, the story, everything. So I think that’s something to remember, that we need to fill all of the spaces with diverse individuals who have different lived experience than the dominant culture. So I’m really glad to hear that was the case.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Wonderful. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, thank you for taking time to sit with us and chat with us and answer all of our questions. The season was a joy to watch, and I’m excited to follow both of your careers going forward, and I can’t wait for season two.

Emily:

Oh, thank you so much.

Timothy Good, ACE:

Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thank you so much for joining us today, and a big thanks goes to Tim and Emily for taking the time to sit with me. This episode wraps up our fifth season of The Editor?s Cut. If there are any editors that you would love to hear from, please let us know. You can reach us at podcast@cceditors.ca. In the meantime, have a listen to some of our past episodes or our French podcast, LA Art de Montage. We have lots of gems. We’ll be back in September. I hope you all can take some time, like Tim and Emily are to live life and bring new experiences to your edit suites.

A special thanks goes to Kim McTaggert CCE, Alison Dowler and Catie Disabato. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall, additional ADR recording by Andrea Rush. Original music created by Chad Blaine and sound straight. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE is proud to support HireBIPOC. HireBIPOC is the definitive and ubiquitous industry-wide roster of Canadian bipoc creatives and crew working in screen-based industries. Check out hirebipoc.ca to hire your next crew or create a profile and get hired.

Speaker 5:

The CCE is a nonprofit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.



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The Editors Cut

Episode 078 – Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

The Editor's Cut - Episode 078: Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers
The Editor's Cut - Episode 078: Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

Episode 078 - Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

In this episode Sarah Taylor sits down with Paul Rogers.

This episode is sponsored by DGC Alberta.

Paul Rogers - TEC 078
The Editor's Cut - Episode 078: Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers began his professional career in 2007 editing documentary films for public television in Alabama, winning 4 Emmy Awards. He made the jump to Los Angeles in 2013 and kicked off a career in music videos with the DANIELS? directed ‘Turn Down For What? and further collaborated with DANIELS on the short films ?Interesting Ball? and ?Boat Dad? as well as one half of the duo, Daniel Scheinert, on the A24 feature film ‘The Death of Dick Long,’ which premiered at Sundance in 2018. He dipped back into documentaries in 2020 with ?You Cannot Kill David Arquette,? an official SXSW selection and winner of the Adobe Editing Award. His next film is Isaiah Saxon’s debut feature ‘The Legend of Ochi.’ Along with feature films, he has edited for the Eric Andre Show, Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Haim, and Thundercat among others. Paul has also collaborated extensively with director Kahlil Joseph on projects such as ?Lemonade? for Beyonce, ?Process? for Sampha, and Joseph’s most recent work ‘BLK NWS.? Paul is a partner in the editorial company PARALLAX located in Los Angeles.

Sarah and Paul discuss his career journey and how he approached the editing behind Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The Editor's Cut - Episode 078: Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

Everything Everywhere All At Once Trailer:

 
 
This episode was generously sponsored by DGC Alberta
 

The short film that inspired Paul to go to LA!

À écouter ici !

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 078 – Everything Everywhere All at Once with Paul Rogers

 Sarah Taylor: 

This episode was generously sponsored by the Directors Guild of Canada, Alberta District Council. If you reside in the province of Alberta and are interested in editing, contact the DGC Alberta to learn more.

Paul Rogers:

We wanted to stay in the wides as much as we could, and we wanted to not be cutting around when we didn’t know what was happening. And a big way of leveling that playing field between us, indie action film and big blockbuster film, was time-remapping and splitting the screen and combining takes; and making a punch that may not have been thrown quite with the force it needed, speed ramping it, and making it feel better. And when someone flies back, slowing them down in midair so that there’s more of a weight, and then speeding it up right as they hit the ground so that you feel that impact. These are all just little reasons why Premiere worked out really well.

Sarah Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where Indigenous peoples have lived, met and interacted. We honor, respect and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions and the concerns that impact Indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today, I bring to you an interview with Paul Rogers, the Academy Award-winning editor for Everything Everywhere All At Once. We discuss Paul’s journey from Alabama to Hollywood, what it was like working with the Daniels on Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Paul’s philosophies in and outside the edit suite. Without further ado, I bring you Paul Rogers.

Speaker 3:

And action.

Sarah Taylor:

This is The Editor’s Cut.

Speaker 4:

A CCE podcast.

Speaker 3:

Exploring, exploring, exploring the art-

Speaker 4:

Of picture editing.

Sarah Taylor:

Paul, thank you so much for joining us on The Editor’s Cut today. I’m very excited to chat with you all things editing.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s always fun.

Sarah Taylor:

Excellent. Yeah, I know. Editors talking with editors is like-

Paul Rogers:

I know.

Sarah Taylor:

I can just do it for days.

Paul Rogers:

I know. It’s funny. I was just talking to somebody the other day about this about the American Cinema Editors, which I guess is the American version of y’all, we? 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

-when we get together. I’m not a member, but I was invited to do some stuff this year, it’s almost more awkward because you’re like, “Oh, my God.” These people not only speak the same language as me, but like? but they understand the work in a way that’s different and they can see the both the good parts and the cracks and the flaws in what I do you know more than most people, who are just like, “Wow, that was? that was  cool. That was crazy. I’m very impressed.” They’re like, “Yeah, well, but that one like.. . one  part was a little funky.”

Sarah Taylor:

Like, “What were you doing there?” No, well, I don’t have anything critical to say about the work you’ve done on Everything Everywhere All At Once. But before we start talking about that specific film, because I think you’ve probably talked about it a lot as of recent, I’m sure; but I want to know, how did you get to where you are today? What was the thing that drew you to editing? And a? just a little bit of your backstory. What’s your origin story?

Paul Rogers:

I started in high school. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and I went to Homewood High School. And there was a guy in my high school who I had kinda observed. He had what I guess I would call a bit of a racket, in that he would? we would all get assigned these essays on you know? the Spanish War of whatever, and he would be like, “I’m going to make a video. I’m going to make a movie about it.” And then he would go and make a kung fu movie-

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, my gosh.

Paul Rogers:

… and submit it. But it would be so… He put so much time and effort into it that the teacher would be like, “Eh, well,  you know? you tried hard, so here’s a B?B-plus.” And I was like, “That seems cool.” So he? we had like a similar social studies project and he umm.. you know.. was making, obviously, a mafia movie about whatever. And uhh.. so I just joined up and we you know? spent all night at my dad’s office just running around and having you know pretend fights and shooting pretend guns. And then uhh? I was like, “This is some of the most fun I’ve ever had.” And so we just started making a lot of films together. His name was Peter Hastings. And? and eventually, I got to a point, this is all in high school, where I was like, “I wonder if I could do this for a living.” I started looking into film schools and talked to my parents. And to my surprise, they were supportive. And I went? ended up going to College of Santa Fe, which is a small little undergrad school in New Mexico, and uhh? loved it. It was beautiful. Uhh? and they had a start? first year or two of the school, we had to shoot and edit everything on 16.

Sarah Taylor:

Mmm.. Nice.

Paul Rogers:

And so I was on a steam beck you know.. umm… cutting film and.. and?liked it; but it was you know? it’s intimidating and it’s hard. It’s hard work. And then by the time they let us start using Final Cut and Avid, you know I had… It’s its? nice because coming to Final Cut or Avid from a year or two of editing on film is like a revelation-

 

Sarah Taylor:

Mmhmm?

Paul Rogers:

?and it’s incredible and you realize just how amazing they are. Whereas I? you know.. I grew up with computers. I was making… This stuff we were working on in high school, I was using Windows Movie Maker or whatever-

Sarah Taylor:

Wow..

 

Paul Rogers:

?so it just kinda seemed natural. Of course, this is how it works. So you know? learning on film really gave me an appreciation for what non-linear editing is, you know? for what it? what it can do for you, and .. and how amazing it is. And I found myself in school, in college, directing and writing and shooting and acting and just every time I would do one of those, I would kinda just be waiting to get to the edit so I could play, so I could really have the fun that I wanted to have. And it took me a while to realize that I could do that for other people. So I remember the first guy, his name is Zeeshan McCaughney. He asked me to cut his film that he had shot. And I was like, “You can do that? You can do other people’s stuff?” And so I did it. It was amazing and it was really fun. He was really happy. And I just started doing that in school and cutting stuff for other people and realized that it was? that  was where I was happiest. And so  got really lucky; got out of college and got a job at public television, cutting documentaries in Alabama, and did that for you know? even years and kinda thought I was settling in you know.. I? I like?I was 24, got married, got a dog, got a house,like.. you know? had a good job with a retirement plan, and was like, “All right. Now we’ll just do this forever and then I’ll get old and die.” And I was at work doing what you do at a job sometimes, which is kinda like screwing around on the internet and watching other stuff and not working. And I watched a film called Until The Quiet Comes by a director named Kahlil Joseph. Just watched it again and again and then was just floored by it. And I went home and told my wife, Becky, “I think I have to quit my job and I have to find these people and I have to move to LA and? and-

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Paul Rogers:

… uproot our lives.” And she was like, “Uhh.. Okay. No, thank you.” Uhhh.. But she you know? was like, “Look, you go out there and and? give it a shot and I’m gonna stay here and keep my job and keep our house, and I? you know? keep the the.. bank account, checking account with a little bit of money in it.” Because I went out there at age 29 and became an unpaid intern and was just working for free.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Paul Rogers:

So you know.. I foun? found Khalil’s editor, Luke Lynch, who cut that with him, and took him out for drinks and you know? got some advice. And when I came out here, I never asked for a job and I never asked for work or never asked for anything except for advice. And so he just gave me advice and he invited me to uhmm.. Absolutely Productions, which is where Tim and Eric, you know? the comedy duo, it’s their company. And he was cutting The Eric Andre Show, season one? Season two, maybe. And he just gave me the code for the door of the production company.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Paul Rogers:

So I just started showing up every morning, just dialing in the code. And I would you know sweep the floors or organize the cereal boxes or whatever, just make myself useful. And one day, one of the producers there was like, “You’re an intern, right?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure.” He was like, “Did you fill your paperwork out?” I was like, “Nope.” He was like, “Okay, here’s your internship paperwork.” So that’s how I became an intern.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, my goodness.

Paul Rogers:

I just slid in.

Sarah Taylor:

You got the code and you organized that cereal.

Paul Rogers:

I just showed up. I think in general, I had had interns at my old job. I knew what a good intern was; just someone who doesn’t walk around asking people for things to do. They just do stuff that needs to be done. And it doesn’t matter if it’s like, you know?  “Do you want me to organize this footage?” or this was back when tapes were still a thing, too. I’ll organize your tapes, I’ll label your hard drives. I will go to the grocery store and I’ll go pick up lunch you know? and then I got lucky enough to intern on season two, assist on season three, and then I was cutting on season four of The Eric Andre Show. And in between there, I was you know? meeting people. I met Dan and Daniel, roller skating in Glendale and cut the music video with them.

Sarah Taylor:

Were you good at roller skating and then that was like, “Oh, this guy’s cool”?

Paul Rogers:

Yeah. I can do it.

Sarah Taylor:

I can do it.

Paul Rogers:

I stayed upright-

Sarah Taylor:

Perfect.

Paul Rogers:

… for the most part. But yeah, so that? it wasn’t super linear, like I interned and then I assisted and then I edited and then that was it. That was my big break. Because I was doing stuff on the side and so was Luke. And and? Luke and I ended up becoming partners with Kahlil and with Graham Zeller in a company that was called Parallax. and yeah, I met Dan and Daniel roller skating. We hung out. It was great. I was like, “These are good people.” I volunteered at a kids’ camp that they had going on where they teach kids how to make music videos.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, that’s cool.

Paul Rogers:

And they saw you know? some of my editing that I did on the kids’ music videos and were like you know?, “Hey, we have this silly music video called Turn Down For What, if you want to… We’ve never worked with an editor, so maybe you could give it a shot.” And so I did and it worked out well and we just kept working together. We did Interesting Ball, a short film, and a couple other things. And so you know? I just kinda like? tried to follow my interests and and? surround myself with good people who were also doing good work and try to stay away from the bad people who were doing good work or… you know? I definitely you know? I prefer good people who do bad work, to bad people who do good work.

Sarah Taylor:

I would have to agree with that. 

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

How did you determine, like decipher that when you first got to L.A.? Like who was right? Who was good for you?

Paul Rogers:

It was really just gut feeling. Like  I met with Luke at a bar the first night or maybe the second night I flew into L.A., because I flew out really just to take Luke out for drinks. I flew out here, I took him out for drinks, I flew home. And then I?  I was like, “It seems like he’s a nice guy. I can make this work.” About six months later, I got my stuff in order and I drove out-

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Paul Rogers:

… in my CRV. and uhmm.. but yeah, it was really just Luke was a good guy. He was nice and he was straightforward and honest and it didn’t feel like he was bullshitting me and he wasn’t trying to get free work out of me. He would pay me when he could and you know? but a lot of that stuff, like I said, was… you know.. A music video, you get paid like 200 bucks.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

 

Paul Rogers:

It was nothing. And most of it, that was back in the day when legally you could be an unpaid intern. So I worked for free for a long time and my wife was just paying my bills.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks, Becky.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, totally. And then even when she moved out, she got to keep her job and go remote, which back then was not really a thing. So yeah and then Dan and Daniel were just… I mean? You can see it when you see them in interviews. They’re just really solid, great, wonderful people. So it wasnt any kinda? I didn’t have any kind of checklist. It was just like? if I vibed, if I got a good feeling, then great. If I got a weird feeling, then no, thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

I think that’s a hard thing for people you know?  younger in their career to listen to that intuition and that gut. I know a lot of that plays into all you do in the edit suite as well, but you need to have that trust with the people you’re working with.

Paul Rogers:

I think so. And I think it’s also like if you find yourself trying to convince yourself to do something, to take a project, or trying to convince yourself to work with somebody, well, you know? coming up with reasons, probably not a good idea. Something in your gut is telling you not to and then your brain’s trying to convince your gut to do it you know.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I’ve had many experiences like that and I’m always like-

Paul Rogers:

Me, too.

Sarah Taylor:

… “Remember that time when this happened before?”

Paul Rogers:

yeah I still do it. I’m still like, “Well, it’s a good opportunity and I don’t know, it could be nice.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, but then it’s always a challenge.

Paul Rogers:

I never? I have never proven my gut wrong. Every single time I’ve done that, I’ve been like, “I fu? I knew it. I knew this was going to end.” But I just I? convinced myself it was going to be fine and it’s never worked out.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. So how long was it from the time that you you know? took out Luke for drinks to then having? now you have a company, you’ve worked together, you’re doing Oscar winning films? How long have you yeah I guess how long have you been in L.A.?

Paul Rogers:

I’ve been in L.A… Well, 2013, July, 2013, so it’s coming up on 10 years. But like I said, I had you know? seven years of editing experience professionally in Alabama. Although, I think it paid off. It didn’t pay off in terms of real… Nobody cared what I did in Alabama. Its In L.A., it’s very much, “What have you done with people that I know?”

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Paul Rogers:

And what have you done that I’ve seen? And I hadn’t done any of that. It was all stuff that’s just airing you know? locally. So? I had the work ethic, I think, and the ability to work with people. And I was beginning to develop a kind of… I don’t know if you would say a style, but just a sensibility, I guess. 

 

Sarah Taylor:

Mmhmm?

 

Paul Rogers:

And so I think that helped me kinda accelerate here a little bit faster than if I’d come out here when I was 23 you know?. Yeah. And it was 10 years and then all of a sudden, to be honest.

I did a film in, what was that, 2016, called The Death of Dick Long. It was my first feature. It was really fun. It was with Daniel Scheiner. That wasn’t like the big break. Then all of a sudden, I was doing features and just meeting with all kinds of directors. It was a great experience and it was you know? one of the most fun edits I’ve ever done. But its not you know?. it was really like Everything Everywhere that all of a sudden it just hit so hard and and worldwide. I think all of us who worked on it were just kinda blown away. And our lives changed overnight, professionally, at least.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow. Well, I’d like to talk about Everything Everywhere All At Once. You know? you  mentioned that you met the Daniels rollerskating, which I think is awesome. Led you to music videos, short films. What was that initial conversation when they said, “Hey, we have this film”? How did did that go?

Paul Rogers:

They had made a film called Swiss Army Man with an editor named Matt Hannam.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, yeah. He’s Canadian.

Paul Rogers:

He’s Canadian, right?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

He’s become a great friend. He’s got just an incredible like CV. He’s got so many great films and worked with so many great filmmakers. So they told me that they were working on Everything Everywhere and they invited me to Dan Kwan’s back kinda his back office, which basically is his converted garage. And they just said they wanted to walk through the script, that they had been doing this with people. They had been talking through the script with people because it helps them in the writing process to talk it out and then to ask questions afterwards.

And so I sat back there with John Wong, the producer, and they just acted it out. They weren’t jumping around and wearing outfits or anything, but they were like they would just talk it through. “Okay, this happens, this happens. And then he comes up and the dad says this.” And then they would say it. And it took two hours or something. It was a long time just sitting and listening. But it was really, really fun and really beautiful. And and I.. you know.. I cried four times. I remember being like, “That was amazing.” I’ve never cried, someone just telling me a story.

And back then, it was a story of a father-daughter, and it was Jackie Chan, was the idea. And Evelyn was more of a… not a side character, but she wasn’t the main character. And then they did that and I was like, “This is amazing. I cannot wait to see it. I hope you make it. I hope you get all the money you need. And I hope you cast… I hope you get Jackie Chan,” because that was who they were going out for. And then a while later theysaid they let me know that they had changed the script up. They had switched it to be about a mother-daughter, and Evelyn was now the main character and they had Michelle Yeoh in mind.

And I was so excited because I love… Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was a pretty important film for me growing up because, this is sad, but it’s one of the first foreign films that I’d seen, really, in theaters. My dad would always rent foreign films and bring them home and we’d watch them, but that was my first theatrical experience with that. And it really opened me up and got me excited and I really started exploring just just foreign films, in general. And anything outside of the mainstream started to be exciting for me and it even got me into indie filmmaking. And I loved Michelle in that and so I was really excited.

And then they asked me if I wanted to cut it, and I was like? immediately terrified. Because I had sat through that thing and I was like, “This is going to be an insane film and it’s going to be really hard to cut and shoot and act.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

 

Paul Rogers:

Like All of it was a challenge. Everything they were laying out seemed impossible. So I said, “Yeah.” And then I immediately called Matt Hannam and I was like, “Can you? can I take you out for drinks or dinner? And I just I think I need your help. I need to know that I could do this. I need your moral support.”

And he was super gracious and you know.. we went out. It was like the week before lockdown too. We were like, “Should we be out? And he just walked me through his process and the experience of working with them and? and just his experience working on so many films with so many directors. And a lot of it was just kinda like talking about personality and keeping the energy up and keeping everyone happy and excited. And that stuff’s the stuff that I really… like.. I know that through the process of editing, the iterative just work through it process, we’ll figure it out editorially.

I just wanted to also make sure that it was a positive experience and that we all could stay friends; because I was good friends with Dan and Daniel, and this was a big movie, and I knew it was going to be stressful and knew it was going to be hard, and I didn’t want to jeopardize or what we had going personally. So that was a really, really big help. And then yeah they sent me the script. I read the new script. I was scared all over again. And then we just got to it. I just kinda had to not think about it as a filmmaker at first and think about it as just I was excited to help my friends make this crazy thing you know.

Sarah Taylor:

From that.. the rewrite of the script that you read after you signed on as editor, how much has that has that changed to what we see in the final film?

Paul Rogers:

The rewrite’s you know? pretty much there. There’s some stuff that got cut, but they had worked on that script for maybe, I think, three years you know.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

And they had a lot of help from other people just reading it and giving notes and smart filmmakers and writers. I think people would be surprised at how dialed in it was and how much the edit reflects that script. We cut a couple of universes. There was one called the Spaghetti Baby Noodle Boy Universe.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, my gosh.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, that one’s on the cutting room floor. It’s on the deleted scenes, though. But it was Evelyn was a spaghetti noodle in a pot of spaghetti noodles, and then Jenny Slate played her little boy who was a macaroni noodle, who was like, you know?”I’m the only one that’s not shaped like the other noodles. I have a hole. No noodles have holes. I don’t belong.” And anyways, it was a? it’s very funny. You should check it out.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I’m going to totally check that out. That’s amazing.

Paul Rogers:

It was one of my favorite parts of the script, but it just didnt it  never worked in the film. And we really tried. It was in there until some of the later, later, later cuts. And every screening people would be like, “Yeah, I dont?I dont.. I didn’t really vibe with that part of the film.” We were like, “Just wait. We’ll just well change the treatment, we’ll change the genre, we’ll mess with the music, change the voiceover.” And then we’re just like, “No, nothing’s working.”

Sarah Taylor:

You really wanted to save the spaghetti.

Paul Rogers:

We really did.

Sarah Taylor:

Wanted it to be saved. I’d like to talk about like the team that worked in post. Did you have assistant editors? I know you were working during COVID, so that changed how it would work and everybody had to change how they worked. 

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

So..What was the team?

Paul Rogers:

It started off with me and Zekun Mao, who’s incredible. And she was from AFI and yeah she had to pivot immediately the first week of… We had one week where we were working in the office off of our network, off our server. And then we all got an alert on our phones. It was like, “Go home and stay home.” And so I?I  remember just grabbing an iMac off the desk and a hard drive and running home. And we all did that. And you know.. I had never worked remotely. I had taken a music video home and done that, but not like this and not with a team. And the way that me and Dan and Daniel work is they cut with me. you know? They have the premier project and we’re trading ideas constantly. And so it was a challenge, to say the least.

And she just figured it out. We got on Resilio Sync, we synced up all our hard drives. We got Evercast going. We tried everything you know… We tried Zoom, we tried Google Meet. Just, “How can we si? how can all  sit in a room together and work?” She figured it out. It was amazing. And I didn’t really have to worry about it. And also, Adobe was really helpful because this was before productions came out. And for those that don’t know, productions is basically It? functions the way Avid has, as far as sharing bins and having multiple editors in a project. It was still in beta. And we just reached out and said, “We’re doing this crazy thing. Do you have any help for us?” And they said, “Well, we have this secret thing we’re working on and maybe we can get you on the beta and you can try it out.” And that was a lifesaver.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, my goodness. No kidding.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, and it worked out great for remote work, and they also just gave us access to their engineers so we could be like, “How does this work?” And they would jump on a Zoom and just walk us through it or you knwo?

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, wow.

Paul Rogers:

Or occasionally, we?we.. because it was in beta, we found a bug and they would just push an update for us you  know… So that was a dream come true. We had a lot of great smart people figuring out how to work remotely. And then Zekun had to leave about halfway through to cut her first feature. And she introduced us to Aashish DeMello who took over and he took us through to the end. And it was like you know.. a dream team. Everyone was great, everyone was on it. I had very little to.. to? worry about. The one thing that I wish I had done more of is just relied on them creatively more, because I think I was so wrapped up in just my own like anxieties about the film. And because of the remote workflow where they weren’t in the office, I had dreamed of including them a lot more. of like “Do a pass on the scene and and you know.. come sit with me for a while.” And it just didn’t work out that way. And I think a lot of it was just kinda me yah me getting caught up in my own anxieties about the film. But the couple of times when I remembered to do it, it was great.  you know It was a good cut. Did some assemblies of scenes that were really, really fun. And she was great because she spoke Mandarin and Cantonese. I don’t speak Mandarin and Cantonese. Dan Kwan speaks a little bit, but he’s not fluent. And so she was subtitling for us and she would even say, like you know? “That’s a pretty good take, but they you know they flubbed the line there or they said the word a little funky. It just sounds weird.” And so she would help us even with our selects and stuff.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s amazing.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s a great asset. Yeah. You mentioned your anxieties of doing this massive film that had many themes, many genres, or styles you could say, of different inspiration from different films. How did you handle all that? Were there films that you watched to be like, “Oh, this is a good reference for this universe,” or like yeah? how did you tackle all the worlds?

Paul Rogers:

I mean I think it’s pretty obvious that the Matrix was a huge influence and reference. And I think you can’t really make a sci-fi action film in our generation of filmmakers without even accidentally referencing and pulling from the Matrix. It was so influential. I just bought tickets to watch it on 35, actually, last night.

Sarah Taylor:

Nice.

Paul Rogers:

It’s at a local theater. I haven’t seen it in theaters since it came out. You know? I watched it when I was 15 or whatever.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, my goodness.

Paul Rogers:

Anyways, so that was a big one. And the temp score, half the temp score at the very beginning was the Matrix score because it just fits, and it also has kinda shorthand. They did a really good job of establishing… I guess it’s the its kinda the water harp. I don’t know exactly what it’s called, but this sound that they use that just lets you know something funky is going on in the Matrix right now. Just pay attention. That kind of stuff was really useful. And Son Lux, our composer, ended up, I think, taking some inspiration from that and trying to figure out their own version of that. What was that version of the Multiverses, is something’s happening you know? or something’s coming. The Matrix Dan and Daniel had us watch Holy Motors, which is incredible; but it’s less of a stylistic reference or storytelling reference and more of a reference of, “Hey, you can ignore the rules of filmmaking and storytelling and still have a really powerful emotional experience.” you know? And uhhh.  we watched Paprika, which is a great film from Japan, and Mind Game. And really for Mind Game, there was ?there’s a section at the end of that film, it’s animated, where they’re trying to escape out of the belly of a whale. And it’s like 30 minutes and I don’t think there’s any dialogue and it’s just pure insanity. And so Dan Kwan always talked about that as a reference for the end of our film, kinda going up the staircase, that section. There’s just so many like incredible films that would come up. Obviously, In The Mood For Love. they? I don’t even know if we even mentioned it by name while we were cutting because it was just so obvious. This is in the In The Mood For Love universe you know; what we would call, I guess, the movie star universe. I call it a sexy wayman universe.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, that’s true.

Paul Rogers:

The nice thing about audiences today is we’re all… Because of streaming and because we grew up with just film as an? such a more accessible, even just because we had Blockbusters where we could rent movies and re-watch them; versus my parents’ generation we’re like, “If you didn’t catch it in theaters, you didn’t see it.” Because of that, we have a really kinda ingrained knowledge of genre and an understanding of the tropes of each genre. Even if we don’t have that kinda vocabulary, we’re just general film goers, we know what it means, what it sounds like and feels like, to be in an action film or romance or rom-com or you know comedy. And so we could lean on those editorially as we’re jumping back and forth between universes to just center people and ground people in what they’re what theyre in. Because its its? we’re asking a lot of the audience. We talked a lot about this; the whiplash the whiplash the film is by design creating as you fly back and forth between genres. And it’s nice to just give people a clue, like, “Okay, you are in the  this is the Lifetime family drama genre.” you know..  And the aspect ratio plays into that, the music, the color correction, you know? even their performances. They kinda dialed in to that you know… And the pacing of it, we would just try to emulate those things. Comedy genre or multiverse, the action universe, the horror film universe, or just you know? those moments. That was really fun to get to play in all those different genres and be like, “Okay, what are the things we can do to help the audience know where they where they are and what’s going on and and how they can.. how they should be reading this andand and and ingesting this?”

Sarah Taylor:

You came up with a technique and I’m curious where it came from, to signal the audience that were you know?. there’s going to be a shift, we’re going to go into the multiverse. And there was the glass cracking, the sounds. Was that some of stuff that was established within like the initial edits or was that after the fact?

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, it was  editorially, we figured it out. And the glass cracking, I remember early on Dan and Daniel, they were just they were trying a bunch of stuff with Zak Stoltz, the VFX supervisor, and the glass cracking was just one of them you know..  They had a bunch of different ideas. And then I was playing around a lot with sound design you know. What would it sound like? That reverse bell ring that ended up being… It was just one of many options we had. And you know? the nice thing about the glass thing, too, was the sound of it is so visceral and gives you that feeling because it’s not a pleasant sound and it sounds like something’s going wrong. And that’s how it should feel you know.. when she’s split between these universes and trying to center herself.

So pretty early on, we we.. I think Dan and Daniel and Zak decided that that was the move. And then it was just a matter, for me, of kinda sound design and how can I play within that space and how can we all just experiment so that no no like no multiverse shift is ever exactly the same. And can we can we tailor them each to what’s going on in that moment, and can we have fun and play and subvert expectations now that… Once we establish a language, can we play within that you know?

Sarah Taylor:

Break those rules.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. I like it. Was there a scene that was the most challenging?

Paul Rogers:

God, I mean the whole thing was challenging. I think we for different reasons, different scenes. The first 15 minutes in the laundromat were challenging, only because we found out pretty early that if we didn’t nail the characters and who they are and their motivations and and also just make the audience care about them within the first 15, that the rest of the film just never worked. And especially that end scene, the parking lot between Evelyn and Joy. The first couple cuts, like people got it, but they didn’t feel it. People weren’t crying as they watched that you know. And it was because we weren’t doing what we needed to be doing in the first 15 minutes.

Sarah Taylor:

Right? yeah.

Paul Rogers:

And we ended up really dialing in the performances. and? Not that they weren’t there, but we just weren’t using them the way that we needed to be. And then they added a.. a pickup shot of Joy driving away crying; because the way that her character was handling all this drama with her mom in the in the script and the way that it was shot was she was putting up a brave face and just giving it back as much as she was giving it to her mom, for the most part. We were trying to figure out ways within what they shot to just like, “Okay, can we hold on Joy as she’s upset with her mom for calling Becky her friend.” And we were pushing that as much as we could. And then finally, Dan and Daniel were like, “I think we just need to do a pickup.” And so they shot that moment of her weakness and her vulnerability and it really just carries through for the rest of the film.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I think that… Yeah, what a good? what a good  decision.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Knowing that you have a background in music videos, did you find that was really helpful for a lot.. lot of the action scenes and the speed ramping, those skills?  technical skills that you would’ve taken from the music video world?

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, I think the more expansive the type of work you can do, the better. I mean? you know I wish I had done more weird stuff and it all would’ve been helpful. Music videos are fun because there’s a general like lower stakes quality to them that allows you to really just get weird and experiment. And whatever makes it fun and enjoyable to watch, works. So you don’t have to follow many rules. The only rule is try to make the song better, somehow you know. I feel like Turned Down For What, because of the treatment of the way that they made that music video like, it makes me like the song more and I picture that. And.. you know? same with Until The Quiet Comes by Kahlil is like. That song means a lot to me when I hear it because I see those images in my head.

Sarah Taylor:

Mmm. Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

It’s one of the sources of anxiety, sometimes, in working on a music video for a really good song, is is like?if you don’t elevate it, then you might run the risk of the opposite, of making it be like, “Yeah, when I? now when I hear that song, I see that terrible music video in my head.”

Sarah Taylor:

They ruined it.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah. And that’s scary. That’s a real responsibility that editors have, I think, in everything we do is like I felt that on this film. “Man, if I screw this up, it’s going to make Michelle look bad, it’s going to make Ke look bad, Stephanie Hsu, it’s going to make Dan and Daniel look bad, the production designer, Jason you know? These are all my friends that work on this stuff. And so it passes through my hands at the very end; and in my mind, that means if it’s not good, it’s my fault and I’m letting all these people down. I think it’s important to hold that responsibility every day.

Sarah Taylor:

I’m curious about your choice to use Premiere. I’m primarily a prem?Premiere editor myself and so?

Paul Rogers:

Mmhmm..

 

Sarah Taylor:

And what were the advantages? Obviously, productions was?very handy for you, but what were some of the other advantages you found using that system?

Paul Rogers:

I learned Avid in school and liked it. And I also learned Final Cut in school. It was probably 4, Final Cut 5, or I don’t know 3 I dont know what it was.

Sarah Taylor:

3 was their big one that came out. We were like, “Whoa.”

Paul Rogers:

That was probably it. Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

Final Cut 3. And then I? when I got out of school, my job at public television, they were on Final Cut Pro, so I just got used to that. And then when they decided to go to X?Final Cut X, me and Luke, I remember, were working and we were like, “Should we do Avid? Should we go to Avid or should we go to Premiere?” And we were both like, “We don’t really want to go to Premiere,” because we don’t know it and it it? didn’t have a good reputation and so?. Because we were dismissing it, we were like, “Well, we should try it then because that’s dumb to not try it and just dismiss it.” you know And so we gave ourselves a week and it was a pretty slow week and we had maybe a music video or something. And we cut it and you know.. Premiere was smart and you could choose Final Cut 7 keyboard shortcuts, which I’ve still… My shortcuts are super modified, but they’re kinda based on that.

And we liked it and there was a lot of like freedom in the Premiere workflow. It’s a little more kinda improv jazz. It’s a little less tied to the film workflow. Avid is very much like emulating the film workflow, which is great for people who came from film, who cut in film for years and years and years. Because Final Cut was less of a film workflow, as well, I think I was just separated from that workflow so much that Premiere made more sense and felt more free to me. And and honestly, it just like? I feel like it’s like arguing over what brand of drill you like its like.

Sarah Taylor:

Hundred percent.

Paul Rogers:

They both fucking drill holes like?. you know.

Sarah Taylor:

Nobody knows the difference between those two holes, what drill happened. Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying so like?. As long as the work gets done, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a personal preference of what frustrates me less; and Premiere personally frustrates me less. And I like i like Avid. I’m working on Avid on a project right now. It’s just because certain projects are started, then it’s a pain to convert them. I like, also, the fact that Dan and Daniel… And I think 95% of the VFX in this film were done in After Effects. And they would just you know.. shoot it off to After Effects and bring it back and it was so easy and so fast.

And I love… I temp in a ton of VFX in my projects and I do a ton of audio effect work. And so it’s heavily sound design and heavily affected. And being able to like?  do a really fast mat over someone and split screen to combine two takes, like it takes me four seconds to do a really pretty solid key. you know? And there’s this good amount of green screen in this. And then once?  I’d never really used time-remapping keyframes on the timeline; and once I figured that out in Premiere for this film especially, it became huge.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, it’s a game changer once you can wrap your head around how to make it work.

Paul Rogers:

Man it was like? we.. they shot a lot.. Because of the music video background, they shot a lot of their stuff at high frame rates so that we had the option to slow down. Even if we didn’t, I could play so much with just like… Not so much performances, but like? what’s going on in the background while someone’s doing something in the foreground you know.. in a non-action scene. But in the action scenes especially, we would really like… Because we wanted to not… A lot of the reason that indie action movies get so cutty in their in their? action scenes is because they have to. Because they just don’t have the time for rehearsal, they don’t have the time and money for a four-day shoot on a one scene fight. And that was how this was. like? The fanny pack fight they shot in a day, I think, which is crazy. They spend a week on that stuff in Hong Kong.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Paul Rogers:

And we wanted to stay in the wides as much as we could and we wanted to not be cutting around where you didn’t know what was happening. And a big way of leveling that playing field between us, indie action film and big blockbuster film, was time-remapping and splitting the screen and combining takes; and you know? making a punch that may not have been thrown quite with the force it needed, like? speed ramping it, and making it feel better. And when someone flies back, slowing them down in mid-air so there’s more of a weight, and then speeding it up right as they hit the ground so that you feel that impact. and so that was?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

?that was?These are all just little reasons why Premiere worked out really well.

Sarah Taylor:

Very effective. Okay, so let’s jump to the Oscars. like? What a ride for your whole team.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

It came out, I think, when it needed to come out.

Paul Rogers:

Mmhmm.

Sarah Taylor:

It Landed in the right spot, I think, when it needed to land. What was that journey like for you?

Paul Rogers:

It was overwhelming. It was a lot. I think no? no one was expecting it. i mean.. There’s a joke in.. you know..  when? when..  Jobu is cycling through the weapons in her hand and like… One of the VFX guys threw an Oscar in there as a joke because it was such a silly idea?.

 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

And now, you know? if we had known it was actually going to happen, we would not have put that in there because you know?  then it’s like? not cool.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, it’s totally cool.

Paul Rogers:

And we? Yeah, it is kind of funny, but we you know? we just never, ever… And you know..  people would say like, “You know.. you think you’ll get awards?” And I’m like, “This is not that kind of movie. I’m just going to tell you, it’s just not.” There’s a lot of butt plugs and there’s a whole fight where just stuff shoved up at people’s asses. People were eating their boogers in the movie like you know?. It’s just weird. The first thing was that we were just really excited that people were watching it. And it grew pretty slow. It wasn’t like it hit and had like a huge opening weekend. It just kept expanding and growing organically. But I remember the first week it came out, Dan Kwan was in a coffee shop down the street from my office and he was like..  texted us. He was like, “I heard somebody talking about our movie. They’d just seen it. Isn’t that crazy?” The fact that someone in a coffee shop had seen the movie was a big deal for us. 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

And then obviously, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And then we were like, “Oh, my God.” And you know? I remember… I don’t have a Twitter, but you can search on Twitter, and I would go and search the title of the movie and just see is anyone talking about it. And there would be six tweets in a day and I’d be like, “Oh, my God, it’s amazing. Six people are talking about the movie.” I remember Ke Quan at one of… not the friends and family, the crew screening, basically, where everyone got?  finally got to see the film. Ke, we were talking and he said, “you know? I think this could really be big. I think it could? could win some Oscars.” And I was like? I kinda gave that same dismissive like, “No, that’s so thats not going to happen, Ke.” And he was right. And now? and now.. now I’m just like, “God. Man, we just need to all learn the lesson to just not doubt Ke, because is.. you know like.. he is ?he just knows what’s up.” And he is uhhh? you know? it’s the same thing. That’s why he ended up having to leave Hollywood, was people just kept doubting him and he?s like he’s a fucking amazing actor you know?.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally.

Paul Rogers:

So I was like, “God, now I’m in that line of like? assholes that just?doubted.”

Sarah Taylor:

Shut him down.

Paul Rogers:

you know? Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, man.

Paul Rogers:

But he was right and he won an Oscar? like.. That’s crazy. He came back. First film like? after, what, 20, 30 years and came back and won an Oscar.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s amazing. Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

It’s amazing. And I was just really, really excited for the most part for Michelle and Ke and Stephanie and Jamie you know?. Jamie’s a legend, but it was crazy that her first Oscar nomination? oscars? was mine; like? that our first Oscar was together was really strange. It was overwhelming because I don’t… I mean? Editors are not we are not? designed or built for that kind of attention and for that kind of like? interest. And I also realized that we? aren’t built to talk about what we do. We’re just built to do it. And so a lot of my early interviews, they talk about my process and I would just make it up. I’d be like, “This is what I do and da da da.” And then later I’d be like, “That’s not what I do.” I mean? I did that once. 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

I did that on a? for a day; but like?  I was just trying to make it interesting and then I So.. The more I would do them, the more I realized like  I’ve just got to be honest and be like, “Every day it’s different.” you know? Because I get bored if I get? have one process. If I only do dailies and selects one way, I’m going to get bored. And my timeline’s messy. My bins are messy like? you know?  That’s why there’s this timeline floating around from the film. I was like? doing a presentation and I had Zuken and Aashish clean up the timeline for me. And I was like, “I want it to look good.” And they did and they sent it over; and then I was looking at it and I was like, “That is?nt? It is unrecognizable to me.” It’s not me, it’s not the way I work. And I don’t want like?  people out there just getting started to be like, “Oh, I can never be a real editor unless I spend a lot of time being organized.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

Because thats like?  being creative is messy and weird And you know?  I can look at a crazy timeline with literally 40 layers of video and a bunch of disabled clips and I’ll be like, “Oh, I know. That this was an idea I had?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

-here and that might come back, so maybe I’ll keep that on a timeline and just disable it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

“So I was like, “Just put out the messy one.” And even that messy one is like? half cleaned up because they would clean as I went you know… 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:     

Like if y’a ll saw the real one, I don’t know if I would ever work again. That shit is crazy.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, other editors would appreciate it, because I am definitely one of the messy ones.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah. I should dig up like some of my early… you know.. The act one, the first timeline of that is just insanity.

Sarah Taylor:

What I found really interesting with the whole Oscar thing and you winning? which is Congratulations.

Paul Rogers:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

I’d never seen an editor be shared memes and your speeches from people who are not in the film industry. like.. You became a famous editor. And I was like, “What is happening? This is amazing.” I don’t know if you felt that. I’m sure you have.

Paul Rogers:

A little bit. I mean? I’m not on social media, so it was nice that I could just turn my phone off and-

Sarah Taylor:

You could do it from afar.

Paul Rogers:

I love the stuff about work-life balance, and all the other stuff was not fun and kinda anxiety inducing.

Sarah Taylor:

You taking that opportunity when you were in the limelight to make that statement like, “Well, this kind of thing happens to guys that look like me all the time,” thank you. That was a moment where I feel like you did service to our industry. What made you feel like this was the time to make that.. to say that? Is this something that you are trying to change how our industry is not as diverse as it could be behind the scenes?

Paul Rogers:

Yeah, I think..  it felt very obvious to me because it’s something that, we? in our company at Parallax, we talk about it all the time. And its.. it’s also just obvious when you look around the room at the Oscars or wherever I was you know… At all the other award shows that I got invited to, it was like it was really obvious that it was mostly white men. And I didn’t feel like I was like? breaking news. And it’s something we think about a lot with how how..  we hire and the interns that we bring on and who we’re mentoring and really, a lot of it is just like what kind of projects and stories are we giving our pretty considerable time and energy to ?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

-telling?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

-right? Because that’s really where we have the most power, is like?  we are storytellers. What stories are we going to tell, are we going to help people tell? And its also like?. I recognize that when I came out here, I went to college, I had no college debt you know?. I got some grants and then my parents paid for my college. And I had a wife who paid all my bills and I could also just walk into a production house and no one would be like, “What are you doing here?”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, you could use that code and you wouldn’t get kicked out.

Paul Rogers:

Yeah. I just? you know?I look like I belong coz like?  all the other interns were young white guys?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

-and so I kinda like? just fit into the? you know?  And that’s just not the way it works for everybody. And so.. I can’t be like, “Just do it the way I did it. Just show up to where you want to be and pretend you work there.” 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

You know.. That just doesn’t work. I mean? You know how it is with editors? like.. We don’t go out and go to these big functions a lot. And so I ended up meeting a lot of other editors or former editors. And you know? I was talking to a woman, she was like, “Yeah, I was a picture editor. Loved it. It was my life. I had kids. It became harder. And then I got a divorce and became a single parent and it became impossible and I quit and I became a music editor.” And its like?  that’s also a problem with the fact that we work 12, 14-hour days. 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

Not even just 12 to 14-hour days. The fact that we work 10-hour days is too much. And I know? like? I? I for a long time had the feeling people would be like, “Man, this is? you know? 50 hours a week is a lot.” And I’d be like, huhhh.. you know..  “Come on.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

I work 12 hours a? a day?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

you know? for? 14 hours a day?. like?Just buck up and deal with it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

It’s a bigger issue like?. It’s really like? if you want… And it’s not just for parents and people with families like? But for me personally, if I go to work, if I start at 9:00, 10- hour day is 9:00 to 7:00, that doesn’t include a lunch break. So let’s throw 30 minutes in for lunch. Drop my kids off at daycare. I go to? get to the office at 9:00. I work til.. 7:30. I drive home. By the time I get home, it’s 8:00. Both my kids are in bed. I’m just going to accept that I just don’t see my kids until the weekends. And then the weekends are recovery. 

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah

Paul Rogers:

Weekends shouldn’t be recovery. Weekends should be like? we fly into the weekends with a bunch of energy and we do all the stuff that we want to do. But because of the way that we work, we spend a full day recovering and then on Sunday we just do all the shit that we need to do really fast and clean up our house and do-

Sarah Taylor:

Exactly. Yeah.

Paul Rogers:

It’s not a sustainable way of working. And so I want to figure out a way where we can work eight, nine-hour days and still get the work done. Because also, what happens is when you work a 12-hour day, you pace yourself. You’re not working as fast and it’s hard because you’re like, “I’m going to be fucking here all day like?.” I’m going to take a ton of breaks. We can do the work in in?-

Sarah Taylor:

Here. Yeah, exactly.

Paul Rogers:

… a reasonable amount of time and we need to figure out a way to got to-

Sarah Taylor:

Got to get another coffee.

Paul Rogers:

… adapt so that the work? its?  our workdays are set up differently for people with different needs. People with different mental health needs, people who are single parents, people who just can’t swing the crazy schedule that we have all just become accustomed to. And not even accustomed. We’re like? thankful for an 11-hour day. We’re thankful for a 10-hour day and that’s not good. I’m excited that people are talking about that. I don’t know what all the answers are. I’m trying to figure it out and my company’s trying. We’re now? we?re? we?re doin? doing our best to try to figure it out. We still have the needs of these clients that have these expectations that are set from decades of overworking us. And so it’s it?s?  a battle sometimes, but it’s worthwhile. And as we’ve all matured and the pandemic helped a lot of just letting us know like, man, you can really have a great life and you can do great work. I did this whole movie during the pandemic. I saw my family all the time. And there would be days where I was like, “Look, Dan, Daniel, I’m tired. I really need to go to the park with my kid. He’s?. he?s 3 years old.” And they’d be like, “Sweet. can we? We’re going to go grab some beers and you know? we’ll throw you a beer from six feet away.” And we hang out in the park. like? that sounds great. It was such a great way to work.

Sarah Taylor:

If we grind all day long, all the time we’re telling stories about life, but we’re not living life. We need to be able to go out there and live life. Right?

Paul Rogers:

I totally agree. Yeah. And the more? the more the life you live, the better the stories you can tell, is exactly what you’re saying. But I also think that like? it’s a diversity issue in the sense of the more interesting and diverse and? and? varied the people you surround yourself with, the more interesting and real the stories that you tell, and the? the ways that you can tell stories are going to be much better. And so? it’s like if you make a gumbo with one ingredient, it’s going to taste like that one thing. I don’t know if that metaphor makes any sense.

Sarah Taylor:

We need to have more flavor.

Paul Rogers:

We need to have more flavor. Right.

Sarah Taylor:

How can we as individuals in the sys? in the system that we’re in right now help make a shift, especially people who have more privilege? What are we able to do to help?

Paul Rogers:

I don’t know if it’s possible to just shed your privilege, but it’s definitely possible to re-weaponize it for a different… And.. and retool it and use it. It’s definitely something that we think about and talk about a lot. And its.. you know?  it seems? it just seems so obvious.

Sarah Taylor:

I agree.

Paul Rogers:

you know.. its like? It’s crazy that people were like, “Wow, he said that.” I’m like, “Y’all aren’t saying this every day?” I think just? it’s so minimal. Just be deliberate and think about what you’re doing.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally.

Paul Rogers:

I think that’s kinda? the genesis of it. Just think about what you’re doing. Can we do that?

Sarah Taylor:

One last question is, what’s coming up next? Is there anything that we can watch out for?

Paul Rogers:

I just finished a film called The Legend of Ochi, directed by Isaiah Saxon. He’s another first-time director. And uhmm? it stars Willem Dafoe and Wolfhard and Emily Watson and and Helena Zengel. and it’s this kinda cool… It’s a little bit of a throwback and that? it’s about a girl who learns to speak to animals, but it’s like? all animatronics and people in? in? puppetry and-

Sarah Taylor:

Cool.

Paul Rogers:

so?its? you know? It’s got that little old? old school vibe to it, which I love. And then I’m working on a film with Kahlil Joseph, who’s my partner at Parallax, his first feature called Black News, which is based on an art installation, an urban project that he has had ongoing for the last couple of years. And that’s a big fun one because it’s a its?a  ton of editors and it’s years of edited material that we’re also pulling in from all kinds of editors with varying levels of ex? experience. And so thats? we’re still working on that one. so.. and then you know? maybe a little break. We’ll see.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, I hope you can take that break and I look forward to all this great stuff coming out. And yeah, thanks again so much.

Paul Rogers:

Thank you for having me. It was great.

Sarah Taylor:

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thanks goes out to Paul for taking the time to sit with me. Special thanks goes to Allison Dowler and Kim Taggart, CCE. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall; additional ADR recording by Andrea Rush. Original music created by Chad Blain and Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE is proud to support HireBIPOC. HireBIPOC is the definitive and ubiquitous industry-wide roster of Canadian BIPOC creatives and crew working in screen-based industries. Check out hirebipoc.ca to hire your next group or create a profile and get hired.

Speaker 4:

The CCE is a non-profit organization, with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info

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The Editors Cut

Episode 077 – Assistant Editing with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus

The Editor's Cut: Episode 77: Assistant Editing with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus
The Editor's Cut: Episode 77: Assistant Editing with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus

Episode 77: Assistant Editing with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus

In this episode Sarah Taylor sits down with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus.

TEC 077: Bettina Zachariah Treviranus

Bettina is obsessed with and has a deep love of stories that began when she learned how to read. By trade, she?s a television editor and producer of such shows like Work In Progress, Dominion, and Grimm. By night, she?s a devoted daughter, wife, mother, and friend. Bettina believes that stories are what humanize us, teaches us, strengthens us, and connects us. She?s deeply honored to be here and share her experiences.

Sarah and Bettina discuss her career journey and how she landed her current position as assistant editor on Class of ?09.

À écouter ici !

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 77: Assistant Editing with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

What I could have done differently is that I could have put myself out there, stayed after hours, ask for help, ask to shadow, and it’s not that those opportunities weren’t available to me, I just had a lot of inhibitions. When I think it took me seven years to become assistant editor, it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” It’s one of the reasons I do so much mentoring now is to demystify the process.

Sarah Taylor:

Hello and welcome to the Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory, that has long served as a place where indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honor, respect, and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions, and the concerns that impact indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today, I bring to you an interview with Bettina Zachariah Treviranus. She’s obsessed with and has a deep love of stories that began when she learned how to read. By trade, she’s a television editor and producer of such shows like Work in Progress, Dominion, and Grimm. By name, she’s a devoted daughter, wife, mother, and friend. Bettina believes that stories are what humanize us, teach us, strengthen us, and connect us. We discuss her career journey and how she landed her current position as assistant editor.

Speaker 3:

And action.

Speaker 4:

This is the editor’s cut.

Speaker 5:

A CCE podcast.

Speaker 4:

Exploring the art …

Speaker 5:

Of picture editing.

Sarah Taylor:

Bettina, thank you so much for joining us on the Editor’s Cut.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sarah Taylor:

So I am going to steal a little bit from the playbook of Post in Black. They always like to start their episodes with an icebreaker.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Great. Okay.

Sarah Taylor:

So I’m going to do it with you.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Awesome.

Sarah Taylor:

What is the last show that you binge-watched?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

My gosh. I binge-watched so many things. I’m trying to think because I basically do chores all the time, so I’m constantly watching … I think I just rewatched Modern Family because I needed comfort foods, I’d already seen it, but it was like I’m stressed and so I just need something that is comfy and I know it, and it has a lot of episodes, so I don’t have to leave my warm blanket for a while.

Sarah Taylor:

I totally get that. Sometimes I’ll catch myself rewatching Gilmore Girls just because I’m like, it’s comfortable.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, they’ve done psychological research about why people like to rewatch things and it’s because what’s going to happen. So if you’re kind of in a period in your life where there’s a lot of unknowns or uncertainty, that’s a very comfort … it used to be West Wing for me, until Netflix took it off. I would actually fall asleep to the West Wing because I knew seasons one through four so well, that it was a way of getting my brain to stop thinking about all my problems and just listen to the audio and fall asleep.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it. I bet you, there’s probably studies that have been done during the pandemic where … to see which shows were the ones that people chose to watch.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

I think that’d be really interesting to investigate.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Sure, mine, I just finished watching The Watcher. I watched it two nights in a row.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Okay.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s like we’re recording around Halloween, so I felt it was a really … it was kind of spooky, so it was fun. Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah. Yeah. Very neat.

Sarah Taylor:

Not comforting at all, but fun. Okay, well tell us a little bit about your yourself and what led you to a career in post-production?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I am from Chicago and I as a kid, would read a lot and for me, when I read a book, it plays like a movie. I’m Indian American. My family upbringing was very strict, so we were not allowed to watch TV Monday through Thursday. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday were the only days, so what was available to me in terms of entertainment were books. So I would just lose myself in books. They would play movies in my head to the point where if I was reading a book and I got a phone call, I would take the phone call and be like, “Oh, I missed the rest of that movie.” I go, “No, no, it’s a book. I can go back to reading.” So I would think a lot about, “Oh, I would want to make this book into a movie,” but growing up, that felt very distant and far away and things that other people did.

So I went to college, didn’t know what I wanted, resisted declaring a major forever and then, finally I majored in English and secondary education and was like, “Okay, I guess I’ll be a high school teacher.” And that felt very right for my family like, “Oh, she’d be a great teacher.” And so everybody encouraged me to do that. I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t have in my head other options. Then, I actually did student teaching. I absolutely hated it. Then, I took on a long-term substitute teacher job where a teacher was going to go have a baby, so I finished out her year for her. That was my like, well maybe it wasn’t so bad and I remembered it badly and then, I tried it and was like, “Oh, I still hate this. Well now what do I do?” And I always incorporated a lot of movies in my lesson planning.

So I was like, “Well, I guess I’ll go to film school.” So at this point, I was out of college for a year and I didn’t think anybody would accept me into film school. So I went and I did an internship in Washington DC for a year to strengthen my grad school application. That program put me with a documentary producer and I was basically free work in her basement. I would answer phone calls, digitize photos, and that was the first time I saw an editor working and I was like, “Oh, this is so cool,” what they were doing. What I realized is I was in musicals and when I would watch rehearsals, I would think, “Oh, if it were me, I would put the camera here so we can see this person.” It’s effectively editing. In my head, I just didn’t know at the time, that’s what it was.

So I went to Chapman University in Orange, California and you had to … they have a conservatory model and you had to declare what your emphasis was and like everybody else, I put director first and then, my second was editing because that was what I was exposed to. I didn’t even know what cinematography was. I knew I was not going to be a good production designer and I did not feel at the time I would be a good writer or a producer. So I didn’t get into the directing program, but I did get into the editing program and that is kind of what set me up down the line. It was basically those set of experiences, kind of nudging me towards post.

I got an internship my third year of school … no, I’m sorry, my second year of school with Battlestar Galactica, and my third year of school I was hired as a post-production assistant on Battlestar.

Sarah Taylor:

Amazing.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So my third year I was working, I was going to school and I was getting married. So I lost a lot of hair that year.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, that’s like all of the major fun stressors.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It was like … yes and for me it was like “Well, I want to finish school and I don’t want to say no to this job and I really want to get married, so I’m going to do it all.” And in retrospect it’s like, “Girl, you could have taken some time. You didn’t have to do it all, but you’re young and you think everything has to be right now.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yes. Yes.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

And I tend not to take time. I tend to cram it all in, if I can.

Sarah Taylor:

We sound very similar. So where are you now? What are you doing now?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So a few years ago for family reasons, my husband and I moved back to Chicago. So now, a very unintended positive consequence of the pandemic has been that remote work has become a very real option. So before when I moved to Chicago, that was in 2017, I would reach out and be like, “In post, why can’t we do this remotely? There is really no reason we all have to be in an office.” The responses I got was, “Oh, the infrastructure isn’t there and oh, security.” And I was like, “This intuitively doesn’t feel right, but I don’t know how to vocalize why this feels silly and wrong.” Then, the pandemic hit and nobody could go into an office and suddenly, all those problems went away.

Sarah Taylor:

Real quick.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So I did a couple of things in between. I took one job for seven months where I flew back and forth to LA from Chicago every week for seven months to keep up my resume. And then, I ended up getting hired on a show in Chicago. So that kept up my resume, but then as soon as I realized there was work from home options, I started setting up my resume just to raise my hand because not being in LA sort of … it’s easier for people to forget you as an option. A former editor I worked with needed some … his assistant was being bumped up, so he convinced the head of Post to bring me on as a cover assistant editor. It was funny when the tech department was setting me up and they were like, “Oh yeah, this is the software we used to control rovers on Mars.” And I was like, “If we can control things on Mars, of course we should be able to remote into half a country away,” is what I’m saying.

Sarah Taylor:

We’re in space, God dammit.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

This is the type of thing that like, it doesn’t feel right but I can’t figure out why these answers don’t feel right, and really what it boils down to is that the industry wasn’t ready for it. It had to be forced into it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

That’s what I do now at the moment is if there isn’t a job for me in Chicago, I will look for remote work into LA and I keep LA hours and it’s just been a … for now, and we’ll see how long it lasts because the pandemic is still going on. We’ll see if people will keep wanting to work remotely. I think there is some real positives for people in terms of work-life balance and just not having to sit in LA traffic and not having to sit around and wait for an output. There is some real positives to having some more control. Now, some people hate it, some people want to be in the office, they want that face time, they want to be out of their house. Property is very expensive in LA. So I have the luxury of having a guest room, and so my Avid is there and it’s very easy to separate myself from my family and work. That’s not the easiest thing to achieve in LA. So there are people who just need that space.

So I get both sides of it. My idea would be a hybrid situation. I love working from home, but I do miss the camaraderie and sitting around and laughing at outtakes and having lunch with everybody and becoming a little family over the course of a show. That stuff I do miss.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I’m with you on that. I’m with you on that. Well, since you’ve mentioned, you work from home, you have a guest room, what does your typical day look like as an assistant editor at this current stage, working remotely?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So because I work in … I remote into LA, I’m two hours ahead of LA so my day starts at 11, which means … I also have two kids, so the mornings are basically my time to spend time with them, get them ready for school, get them going and run all the errands. And what’s really been nice is I can do appointments, doctor’s appointments, dentist’s appointments, whereas that’s harder after hours to get anything specialized done and now, I’m trying to jam it into my workday. So that part has been awesome. Then, basically, my days as an assistant editor is basically what my editor needs. So when we’re in dailies, I prep dailies to the editor, how they like it. Some editors want script syncing, some editors want it in frame view where they can see what all the angles are. So, it’s really however they want it and then, depending on where we are in the show, what needs to be done for all the other departments.

So right now, my current show, we are well out of dailies, and I have a to-do list. So for example, we onlined a show a couple of days ago, I got the van back last night. Tonight I’m going to … when we get off the phone here, I’m going to check the van and make sure that it’s correct to what I turned over. So I have a little to-do list of checking in with different departments, checking in with my bosses, and then getting whatever work, if there’s sound work or outputs or turnovers to do. Just structuring my day so I can take care of all of that, in a timely fashion so that I’m not … I like to be the rock in the department where I am trying to make it as easy as possible and to minimize chaos because I feel like every TV show gets to the point where it’s crazy and chaotic and what can I do personally to lower that?

Because I love making television, it is literally my favorite thing to do in the world. So, if there’s something I can bring to the table that makes it a cool, fun experience, then I want to do that because … yeah, I read something like, “Only 2% of the people in the world love their jobs.” It’s like, “Ugh, really? That’s it.”

Sarah Taylor:

That sounds awful.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I know we should all love our jobs.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

We’ve spent so much time there. I don’t know if that’s a real statistic, but I read that in some kind of headline.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s like, “Oh, I must be really lucky.”

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I feel it with you. So is there any sort of ways of organizing as an assistant that you always use or is it always changing for the editor you’re working with?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I consider my specialty is like I tailor myself to my department. This is the most embarrassing part of my story. It took me seven years to become an assistant editor. I actually went up to post producing chain at first, I went from post-production assistant to post-production coordinator to post supervisor to associate producer, mainly because I got that first internship at Battlestar, and that was the easiest way to go up the chain because it was very hard for me to get into the union because the union, you had to do 100 days non-scripted union work. And I had a lot of, in retrospect, very silly tech fear. In my opinion, there’s no great way to train to become an assistant editor. There are things like master the workflow now, but at the time, people would tell me, just take the job and fake it until you make it, which even now that I actually know the job, it’s like, “Are you crazy?” This is-

Sarah Taylor:

You need to know.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

There’s a lot of things that’s like I would not have been able to figure out. What actually ended up happening was I got onto a job, a friend advocated for me and it turned out that that show was block shot. So two episodes were shot at the same time. So another acquaintance that I knew who later on became a very good friend, he was an assistant editor. He and I started at the same time, and he trained me, and that was just the perfect confluence of events. Then, all the experiences I had of being the post producer, associate producer, it actually complimented me being the assistant editor because I know as the assistant editor what to do, but I also can think through what’s the best way I can do my work to set the post producing department up for success.

Also, I can … because a lot of post producers are not super technical, I can act as a translator for both sets of people, for the tech people, like the assistant editors and editors and the post producers who need to finish the show. Sometimes there’s like, we’re not speaking the same language because one group has never touched an Avid. They may know the terms, but they may not understand the work that … for example, how much work a turnover can be.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So I can work as a translator to both. So when I interview for a job, I am very careful to observe what the editor needs. If the editor is super high maintenance, I am right there, I will cater to your every need. If the editor is very low-key, awesome. My job is so much easier, and I don’t have to worry as much, right?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Or if I know that there’s an editor who’s not super attention-to-detailly then I have a running list of things to make sure I double check because I know that editor is not going to check that. And it’s just a thing that I learn, and like I said, I tailor myself to my department. So maybe the editor is really high maintenance, and the post producers are very low maintenance and so that they’re on top of what they need from me or maybe the post producers are not super on top of their things, so I will be checking with them like, “Hey, when do I need to do this turnover? When do I need to do that turnover?” So it’s sort of a balancing act of what needs are there that need to be filled, that I can do that service, what value can I provide?

Sarah Taylor:

I think I need you in my life too. How do you navigate all of the, kind of understanding what the editors like remotely? Is it just by having Zoom calls and getting the vibe?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Right, so one of my first jobs was with an editor I worked with previously and it was a lot of footage and I organized it and it was a lot of very sped footage. So I had to do a lot of speeding up and syncing. So I sent her the bin the way I had done it for her previously because it was in my head like, “Oh, I know how she likes her footage.” And then she was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t work like this anymore,” because what had happened was she had gone on to another show. On that show, she worked with two other editors who liked their bins organized differently, so she adapted to that and sometimes things are better than your previous way of doing it. So what happened was like she hadn’t realized, I think at that point she was watching the same footage, both slow motion and sped up.

So then, I was like, “Oh, okay, that’s not working for you. How do you want me to do it?” So she sent me a screen grab, “This is what I want the bin to look like.” Great. So I then reorganized the bin, on my current show, my editor and I, we weren’t on the same page about paperwork because paperwork is usually in person. I just would do both binders and remotely … on the previous shows I’d done remotely, the editors just took care of their own paperwork to the point where I didn’t even think to ask the current editor, “How do you want your paperwork done?” And then by day two or three, he was like, “So let’s talk about the continuity.” And I was like, what? Because he’s Canadian. He was calling all of the script supervisor paperwork continuities, and that’s not what I call it from LA, so we had to first get on the same page language-wise.

And then, we talked about, I was like, “Oh.” And so then, we talked about how he wanted his paperwork and then, I made sure every morning to do it that way. It was just a thing that … so it’s just basically lots of communication, lots of checking in. I mean, most people are fairly easygoing, fairly capable. So it’s just, they know what they want, and it’s something, if I get hired, then that’s like one of the first questions like, “How do like your dailies? How do you your paperwork?” And things like me forgetting the paperwork, I have a Google Drive of notes for various things. In my Google Drive, I was like, “Oh, make sure next time for your next job, you ask about the paperwork.” Because it wasn’t intentional. It was just like two jobs. I didn’t have to worry about it and then-

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It just fell out of my head because it wasn’t staring me in the face.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, that totally makes sense.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

I think that’s really … every job we learn something I feel like for myself.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Whether it’d be technical or a new way of telling a story or whatever it might be. That idea or that, I guess practice or ritual of making notes at the end of a project, is that something that you do where you’re like … or when you come across something like, “Oh, this is something I should always be doing, or this is something I should check on.” Do you have your own master the workflow set up? Is your … what you’ve done like your-

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, so I have a Google Drive of all kinds of notes, screen grabs, processes, write-ups on how to do things because there are so many things that you’re asked to do as an assistant editor, that it’s hard to remember from project to project. For example, this is the first time on this show that I’ve been asked to do a drop frame output for captioning. So the other assistant editor figured it out. I did the write-ups for a future show because usually … and this is also from my producing background, that’s a line item that you give to the finishing house, and they create those outputs. On this show, I think they wanted to save some money, so they’re having assistant editors do it. As it’s something that I’d never had to do before that is … it’s valuable to me to take the time to sit down and write it out.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

And I do screen grabs of menus and I’ll notate on the menu where the thing is.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s amazing.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, and then, what’s also helpful is when I’m on a project and somebody else doesn’t know how to do something, I was like, “Oh, I have a writeup for that,” and I’ll just shoot off the email. It’s not exactly the same process. Maybe the Avid has changed a little bit because they always upgrade.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It may be a starting point to train that person or maybe it’s a starting point for us to figure out in this new version of Avid, how would you do it? So it is … and anything I see on forms and everything, I’ll take screen grabs and save it. Just anything that I think is useful that I think … because I don’t have a brain that I can remember all of this stuff. So I will forget … after I do dailies the next show and have to do dailies, “How do I speed up and sync a clip again?”

Sarah Taylor:

What was I doing? Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, I don’t like reinventing the wheel. To me, that drives me nuts. For every show, I create what’s called the assistant editor checklist, and that is literally everything from dailies to wrap that’s in a checklist because I feel like most shows get very busy and crazy and I’m sleep-deprived. So if I have to do three turnovers of like music turnover, sound turnover, picture turnover, I don’t want to read four different spec pages every single time I do a turnover. So every time I do a turnover, I wait for feedback like, “Oh, you missed this, or I want you to do this differently.” Once the turnover has been done and accepted and I haven’t heard anything, I add it to my assistant editor checklist like, “Here is all the things you …” every single step and it’s literally a checklist so that I don’t ever have to think about how to create that particular turnover again.

It served me, on my current show, I got a call at 11:00, you needed to do the sound turnover for an episode that wasn’t mine. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” that’s stressful when you don’t know the episode because you don’t know the pitfalls or whatever is particular to that episode, but it was also a time when it was stressful, because my aunt had passed away earlier in the week. I was not thinking super clearly all week because of that. It was 11:00 at night after a really long day. I think I also was coming down with the cold. So the checklist was really nice, and that like all the thinking that had to be done to do this turnover was already done. I just had to follow the steps. It’s also a way of not missing an element like not, “Oh, I didn’t forget to do the way files. I didn’t forget to do the QuickTime reference.” It’s all idiot-proofed.

Sarah Taylor:

You are blowing my mind. I feel like I need to-

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Because I made a lot of mistakes.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I think that’s great.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, and this is all from the dumb mistakes I’ve made over-

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s like, “Okay, I don’t want to do that again.”

Sarah Taylor:

That’s really smart, and saving yourself from extra stress, because I find for myself too, I’m in a smaller market, so I often … I’ve just recently in the last few years, been able to bring assistants on, like just bring on my own person to be like, “Okay, you’re going to be my assistant. I’m hiring you for this.”

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Sure.

Sarah Taylor:

Then trying to teach the person what I want, I’m like, “I don’t know. I change every time I do a show,” or it’s always different. To have access to, “Here’s everything that I do. Here’s the step-by-step. That’s amazing. That’s such a brilliant thing to think about.”

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Well, and also then when I start a new show … because again, I forget what happens from series to series, I can look at the old checklist.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

How did I do it there? And it may not be the same process again, but at least, it’s like, “Oh, I remember I had to do this.” I should maybe do it on this show. At least check, do I need to do it here? For example, I do a lot of mentoring, so I had a friend who was in non-scripted work and we were trying forever to get them scripted and he called me, he’s like, “I’m getting ready for an interview. Can you just talk me through it?” I was like, “Yes,” and we talked about everything and then, I sent him my checklist. I was like, “This is from dailies to wrap, everything. Even if you don’t know what it is, it’s a paper form of what one process is. So you might have done some of this as a reality assistant, but it’s like a jumping off point and you can always call me and we can work through … we have this guide that’s not nothing.”

So it’s just something that I started doing for myself and then, I’ve just found it’s very useful to … and the assistant editor checklist, I make it and I share it with everybody on my team, all the assistant editors. I’m always like … obviously, I’ll make mistakes on it because of typos, or it’ll be organized in a way that maybe in my fugue state made sense, but later on when I’m doing a turnover, it’s like, “Why is this line item here? This doesn’t make any sense.” So I encourage them to change it or whatever. It’s also, if there’s three teams, three editors, three assistants, I think it’s nice for the finishing departments to get the same elements from every team so that you’re not … if we can all use the same presets.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

If we can all use all the same things coming from the same teams to the same departments, I think would be really nice. So it’s not like I demand that people to use the checklist. It’s just like, “Hey, if we can all get on the same page, same presets, that would be really nice.” One of the things that I’ve done on this show for the first time is when I did the turnovers, the other assistant editor taught me how to save all my individual presets for every output and every element creation. So we all saved it to one particular Avid profile. Then, we were able to drag the presets the other person created to ours. So when he figured out that drop frame thing, I was grabbing all of his presets. I figured out all the, I don’t know, the sound EDLs presets, so he grabbed all of mine. So it was just really nice to not have to reinvent the wheel over and over again and just make it easier. It’s a little thing, but it makes it easier.

Sarah Taylor:

I really enjoy your approach of the … like you’re being collaborative with it.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Because sometimes I find there’ll be a tech issue and you’re like … at least I did this when I was younger, kind of ashamed to ask, “How do I do this?” So I love how you’re doing it where you’re like, “Well, he figured it out so then we did it.” It’s like your team, which you are, and we should be, we should all be a team.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s a very competitive industry. Early on, my first show was a very heavy visual effects show, and the assistant editor at the time that trained me, showed me a very quick way of labeling the show with a subcap creator that somebody else developed online. It was like … because it was my first visual effects show, it was just standard, “Oh, this is a really quick way to label the show.” On my next show, I taught the assistant editors how to do it, how to do that. I was a producer at that point in that show, and one of the assistant editors was like, “I love this.” And I was like, isn’t it amazing? Don’t you want to teach everyone? He’s like, “No, I want to be the only one who knows it. So I look like the fastest assistant editor.”

I don’t like that mentality. I am very much a rising tide that lifts all boats. I don’t really feel the need to compete because I think there’s just so much work and even if there was a lack of work, that I don’t like the cutthroat element to what our industry can have. To me, I would rather build the relationships and make it a pleasant experience, and in general, I think that’s why I’ve been able to keep up my career after having left LA is because based on the strengths of the bonds that I’ve created, I think people enjoy working with me. I think that people can count on me and depend on me. I mentor people and I help people find work so that I am present in their minds when opportunities come up like, “Oh yeah, Bettina is still around.”

So I think in general, if maybe I were more cutthroat, maybe I would be further along in my career, but I am comfortable. Maybe not having gone as far, but I’m comfortable with who I am and the relationships I’ve built and the experiences I’ve had rather than just having that, “I want to be the best.” I mean, I would love to be the best. I love to win an Oscar and Emmy or whatever, but I would rather be able to just overall, have a pleasant and happy experience than somehow falsely portray myself as the fastest assistant editor, I think that’s just silly.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I’m with you 100%. That’s great. Good advice too for people that are up and coming in industry. I feel like it’s those connections we make and the relationships we have. It’s all … I find it’s mostly word of mouth in this industry. Even from what I’ve heard in LA it’s a lot of word of mouth.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Well, and the hilarious thing about that particular assistant editor is it is such a small industry, that particular show … so I went from producer on that show to assistant editor because there was a family emergency. So I had to leave in the middle of the show and I had to leave LA for four months, and when I came back, they needed affiliate assistant editor just to wrap the show.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So I came back as an assistant editor and this guy was still on. I ended up recutting the season finale, which ended up being the series finale. It was like this big deal, the studio ponied up $30,000 to reopen the show and this and that, and it was like this possibility that maybe would be … there’s a better chance of it getting picked up for season three and it didn’t happen. That recut earned me, had there been a season three, an editor’s chair on that show. And later on I got onto another show and again, when people look at your resume, they kind of know who you’ve worked with. I had heard that he had told everybody that had it gone to season three, he was going to be an editor on that season. It was like absolutely not true.

Sarah Taylor:

No.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s just one of those things where there is also a pragmatic way of looking at this, and that your reputation will follow you.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s too small. It’s way too small of an industry. So, when I came back to that particular show, he was the only original assistant editor left, and he was basically cashing a paycheck, and the other two assistant editors who were fill-ins were struggling the entire time because he was not helping them. There’s value in being on a show long-term because you know all of the skeletons in the closet and everything and he had another job, so he had the deal that he struck with the producer, was that he would come in the evenings and help out with this other thing, but he just did not make himself available to anyone. It was very clear he was cashing a paycheck and buying dinner and walking out the door.

And I saw this because I had been there at the beginning, and I’m seeing this at the end, and it just made me crazy, because it’s like, “Oh my God, you could be helping these women and you’re not, and you’re just cashing a paycheck, because the producers were all out doing the onlines and mixes.” Nobody is seeing what is going on. I was very vocal. I’m like, “This guy is just passing and cashing a paycheck. You’re not getting your value. He’s not helping.” So he lost his standing with that team, and it was also, the team that was talking to me about all the things he was bragging about. He wasn’t very positive in their eyes either. So now you have two sets of people that are not particularly impressed with you.

It’s just a thing where that stuff follows you around, incrementally, and then there’s a watershed moment where nobody wants to work with you anymore.

Sarah Taylor:

100%. Yeah, I’ve seen that happen a lot.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I don’t know, we make television. We make entertainment. It shouldn’t be-

Sarah Taylor:

It should be fun, right? It shouldn’t be secrets that we can’t … like there’s a bajillion YouTube videos out there now. Now, you can really research stuff. So let’s share, let’s not keep everything too closed.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Well, and also, we’re competing with everything for people’s attention. It’s getting harder and harder to get people to pay attention to TV because there’s so many other things that are out there. So I don’t know, it’s going to be harder and harder to be on shows that go long term and things like that. So it should be a pleasant experience because we’re always going to have to bounce around from project to project. It’s going to be rare to find a modern family that goes for 11 seasons.

Sarah Taylor:

Nothing is a guarantee.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

No. So it should be nice. Not like, “Ugh, here’s my new next crappy team to work with.”

Sarah Taylor:

I like it. I like your attitude. So your Google Drive is a must have, I feel like in your edit suite.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

What are other things that you need to have in your edit suite?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I have a very specific planner that I have that I get from Staples every year. I’m going to show you, I know it’s an audio podcast, but like you can see it has like a year.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

And what I like about it is that it has two things, it has a page dedicated to every day. So I can write down every single thing, but it also has the month view.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

The reason this helps me is that I have a to-do list for every specific day because I have in my head, two bosses, I have the head of post-production who’s going to ask me to be doing things and I have my editor who’s going to be asking me to do things. It’s useful for me when somebody’s like, “Hey, when did you do that turnover? I don’t know. It’s dawned and saw it in my head.” If I look at my planner, I can tell you what date it is.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

And then the month view, when I get my schedule from the head of post, when is the online? When is the music? whatever it is, if I fill it in, then I can sort of backtrack and figure out what I need to do when. So for me, I have the wide angle lens of the project as a whole on what needs to happen, usually for the head of post and then, my day to day, what needs to happen. That’s usually for the editor. Then, I have all kinds of writing things. My black pen is for writing the to-do list, but I have three different highlighters. Orange is for all the stuff that still needs to be done from previous days that I haven’t gotten done. Blue is for stupid little techie things that I learned on this show. For example, the notes that I took to create that drop frame, that’s in blue so that I can go back later and write up the thing.

Yellow is all the … my to-do list will also encompass, “Oh shoot, I got to make the dental appointments for the kids.” So when I go through the planner, it’s like when I have time to do the home stuff, all I have to do is check the yellows. Yeah, so it’s a way of balancing, because I don’t want to have to do 47 to-do lists. It’s all in one place but it’s also a record of things. So there’s accountability.

Sarah Taylor:

Very cool. I just bought a very similar notebook yesterday.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Cool.

Sarah Taylor:

For 2023. So a bit smaller, but yes. I love the month view and then, yeah, I have a DV so that’s … yeah, the color coding, I think that’s really clever. Now, what has been something that you found challenging in your career that you’ve overcome, and how did that go?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I think the two things were basically, I felt very overwhelmed at the prospect of being an assistant editor because I felt like there was just this magnitude of things I didn’t know, like the tech stuff … I think now kids are more tech-savvy. They’re on their apps and they’re editing for TikTok and things like that. The first time I took an editing class, it was like, “You can separate video from audio?” That was having to retrain my brain. Even though I was studying editing and I had done the online workflows and everything in school, I did not feel like I was prepared to take on an actual job, and it was very true. It wasn’t until I got that job with the assistant editor where we started at the same time because of the block shooting, that I got the education that I needed.

So what I could have done differently is that I could have put myself out there, stayed after hours, asked for help, asked to shadow, and it’s not that those opportunities weren’t available to me. I just had a lot of inhibitions. I was so inhibited just that … well, like what you said when you were younger, you didn’t want to ask anybody when you didn’t know how to do something. That was me to a tee. It was like to the point where it was just … when I think it took me seven years to become an assistant editor, it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” It’s one of the reasons I do so much mentoring now is to demystify the process.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes. Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So a friend of mine who I think felt very similarly, I had her shadow me on a show. The very first thing I did is I’m going to show you this visual effect that the editor asked me to do, and I had no idea how to do it. Here is all the things that I did to try to get to that visual effect. So I had already gone through the process, but I knew she was coming in. So I saved that example because even the idea of, “Oh my gosh, what if an editor wants me to score a scene? Oh, there’s so much music in the world and I don’t know all these scores, and how would I do it?” I tend to overthink things and it was so overwhelming.

On one of my shows when it came to music, the editor was like, “Well, I look at the titles of the pieces,” which was like … it was a great piece where he was like … we were on this show where the composer for Vikings gave us … was our composer. He gave us the whole library for the cues for Vikings. So, he was like, “The rape of Golgotha isn’t going to work for this marriage scene.” That’s true. Then, he showed me how to sort the bin by duration. He goes, “If the scene is 45 seconds, the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to look at all the 45-second cues and just see if … do any of those have the correct feeling?” It was getting over my own inhibitions to go, this may seem overwhelming.

If you open yourself up and ask the questions, somebody has already invented the wheel. You just have to figure out who has done it. Can they teach you? Are they willing to teach you and just be able to put yourself out there. So that was a big, just self-imposed stupid insecurity that I had done, like I had done to myself. Then, the other thing was, when I moved to Chicago, it was just a very logistical thing, how do I keep working? I’m not particularly interested in doing independent films. I’m not particularly interested in doing commercials. How do I actually stay relevant? How do I connect with the people out here who are making television?

So I really worked my contacts. I really tried to bring values to the shows that I got on and just be that person that somebody wants to work with again and not be shy about asking for … in the show that I worked on here, I ended up becoming an editor, but I asked for that.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I think that’s huge.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Nobody discovered me, but I saw that there was an opening and I asked for it, which Bettina from 10 years ago would’ve been like, “I hope they remember that I work here,” and now, I’ve gotten the job because it’s not that people are not interested in helping, it’s that once again, there’s so much that are demanding people’s attention that there is value in raising your hand.

Sarah Taylor:

100%.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

And that can feel … if you’re a person that’s not used to doing that. That can feel out of your comfort zone, or maybe you’re being too pushy or too ambitious. Ambitious for women seems to be like a negative thing. So those are things that I’ve had to make myself comfortable with and go, “This is not a bad thing to ask.” And the worst thing that can happen is that they say no, and if they say no, they say no.

Sarah Taylor:

At least they know that you are wanting it, right.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s the biggest thing. We don’t put ourselves out there. The opportunities could disappear, and I think that’s a really good piece of advice. What has been one highlight from your career so far?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s been cutting on my show. It’s a show called Work in Progress, it went for two seasons. Lilly Wachowski of Matrix fame was one of the exec producers, and I would never have imagined that my first editing job would be for her like that-

Sarah Taylor:

Amazing.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, and I just learned so much, and it was an opportunity for me to work on a show I really believe in. There’s a really strong, powerful and healthy message about mental health and getting therapy, and these are all things I believe in. So I think it’s this amazing thing that not only did I get to be an editor, after moving to Chicago, which I never expected. I got to work for Lilly, which I saw The Matrix in high school. Again, I never would’ve expected.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I got to work on a good show. So many things that I’ve done is like, it’s fine, but it’s not something that I feel strongly about with my heart and soul and the things I was able to be very proud of the show. So just those, for one show to check all those boxes. Do I want other amazing experiences? Do I want the statues? Yes, but just to have those things, I feel very fortunate and very like, “Oh my gosh, what an amazing outcome for a decision I made that I wasn’t sure about, to move back to Chicago.” It also taught me that there are possibilities out there. When I was telling people in LA that I was going to move to Chicago and try to work for the Wachowskis, it was very much a, “That’s nice.” and I understand that better, that reaction better now.

I also have given myself some more credit. I see possibility where other people don’t, and that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. That means there is patterns and things that maybe other people dismiss where I go, “No, there might be an opportunity there and there’s no reason not to try.” Even I didn’t think about, “Oh, maybe I’ll cut for them.” It taught me there are more possibilities than most people imagine and there are more possibilities than maybe you even imagine, and to just keep yourself open to those things, and like you said, raise your hand, put yourself out there, because why not? You never know, the first person who actually ended up helping me become an assistant editor, I had this list of all the people who could help me.

He wasn’t even on my list. It just happened that he was the one. So you just never know where opportunities may come from. Just be open to it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. That’s amazing. I had one short film that made it into Sundance, and I was like, it didn’t even ever cross my mind, that that would be an option.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, there’s moments where you’re like, really, possibilities are endless. We could really be doing all sorts of fun, awesome stuff. I think you saying being proud of the work you’re doing, that’s huge for me too. I might be working on smaller documentaries, but the messages and the stories that we’re telling, if I feel like I’m impacting somebody’s life and it’s impacting my life and making me a better human, then I’m winning triple, right?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Doing the job I love, meeting great people and sharing stories that are so important.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Totally.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. I think we’re really lucky in our world.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah. That 2% that likes their job.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Yes. You’ve talked in the past about being a parent in post-production and it’s something that we don’t always talk about or it’s only asked of the women, “Oh, what’s it like being … how do you balance?” I do want to have a conversation about what is it like … how has your life changed as a parent in post versus what it was like before? What’s different for you?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It was a huge journey, and in grad school specifically … they had this thing where you could meet with an editor over a lunch, like a group of us could meet and you could talk about her, and this female editor, and during lunch, I raised my hand and I was like, “I’d love to know your perspective on being a parent.” She laughed and was like, “Huh, good luck and then, turned.” It was the most infuriating experience to this day of my life, because this is a thing I love to talk about. I 100% believe if you want … you can make it work to be both in post and be a parent, but there are so many things I would’ve done differently, had I understood how difficult it would be. Post-production is very demanding in terms of … especially if it’s a harder project, you could be there for hours.

So one of the things that I wish I had done differently is one, I wish it didn’t take me seven years but two, I wish I had built wealth, not because I want the fancy cars or anything like that, but it would have set me up to be in a better school district. To be able to hire help. To be able to hire services, like laundry services, because the first few years when my kids were young, I was doing it all and it was insane. It’s not because I didn’t have the money. I mean, I didn’t have as much as I wanted, but it was this mentality of I didn’t grow up with nannies or babysitters. I didn’t grow up with cleaning services and things. So these are very real things that can help and contribute to not only your home life, but your mental health as well.

Because if you want to be a creative and a parent, then ideally there are some things that you can farm out. In this moment in time, since I’m working from home, I have to do less of that because not having a commute, I could be doing an export and I can start a load of laundry. That is very doable and plus, with the pandemic, there was some hesitation of bringing other people into the home. So it is a huge balancing act and the things … if there’s anything you can do to set yourself up so that you can compartmentalize the things you don’t have to take care of, so that you can be more present for your kids so that you can give yourself time and space to recharge, so you can be the creative.

One of my favorite shows, I would be thinking about during my long commutes back and forth, because I would think about story points and how is this better? How can we better talk about this second? And that’s because I had that one hour commute. Whereas, I don’t think about story like that right now in my work from home job, because every moment that I’m not working on the show, I could be doing a chore.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

For me, becoming a parent has been about all of this time I had outside of the show now goes towards … because the women usually do all the mental load work as well. Doctor’s appointments and Tracy’s birthday is coming. I got to go pick up her gift. So okay, if you are responsible for the mental load, if you are responsible for the kids, if you’re responsible for the cleaning and the cooking, how does that get restructured in your home? What things are going to help you get that? So if I could talk to Bettina from 2008 who had just graduated, I would’ve been like, “You want to be a parent? So now you have to think smartly because you’re not going to be one for years. So now is the time where you can put into making all that money to set aside to buy that house in that code school district to hire the help.”

And that was just … if that editor had talked to me like that, that would’ve been very helpful, because I’m learning that by stumbling into it, and it was like after the fact. It’s just something I … this is why I do so much mentoring. I would love to talk to young women about that because I don’t … it’s not that I think you can have it all. That I think is a harder mentality. I think there should be grace in what you dream of what you want, but if you don’t achieve that, or if you feel like you have to change your goals, it’s not that you’re any kind of failure or anything, but I also think if we can mentor each other and talk to each other and sort of teach each other our lessons, we’re just setting up the next generation and the next group a little bit better.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

If on some level the message, is you got to do it all. On some level, that’s kind of baked in and so, how do we empower instead of, I don’t know, setting ourselves up for … trying to be super women beyond what’s reasonable.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, exhaustion. You know what, it’s okay to have a career and be passionate about your career and also love your kids and be a passionate about your family.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s okay to have both of those things. Sometimes work is going to get busy and your kid is going to spend time with the babysitter, or your kid is going to spend time with grandma, and it’s great for them to have relationships with other humans too.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

100%

Sarah Taylor:

It’s great for a kid to see their parents doing work they love, because we’re the only 2% percent.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yes. No, it’s absolutely true.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s huge.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah, it is just … I have friends who have a hard time giving their kids to other caretakers and things, and I get that. I felt that.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

You’re saying them building other relationships, it’s absolutely true, my kids love their babysitters. My kids love their grandma, my mom. So, it’s also letting yourself build a village in a society that doesn’t really inherently have villages. So again, there is some baked in resistance that we can break down and go, “No, these are the positives of you having this passionate thing.” Also, just being happy. I’m a better mom if I’m happy. I would say the worst time was when I couldn’t figure out how to make everything work from Chicago, and I didn’t have that creative outlet, and I was not a great mom. I was just miserable, and just having the work has made me a much better mom because I’m more fulfilled, right?

Sarah Taylor:

100%.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

So I can be a much better mom if I’m happy.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s another thing … or this could be a whole other conversation, but how we as humans often and maybe as moms or maybe even just parents, we identify as I’m the mom or I’m the editor, or I’m the whatever, instead of just being a whole human who has a job that you love who has a kid, and you can be all those things, but you’re not identified as the thing. I think that’s where it can be hard, where you’re like, “But I’m the mom and I need to do X, Y, Z,” and whatever.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

I’m laughing because when I got married at my wedding, people were like, “Oh, you look so beautiful.” And I was like, I’m so much more than a pretty face. I work at a TV show. I just got my master’s,” like it was this, like …

Sarah Taylor:

We do need to say out loud. No, I do this cool job, and I also am educated, and I am-

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Because we are all those things. We’re not just the one thing or just the job or just the mom. Anyway, you have to go to work.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yes, I’m about to, I’m getting dinged on Slack.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes. Okay. So one last question. What can we watch or what’s coming up next for you that we can all tune into and just celebrate you and your awesomeness?

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Currently, I’m on a show called Class of ‘09. It’s supposed to come out sometime next year on FX. It’s on Hulu for FX.

Sarah Taylor:

Okay.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It stars, Kate Mara, and it’s an FBI thriller. So that’s currently one of the project that I’m on.

Sarah Taylor:

Very fun. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I loved everything you said. You had so much great advice in there. So for all those young assistants out there, this is a repeat, I think, episode to listen to and I feel like Bettina, I think you have a second career of being maybe an educator of some sort because, well, you have an education background, but you need to share that Google Drive.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

You can make some money off of it.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

It’s hysterical.

Sarah Taylor:

Anyway, thank you so much. Enjoy your workday and we will hopefully talk soon.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Take care.

Bettina Zachariah Treviranus:

Bye.

Sarah Taylor:

Thank you so much for joining us today, and a big thanks goes to Bettina for taking the time to sit with me. Special thanks goes to Alison Dowler and Kim McTaggart CCE. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR Recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music created by Chad Blain and Sound Strip. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE is proud to support HireBIPOC. HireBIPOC is the definitive and ubiquitous industry-wide roster of Canadian BIPOC creatives and crew working in screen-based industries. Check out hirebipoc.ca to hire your next group or create a profile and get hired.

Speaker 5:

The CCE is a nonprofit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 076 – EditCon 2022: Cutting for the Big Screen

TEC 076: EditCon 2022: Cutting for the Big Screen
TEC 076: EditCon 2022: Cutting for the Big Screen

Episode 076 - EditCon 2022: Cutting for the Big Screen

Today?s episode is part 4 of our 4-part series covering EditCon 2022 Brave New World.

Like it or not, the landscape of cinema is changing quickly. With more films at our fingertips than ever before, it?s becoming harder and harder to draw audiences to the theatres. But people still flock to the tentpole films that we all know and love.

Join us behind the scenes as we chat with the editors of: SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS, ETERNALS and GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE as they take a deep dive into their workflows, share their tips on managing large teams and visual effects, and get into the nitty gritty of cutting for the big screen.

This episode is sponsored by IATSE 891.

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The Editor?s Cut – Episode 076 – “EditCon 2022: Cutting for the Big Screen”

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by IATSE Local 891.

Nathan Orloff:

Scripts are like a car manual for a movie. Great if they captivate you. That’s wonderful. That means they’re very successful. But you’re not looking into a human’s eyes. You’re not learning something about them silently.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

And for me, it’s a different language. A script is one language, but you have to take all of this and translate it into a movie. It’s where a monologue can become a look.

Nathan Orloff:

Totally. And that monologue might have informed the actor to do the performance that you needed in order to get rid of the monologue.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Exactly. So it’s not the script that’s bad, it’s just you have to translate it into a movie.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, I like that.

Nathan Orloff:

This might be why I’m a little bitter that there’s so little behind the scenes on editing. It’s a hard thing to tell people, “No, the script wasn’t bad. The assembly cut wasn’t… It’s not like these are problems. It’s that this is the process.”

Sarah Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where Indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honor, respect and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions and the concerns that impact Indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today’s episode is part four of our four-part series covering EditCon 2022: Brave New World. Today’s panel is cutting for the big screen. Like it or not, the landscape of cinema is changing quickly. With more films at our fingertips than ever before, it’s becoming harder and harder to draw audiences to the theaters, but people still flock to the tent-pole films that we all know and love. Join us behind the scenes as we chat with the editors of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife as they take a deep dive into their workflows, share their tips on managing large teams and visual effects, and get into the nitty-gritty of cutting for the big screen.

Speaker 4:

And action! Action. This is the Editor’s Cut. A CCE podcast. Exploring, exploring, exploring the art of picture editing.

Sarah Taylor:

Today we’re talking to the editors from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I want to give a big welcome to all of the editors here today. We’ll start with the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE; Harry Yoon, ACE; and Nat Sanders, ACE. Welcome. Also a big shout-out and welcome to Dylan Tichenor, ACE, from Eternals. And Nathan Orloff from Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Welcome to Editcon.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Hello. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

My first question is, how did you become involved with the film and at what stage did you join? Dylan, take it away.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

All right. I came on well before shooting. I was called by Marvel and said, “Hey, we want to talk to you about this movie, and would you talk to our director, Chloé Zhao?” I had a great talk with Chloé and she gave me a great pitch for the idea and I was super excited to do it.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

I came on a little bit after. Well, a lot after Elísabet and Nat came on. They started with the movie and Elísabet’s schedule, because they had had to push due to COVID, it came up against another film that she was going to be starting, which was very fortunate for me because it gave me the opportunity to come on as she was leaving. I was so happy that there was a little bit of overlap so I could get a chance to work with both ER and Nat.

But it was just after their director’s cut and they had done a pretty significant restructuring, and so it was actually good for the show, I think, to also have some fresh eyes to say, “After this restructuring what’s making sense, what’s not making sense, how can we enhance it?” And so I was able to help take them to the finish line, but also to provide those fresh eyes, which was really, really fun.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I came on, I got a call from Victoria who asked me to come and meet with Destin Daniel, the director, and we clicked. I also met with Nat and I just knew it would be a great team to work with. So yeah, that’s how I came on, and Nat, take it away.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

This was my fourth time working with Destin, the director. When we were finishing the edit on our previous film, this came up. He was working with me until 7:00, 8:00 PM on our edit, and then he was staying until midnight, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM working on his pitch for Shang-Chi. He did his pitch for it and didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks. He thought it hadn’t worked out and we kept editing. And then he got the call and it happened. I was very thankful that he asked me to come be a part of it. He was telling me all these crazy things that they were working up for the script. That was probably in April 2019. And then I probably didn’t actually read the script until about a week before shooting started.

Sarah Taylor:

But you were there at the beginning when the thoughts were just bubbling. That’s great.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. That’s awesome. And Nathan?

Nathan Orloff:

Ghostbusters was my third film with Jason. On Front Runner, I had no idea that he was actually secretly working on this script. I did a independent film and then I got a call from Jason saying, “Hey, can you come to the Sony lot?” I was like, “Sure.” I went. They said which building it was, but I didn’t realize it was the Ghostbusters building on the Sony lot. I was like, “That’s weird.” And then he sat me down and he’s like, “Hey, I want you to read something.” I sat down and read something and within the second page I’m like, “Oh boy, this is insane. What are you talking about?” And that was his official ask. It was very exciting. I came on six months before production started, ended up doing a lot of storyboard work. It was really cool to be in that early to figure out these sequences with Jason and the storyboard artist.

Sarah Taylor:

I love that it almost was a little mini-proposal, take you to this special location and show you. That’s great.

Nathan Orloff:

It was because my mentor, Stefan Grube, who is a phenomenal editor I adore, he was the one who introduced me to Jason and worked with me on Tully and Front Runner. He was on the speakerphone when I walked in and sat down. Because it was a giant practical joke for the two of them.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s great. I love it. I think we should be hired like that everywhere we go. Since all of these films were part of beloved franchises, how did you prepare working on the film? For the Marvel films, did you rewatch the films? What was your process of preparing?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Yeah, I was a Marvel fan, so I had seen all the movies. I did rewatch them all, to be fair. And I watched them in MCU chronology order, which I thought would be a good thing to do, especially for the film I was doing, Eternals, we have some stuff from the earliest bits of the MCU history. Technically, our movie nestles in around after the middle Spider-Man Far From Home. I think we come after that technically, but then stuff that happens before Captain America. I watched that. I did read the Jack Kirby Eternals comics, read a bunch of those. It’s funny to see the difference between the tones. The Kirby comics, they’re ’70s, but with a lot of fifties holdover vibe in it. It’s like Eternal cocktail hour in those comics sometimes. I was a big fan of Marvel from before and more and more as they went.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s a big chunk of time that you got to spend.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It is. It was a good two weeks. It was good.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah. Thank God we had Disney Plus at the time, because it just made the homework so much easier. It’s so funny, Dylan. I did exactly the same thing because I had seen them all, but then rewatching them in chronological order was really fun actually.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It is fun.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah. Because it was hard to know with all the little crossover appearances, not having read the script or anything, what was going to happen. Trying to be prepared to see where the character tracks were. When Shang-Chi is placed in the timeline, that felt important. Also just trying to get a sense of what are the rhythms? How are they solving certain kinds of problems, particularly ones dealing with exposition, for example? That was really fun to revisit.

Also reading the original comic books for Shang-Chi was not ultimately that helpful. It was so funny because I remember reading them before my interview with Destin and thinking, how is this going to work? Because it just felt so updated in some ways because of the Fumanchu character and things like that from the original. I think it was my being politely incredulous in a way that opened the door to say, no, no, no, no. There’s this whole reimagining that Destin has done and one that is ultimately trying to update the story so it actually lives well within a time in which there is more of a sensitivity and also a respect for Asian, Asian American culture that’s happening. It was wonderful from the interview on just get a sense of what Destin’s vision was and how excited Marvel was to embrace that vision.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. That’s wonderful. Now, since you came on after director’s cut, did you watch previous edits that they had worked on? Or did you just watch the director’s cut?

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Ultimately, yes. From, I think, the first editor’s cut that ER and Nat had done, as well as the latest director’s cut that they were leaving Australia with and coming to LA with. That gave me insight into what is some of the material that they started with and how they restructured it. And gave me an insight into the incredible work that the two of them had done with Destin already. I had the most nerve-wracking session of writing notes and suggestions ever, because here’s filmmakers that I respected so much, and also knowing that ultimately the Marvel trio was going to read these things. I was just like, okay, how do I write it in a way where I don’t get fired on the first day, either from a respect standpoint or from a stupid idea standpoint? But thankfully, it landed okay and I didn’t get fired. That was my first task, which was very nerve wracking.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh my goodness. I can’t imagine. Elísabet, how did you prepare?

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I have four children with 20 years apart so I’ve seen every single Marvel movie. But no, I think it was very obvious from the beginning. I mean, it is an origin story. It’s the right from Marvel. They want you to experiment and do different things. They don’t want you to copy the next movie, which I think is great. They’re not copying movies. They want to evolve and try different things and they’re very good to do it.

But no, my prep was mainly meeting Nat. We sat down and talked. What people sometimes don’t understand, editing is 80% talking, just talking about the ideas. How can we do this? And then you take a day and get it all together. But it’s a lot of talking. That’s what I feel I enacted really. I think we worked really well in Australia, which was a weird period for us because we weren’t supposed to be so long. We spent a year in Australia, that was never the plan. It allowed us to dive into the movie in a different way than if COVID wouldn’t have happened. It gave us space, which we actually used very well. I think it’s benefited the movie.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, that’s the silver lining of all of this is that we got time away from some stuff. More time’s always better. Well, maybe not always, but it’s often better.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Sometimes.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

But we didn’t get away. We were lucky. We were very well taken care of and we felt very safe in Sydney. We worked every day.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

To what Harry and ER said, the comics really didn’t apply too much here. They were very outdated and full of stereotypes that the movie did not want to deal in. It is an origin story and a bit of a standalone film for them so a lot of the previous material didn’t really apply, which was great and gave us a lot of freedom. For me, I did have to dive into the Marvel world in a way that I hadn’t previously. I went in for a pretty early talk with Jonathan, our producer, Chris Russell Marvel. I don’t think Victoria was in that one. I remember getting asked about the Marvel movies. I had seen Black Panther, so I could talk about that one. I think we’ve done that pretty heavily. And then afterwards, okay, I’ve got to go watch all these.

Sarah Taylor:

You had to do your homework. Oh, this is a little pressure. Nathan, how about you?

Nathan Orloff:

Yeah, no, I watched all the three other Ghostbusters movies and took notes on structure and timing, but mainly watched the first one, I think, twice. Jason intentionally wanted this to be a love letter to the first movie and to figure out what was the magic of that and what worked and why? It was interesting because, just like ER said, that COVID was this weird… In a silver lining, like you said, having more time was a huge, huge, huge benefit in terms of us sitting back, looking at the movie, thinking about it and really experimenting, trying some things. And sitting back with fresh eyes because we had a full month off when we went into lockdown. Didn’t have any media at home, had nothing, and then go back in. It felt like you were watching a movie, like you’re saying to reference, it’s all of a sudden you have this little bit of separation. Now you can look at it in a completely different way.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s almost like when you’re in a cut and you take it and watch it on your TV or whatever, but you couldn’t even go in and do anything because you had no media. It’s just a whole other level. Right?

Nathan Orloff:

Yep.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. That’s awesome.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It forced objectivity.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes. Yeah.

Nathan Orloff:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

What was it like being on location while cutting?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Yeah. Went to London for the shoot. I love London. I was happy to be there. We were shooting and based in Pinewood. Great for me. I had just a great team, cut this with Craig Wood. We had a fabulous team. We were ensconced in the Carrie Fisher building, which is a nice building. You get old parts of Pinewood, new parts of Pinewood. And then for me, a great 40 minute commute every day that I rode a bike and a motorcycle. I don’t know. I had a great time.

Sarah Taylor:

Going to another country and being on set, is it a way where you can just… Everything else disappears and you can just be in that world of working on that film?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

That is what happens. It’s like a traveling troupe of players, of actors, of performers. And then some of us behind the scenes. In this case it’s 500 people. It’s a great time. It’s like being with the circus.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s awesome. Well, Harry, I know that you were in LA so you missed the Australia trip.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

I did.

Sarah Taylor:

You didn’t get trapped.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah. Yeah. ER and Nat have some good stories to tell about Australia. Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, let’s dive in. Tell us about being on location.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Can I tell them, Nat?

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Sure.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Oh my God, yes.

Sarah Taylor:

Tell us. Tell us.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

You had a child.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Oh yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

It was not in the charts when we arrived in Australia, but he took one with him, and his wife.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah, my wife and I, we think, oh, this would be such a great four month life experience to go to Sydney. And we got there, not trying to get pregnant yet, and then we ended up coming home with a two month old baby.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh my goodness. That’s amazing.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

And what did you name her?

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Georgie. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Georgie.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s amazing.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Thank you. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Georgie has a special place in our hearts.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

We did have a very unique bond from all of us going through all this together. We had shot about a third of the film before COVID happened so we had enough to where… We did a little bit of lobbying ourselves because we wanted to say all of production was being sent back to where LA or wherever their homes were. But we felt like we had enough to keep working. It would be a waste to not use this time to be able to really refine what we had and see if that would lead to other things. Our third act was probably the least developed aspect of the script so they were using that time to also really go forward with the previs for that. ER and I also were very involved in trying to cut that down as much as we could and helping work with them.

It just kept extending. But it was in small chunks where it was a little stressful where we got extended by I think maybe six weeks at first, but there was still more to do. And just another month and another month. We kept getting some messages where there’s only one plane leaving and it’s in three days and there’s four seats left on it and you’ve got to be packed and ready to potentially get on that plane. That happened a couple times and that was stressful.

Sarah Taylor:

And the added stress of having a baby on the way, I can’t even imagine. Oh my goodness.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

That got more complicated as we went along because yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Can’t travel. Yeah.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah.We didn’t know until about the 33rd week of pregnancy of whether we were going to give birth in the US or Australia.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, what a great story for little Georgie. That’s awesome.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it. Nathan, you were up in Alberta. Tell us about your experience.

Nathan Orloff:

Yeah. I wasn’t there the whole time. The way that we initially split everything up, Dana, my co editor and I, and this is based on my previous experience on other films, was that I was tackling more of the effects, horror and any action sequences. And Dana was doing some more of the comedy and drama stuff that she had also traditionally worked with on Jason’s previous films, like Chino and Up in the Air. When it came to shooting all the stage stuff… Because the way they scheduled it is when the winter came and started snowing they went inside to the stages in Calgary. That’s when I flew up and I basically set up shop because they built two farmhouses, one on location and one on sound stage and they were identical. I set up shop in one of the rooms upstairs in the farmhouse. I just would go up to it. I’ll be like, grab my coffee, say hello to people, walk upstairs and it was a really great experience. I loved being in Calgary.

Sarah Taylor:

Do you have any good stories of being on set?

Nathan Orloff:

One time they did turn off all the lights. Well, I got distracted and didn’t know that everyone was going home and all of a sudden I’m in this house and it’s pitch black. I’m like, well, I got to figure out how to get out of here. As an editor, I’m always incredibly grateful and a little bit probably awestruck in terms of the camaraderie of production when they’re all a little grumpy and whatever and I’m like, “This is great. We can be a team.” And they’re like, “Okay. Whatever, guy. Go on your computer.” I really, really enjoy it. It’s one of my favorite things. Assembling on location and being on the mix stage are my two favorite times in post.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, yeah. There is something special about being on set. I’ve only gotten to do it once in my career . yeah, I was like that. I was like, oh my gosh, there’s sandwiches. Go to the craft services. It was the best thing ever.

Nathan Orloff:

And there’s a little bit of less pressure to me because I just got back from location a month ago on my new film. To me when you’re assembling you’re like, this is my first step. Let’s just make sure we have everything. Make sure I’m not throwing up any red flags. There’s not the pressure of is it perfect yet? It’s just my initial take and I have to include every single line. It’s not as to me as high pressure as everyone on set that they’re having to do their absolute best because this is their one shot to do it. It’s the complete opposite on our end.

Sarah Taylor:

So who was in your editorial team, like assistants and of course editors? How did you divide up the work?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Yeah, I cut this with Craig Wood. He has done a few Marvel movies. We divided it pretty half and halfie where we got the same amount of action and dialogue. We wanted to do it that way. We both feel comfortable with it. We sorted it out ahead of time. I’m interested in this. Oh, I’m interested in that. And then divided it up as we’re shooting in such a way that we stuck to our original plan, but made sure that no one was without footage and no one had too much footage. That worked quite well. And then he and I would just bounce ideas back and forth about the other person’s sequence or whatever. But that’s how we did that. We each had our first, so two firsts, three seconds and two VFX editors and two PAs, that was basically our production crew. And then in post a crew a little bit more.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I brought my very loyal, amazing first, Matt. I’m trying to remember his last name.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Apsure.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Apsure. Thank you. Sorry, Matt. I’d rather not make a movie without him. He’s amazing. And then we had a very big Australian crew, an amazing visual effect editor. The visual effects were a huge apartment and we had to work very closely with the visual effects. Because I’ve done big visual effects movies before, but one of the things with Marvel is you better keep it right on your timeline because you can turn around and suddenly they’ve just made the shot. You’re like, oh.

Sarah Taylor:

Whoopsy.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

You have to be very much on it, that timing, and not something you’re going to think about later. Just do it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Do it right on your timeline. That was the biggest lesson, because they were fast. We were talking animated creatures and all kinds of stuff.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Even though it was a previous or a stunt fish that came in, but you just had to make it right.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah. I would say for me, the biggest lesson was in delegating sound work to our assistance team. For me, I haven’t worked on something of this scale where the sound work was just on this massive of a scope. I love working with sound and had always done it myself in the past in temping, but it became clear very early that that was just not going to be a remote possibility on this. We found ER’s assistant, Matt, did a ton. Luca, my assistant in Australia, did a ton. They did an amazing job. I have to say that their work carried through the entire process. The mix was fast on this. I would say a lot of what Matt and Luca did really was the template for what ended up in the final film sound wise.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

When the team left Australia, we left behind a couple of their amazing Australian assistants. And then we added two firsts. My first, Irene Chun, and then Leslie Webb took over as Nat’s assistant. And then we added two seconds, another VFX editor. At a certain point when our crew was largest, it was probably 11 people. And then that on top of that, there’s this whole army of VFX coordinators. It’s so funny because they are such the continuity between Marvel projects. They have all the best swag, they have great jackets and shirts and stuff like that. They’re on all the Zoom meetings. One of the things that we had to get used to, or I had to get used to, because I hadn’t worked on visual effects movies as an editor, at this scale was how long those reviews were.But it was so funny watching the VFX coordinators that they were so unruffled no matter how crazy the changes we were suggesting were that it was almost like, okay, well if they’re not freaking out then we don’t have to freak out necessarily because they’ve been here five or six times before.

But yeah, the crews are huge. What’s nice is that Marvel takes care of… Especially on their larger teams, they take such good care of their people that you have that continuity. You can sometimes get the inside track to say, how does this compare? Or how does this moment in our post process compare to what you guys have gone through before? If you’re new to that family, then I think you can get some good level setting and some good advice as far as how much should we worry about this at this point and things like that. That was fun.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

And we worked really closely with the visual effects, which was a grateful thing. All the design of the visual effects, Chris Townsend, was the mastermind behind visual effects. There was a really close-knitted cooperation, getting the visual effects right and the edit and the story and the characters. A lot of meetings. This is one of the things that has changed during the pandemic, because you used to have maybe one a week where you would meet with visual effects and stuff. Now it’s every day because everyone can just hop on whatever software you’re using. Was it Evercast we used?

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Clearview, I think, right?

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Clearview, yeah. Yeah. It’s becoming a lot of meetings.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

But rather than doing those VFX reviews in the theater next to our edit suites the way I guess it normally would’ve been done, we were doing them all over Clearview. To Harry’s point, towards the end of the process when it was Harry and I, we were already staying until 11:00 PM every night, at least as it was. During those VFX reviews, which were happening every day towards the end at least three hours, you just had to work on your own things. If they were in Harry’s scenes that he was working on, I had to be just putting the VFX review off to the side and just loosely keeping an eye on it, but working on your own things. So I can’t even imagine if we’d gone to the theater every day and you didn’t have that luxury of being able to work on the side. You’d be there until 1:00 AM every single… yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

So another silver lining. Nathan, I know that you worked with Dana Gloverman, ACE.

Nathan Orloff:

Yes.

Sarah Taylor:

Tell us how it worked.

Nathan Orloff:

It’s similar to what Dylan mentioned. Once we got to shooting, neither of us were ever without something to cut, so there’s plenty of drama scenes that I worked on. We would talk about everything. We became very, very close very, very fast. I think of her as a sister now. We would show each other everything, talk about everything. There’s not one cut in this movie that we haven’t talked about together. I learned so much from her, especially on some of these things that you pick up over because she says a lot more experience than I am, especially on specific rhythms, on comedy beats and dramatic beats and dialogue. It’s two, three frames, and one frame here. Just all that stuff. Really just kept my eyes open and the ears open. I learned a lot from her. It was a really good process. I have to say, compared to what Harry described about Marvel in terms of they’re not phased about changes. I’m like, that sounds great. Can I get a number for some of those? It’s not always like that.

There was one time very late in the process on the monster which is the thing that is closest to the boards of any of our sequences, but it was very late in the process and I was just wracking my brain. What’s bothering me about the ending? Because we had that time away on COVID and we had the time to come back. I was like, well, we need a wide shot. We need a wide shot right at the end, really establish the stakes, establish the geography. Right before the climax we need to see the ghosts and the trap and the car and then Phoebe with the gun. We need to see it all in one thing. I was like, that’s expensive. I first talked to Dana. I was like, “What do you think?” And she’s like, “Oh, you’re right.” And then we talked to Jason. Jason’s like, “All right. Let me talk to the VFX team.” It a whole big thing and it’s in the movie. It worked out well.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s awesome. You’re like, oh, that’s expensive. I love it. Well, we talked a lot about visual effects already, and I want to ask, specifically, what did your dailies look like? Were you getting just the green screen stuff or were you getting some previs already put in that your assistants put in for you? What were you actually working with when you first started assembling the film?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Yeah, we had previs to start. I came early to cut previs and help with that, trying to concentrate on the bigger sequences where we needed to narrow it down and get the scope of it sorted out. I had been through the previs. When we start getting dailies, I think Chloe Chow, the director writer on this one, probably shot a little more locationing naturalistically than a typical Marvel movie. That said, every shot has effects in it so it’s just about how much green really is on the set because stuff’s going in the shot whether there’s green or not. I think we probably had less green screen from dailies because she just didn’t want to have that. It all gets wrote out anyway essentially. It’s becoming less and less of a thing.

We had viz early on and then stunt-viz when they started working on the sequences. Some of the more choreographed fights were stunted out. I would just slot stuff in as I would get it. So start with viz and then put the stunt-viz in. And then when we had a test shoot or the beginnings of second unit or whatever, start slotting plates in and you just build on the latest material you have. We have a lot of characters in this movie, so there were frankly a lot of people talking and doing stuff in the frame. We also had a lot of creatures, so there are lots of empty frames, or guys in gray suits. You just work with whatever you have and beat it out and start building.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

We did have a lot of previs. We also had how many visual? 1,750 I think visual effect shots.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah, I can’t remember now, but it’s way up in there, like 1,000.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

We had a lot of previs. We do have also imagination, so I think it worked out. But yeah, it can be weird, especially if you have to show it to someone else. I’ve been on movies where you had to test them before there are any visual effects done, but they didn’t want to have blue screens or green screens in anything we screened so it all had to be filled out.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

I think it was even the director’s, wasn’t it? The director’s cut for [inaudible 00:33:21]-

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Yeah, we had to fill it all out.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

No blue, so we had to do a whole pass. Either we would get the first early visual effects on shots, or our team would have to even gray things out just to remove all the blue. The first half of our film is very grounded in the real world and it’s not so much with blue screens and things. And then the back half, especially towards the end, it got more and more and that was the end of the shoot. We kind had built up to that. It just required a lot of communication with the VFX team of what’s happening here? We would work together on figuring out how to nail down the timing of it.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

One of the interesting things that I noticed was that you’re almost never out of dailies on this type of film, just because I think there’s so much experimentation that goes on through the post process. I think that’s one of the hallmarks that I noticed in the Marvel process, especially the trio that I mentioned, who’s Kevin Fiege, Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso, they are never afraid to try things. They’re never afraid to improve or enhance a particular character arc or the understanding of a key point of exposition. We were constantly returning to previs for certain sequences to simplify things, to clarify things. You’re recutting previs again into normal dailies.

One of the benefits of shooting a lot of the action against blue, for example, is that you might be able to steal a move to shorten things, to connect things. You’re experimenting going back to those things and maybe reusing them for a different purpose. There’s always this constant inflow of trying new stuff and going back to raw material. It was fascinating to keep up with that churn, the slowly receding waves of previs and blue screen and things like that. That made it really fun.

Sarah Taylor:

I watched the Disney Plus behind the scenes of Shang-Chi. Even watching some of that, I was like, I didn’t realize how much green screen and blue screen was there. It made this question more interesting because there’s so much more that you’re like, oh yeah, I guess that’s what they do. I guess that’s how it works.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

It’s a real testament to the quality of the visual effects. As ER said, Chris and his team, what they were able to put together to make it feel so grounded and so real. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Also I agree. Also, as Nat pointed out, the whole first part is really grounded. Backgrounds don’t really change the story necessarily. The first part was easier that way. And then you go into dragons and weird creatures and magical animals and you have nothing.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Our early action scenes, to her point, say the scaffolding scene that ER cut, all the action is there and it ends so it’s really just the backgrounds that are getting filled in. Yeah, like she said, that’s not really affecting your pacing or anything else.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

But then again, you still have to know certain things because it can absolutely affect the edit. Dialogue, more and more dialogue. Talk to the visual effect team. Talk to your director. Talk to everyone.

Sarah Taylor:

Like you said earlier, it’s all about talking.

Nathan Orloff:

Our dailies, it was pretty complicated sometimes in terms of here’s just an empty plate and there’s nothing there. Initially, I just took the ghost from the storyboard and I just took it in Photoshop and cut out the ghost. I was cutting with a Mario ghost where it was those… You do key framing in avid, here is a fly on this and you have to take it.

Sarah Taylor:

Spooky

Nathan Orloff:

… very seriously. And it was very funny. This actually transitions a little bit to a question I missed previously, is that very early on our brilliant VFX editor was able to use 3D models provided by VFX to at least get… He had a turntable so he could get the right angles. It was all of a sudden now in color, which was new. We had one VFX editor, eventually we had a VFX assistant. Dana and I shared a first, we had a second and then an apprentice. Everyone was just completely top-notch and wanted to make everything the best they could and stayed with us the entire process, and through COVID, too. We were a family. We really were.

Sarah Taylor:

You all touched on this a bit about having a blank plate and how long do I leave it on for? How do you determine pacing when you have these big visual elements that are missing? You have all these fight scenes and these beautiful scenery. How do you make sure that you develop your character still?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Some sequences start from nothing. It’s never been boarded. Maybe it’s a new idea. This happens certainly at Marvel quite a bit where you go, well, what if there’s a beat where this happens? Or what if we add to the head of this scene and these things happen? You do cards, medium shot, she comes out of the door, and then close up monster jumps, things like that so that you beat it out to show people this is the basic idea. Then previs can go in and do shots for you. And then that’s the next level of that.

I think it depends on what you’re starting with. If you have stunt people, stunt players in gray suits, you have those movements and choreography to work with. If you don’t, you’re often doing the acting yourself. As Elísabet noted earlier, when you have 3D from scratch creatures that it’s not a human mocap or a performance capture or anything like that, it’s from scratch a creature, you’re acting it out in your head when you’re designing the shot, you’re going, okay, rawr. And let’s cut. You do all of that.And then you build the sound effects in to support your idea of the pacing. And certainly the music can help you. But usually you’re tailoring the music to what you want the sequence to do, but that also helps the flow through. It’s sculpting. You use huge chunky lumps of clay in the beginning, like rah, rah, rah. And then it gets more and more refined. You’re just constantly upgrading the quality and detail and granularity of the performance and the idea. I think that. And then what was the second part of the question?

Sarah Taylor:

Well, developing your character still when you have all these giant elements that are breathtaking that we all want to see but-

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Honestly, it’s a big balance in all these movies. A big challenge in Eternals was how much information do we need to keep people in the boat wanting this story, but no more and no less? And the fine tuning of that, turning that dial was a big part of the process because Chloe is an intellectual filmmaker and the script had a lot of talking in it, to be fair, the balance of that. Craig and I were always going back and forth to each other, “Do we need this line? What about that? Do you still have this beat in your scene because maybe I don’t need that same thing in my scene.” Because it was just a real focus of the storytelling.

I think that’s always a thing in movies, whether you have 2000 VFX shots or four. The balance of how much information you need to give the audience so they are emotionally tracking with you is one of the biggest jobs that we do. I think it just becomes a little bit more pointed with a VFX thing because you know there’s 25 minutes of act three that’s given over to boom, boom, bang, bang. When you do it right there’s story in the action and there’s momentum in the dialogue. You need that cross and scenes have to do multiple things. That is often down to the writing. When we would rewrite and rework things, you go, can’t we do both these things in this sequence rather than do one and then the other and the next sequence? It’s just this ongoing focus on efficient and captivating storytelling.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Well, that was really good.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I think that was very well said.

Sarah Taylor:

Yes.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Let’s face it, you just described editing. It doesn’t matter what you are doing, if it’s a Marvel movie or something else, it’s all about story and characters. With a big movie, with a big budget, you might have a lot of visual effects, but your focus should still be story and characters.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

And it’s like music where you can put music on too early or too much of it, and that solves problems, like wallpaper. Papers over, bad transitions or unmotivated actions and stuff. You just go, no, no, the music will take care of that. Effects can do that, too, where you just distract people and go, well, this is fine. But whether they know it intellectually in their forebrain or not, they feel it in their stomach. Wait, I don’t understand the actions of this character, therefore I’m not behind them. And then you’ve lost.

Sarah Taylor:

So important. 

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Right.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah, I think that tension that Dylan talked about where you need to know enough to not be distracted by the logic of what you don’t know and you need to know enough to invest in these characters. That’s one of the hallmarks that I found of the process that we went through was that there’s so much testing that Marvel does with its audiences that they test the film much more often than other larger features that I’ve worked on. So much of what they’re listening for with their audiences is, when are you invested in these characters? What is it that’s distracting you? Because you don’t know either a piece of exposition or how the world works? Because there’s so much world creation going on. You’re often entering a world for the first time and saying, okay, what does this tribe do? What powers do they have? How does that impact the story? And how much of that do you need to know to not throw up your hands and just tune out for a while because you don’t understand what’s happening?

If you set us an action sequence in New York, you know the gravitational properties. The hotdog vendor doesn’t necessarily can’t shoot laser beams out of his eyes or something. You don’t have to explain those things in order for somebody to be invested in the stakes. Whereas I think in this film you’re constantly living in the tension of just enough. How much do they need to know in order to invest in what’s going on? And how do we keep economizing on that and experimenting with that so that they’re engaged but not overly explained so that they’re bored?

Nat Sanders, ACE:

And to what Dylan and Harry have pointed out, in our case, we had this long prologue at the beginning of the film that on page was great and it really worked and it was basically the parents’ backstory. Everything that happened with the parents and young Shang-Chi all was in this first 20 pages of the script. And then we land on adult Shang-Chi in San Francisco and then we’re off from there and everything was linear. ER from the very beginning during all those talks she talked about would come in my office in the middle of the day and be like, “We got to do something about this effing prologue. It’s not going to work.”

Harry Yoon, ACE:

[inaudible 00:45:24]. This effing prologue.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

We were talking about it. We obviously tried to make it work linearly the way it was up. If it had been 10 or 12 minutes and maybe 15 minutes at the absolute most, then maybe there was a way to make it work. It was never going to get down to that length. You were finding out things that you just didn’t really as an audience member want to find out yet. ER really led the charge on it and it led to discussions between me and her and then eventually with Destin about how do we tell this story in the most satisfying way?

When we first showed our assembly cut to Destin, I think it was still mostly linear. Maybe with the prologue maybe you had messed around some, but it was for the most part still plain linear. And there were great elements all throughout the watch, but there was something not unsatisfying about the watch and something wasn’t right. Pretty much the next day the three of us got together and said, “What about if we restructure and just use this prologue as flashbacks throughout the film and you find out those things when you emotionally want to find out about them?” We would create a lot more mystery than we had had when it was all playing in linear fashion. There was no doubt about it. As soon as the idea got broached, all three of us were on board. We just started-

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

And we did our first pass on the wall, because what’s so good when you have to do such a huge reconstructions, what’s good is just print out your sim cards. And then we were just moving them around on the wall. What if this is there? Then we’re talking again, talking our way through it. What if this happens here? I feel that’s a really good tool to have, sim cards and a good wall.

Nathan Orloff:

I agree with everything you guys have said. It’s fascinating. It’s hard to convey on a page is that if you trust your characters, if you trust the performance, you don’t need this line. You don’t need that beat even though it was written. If you lean in, if you make the audience lean in, if you make them care, that’s more important than anything else. You can explain stuff later on, you can explain the backstory. Maybe in the weird way it was good that it was written linearly as a prologue so you could chop it up and do whatever you want with it in post. But if it was written that way, you’d be trapped into certain versions.

It’s fascinating to me, because to me scripts are like a car manual for a movie. Great if they captivate you, that’s wonderful. That means they’re very successful, but you’re not looking into a human’s eyes, you’re not learning something about them silently. Ghostbusters went through more reconstructions in the third act figuring out what people need to know when and that was fascinating. But yeah, in terms of when to lean on characters and how to cut around empty plates, music is very, very useful. I ended up memorizing the Ghostbusters soundtrack and the music stems from the original because it’s different than the soundtrack in terms of, all right, what kind of beat here? What kind of rise do I want? I would make a silent beat where reverb a sound out and then do a slow old martino rise. I’m like, all right. That’s how I’m finding my taste with these empty slots. But as Dylan said, all these cuts need to work without music. You can lean on music, you can lean on sound too much, but I find it very useful, especially with empty plates, how to time them out.

My issue initially, especially since this is my first time in the editor’s chair on this level of visual effects film, was I left everything very long initially because a lot of this stuff was title cards and you needed time to read them. This to me would be the benefit to having actual previs of actual 3D models doing a turn, doing a thing, was that you’d be able to time the movements, but in order to understand everything at all my plates were all initially long and everything just got faster. But that’s a normal movie anyway. The mother character, Callie, in our movie, we ended up losing a lot of exposition, a lot of exposition, especially with the relationship with her father because we ended up, if you care, you don’t need to know. More ambiguity. Ambiguity in that regard was better. There was a great saying that both Dana and I learned on this movie and it was, it’s better to have your audience confused for 10 minutes than bored for 10 seconds.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Oh my, yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Can I add to this? Because I love this, Nathan. I absolutely love the whole discussion about script versus film. For me it’s a different language. A script is one language. Well, you have a costume designer translating it into costumes and et cetera, et cetera, but you have to take all of this and translate it into a movie and it’s not the same language. It’s where a monologue can become a look. I find it so fascinating. It’s a different language. The script isn’t bad. Even if you have to reconstruct the whole movie, it’s not because the script is bad, it’s because it’s a different language. It just takes different letters to make it work.

Nathan Orloff:

Totally. And that monologue might have informed the actor to do the performance that you needed so in order to get rid of the monologue,

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Exactly. It’s not the script that’s bad, it’s just you have to translate it into a movie.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Nathan Orloff:

This might be why I’m a little bitter that there’s so little behind the scenes on editing. It’s a hard thing to tell people, “No, the script wasn’t bad. The assembly cut wasn’t… It’s not like these are problems. It’s that this is the process.”

Sarah Taylor:

I wanted to quickly touch on sound because you’ve all talked about it in different moments. Are there any specific sound effects that travel the Marvel universe that you used in your edits? And then same with Ghostbusters, did you get to get sounds that were from the original movies that you threw in? I’m just curious how that comes within the edit suite before it gets sent off to the magic sound world.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

If you’re working on an Avengers movie, yeah, there’s going to be sound effects that were established and sounds of things, Thor stuff and all of that. For Eternals, all new characters, all new people, related, but really no crossover characters in there. We did use as temp a lot of stuff. Ego ship, I used backgrounds for that. Thor’s hammer and swords and Valkyrie’s this and that. Yeah, used a bunch from the Marvel toolbox. Craig brought his stuff, I brought my stuff. We just used whatever we had to hand to build the idea out. And then as we went forward, we got a specific toolbox from Skywalker. Addison was our sound supervisor. As we started to talk about sound and we did a bunch of meetings where he would present some stuff, then we would give him notes with Chloe and just talk about the sound design of the movie in general, the creatures, the powers. Mainly how to differentiate those because we had so many of each and trying to keep things helping with the storytelling through sound.

I think we used what we had until we could replace it with our movie specific stuff as Addison got farther and farther along. Craig and I both love sound a lot and we did a lot of work and built it pretty full tracks as we were building the sequences. A lot of that informed the discussion and became the template for what ended up being. But it’s a very iterative process where you go back and forth and go, do we use Thena’s new sword sound for this? Or is this more like the version C? That kind of thing where it’s just so granular.

Sarah Taylor:

Amazing.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

We had no sound library because we didn’t know, right? We didn’t know how his rings would sound or all those magical animals. We didn’t have a roadmap. Katie Woods helped us. She did some pre-designing while we were still in Australia.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

That library did start to grow as we continued to work with the team at Skywalker. We had the benefit that they’d worked on a lot of shows before. A huge benefit that there was continuity in terms of our mixers that had continued to work before. Both the sound design team. Since they have those libraries available, they could start winnowing those sounds into our cut. I just have a funny story where early on, spoiler alert, when there were some Dr. Strange sounds entering into our cut, for some reason we didn’t have the sound of the portal opening and staying open for a very long time so we literally had to rip it from a Dr. Strange movie. Anytime we did a trim, we would roll the trim and then you’d start hearing Dr. Strange dialogue underneath our cut. I’d be like, who’s talking during this time?

Sarah Taylor:

I love it.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

So there’s a little bit of challenges in terms of temping from existing Marvel movies. But yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s great.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Another interesting aspect of it too is when we would do our previews, often when you go do a preview you’ll stop at a certain point before the preview and you go into a temp mix for a couple days with the sound mixers. Marvel is just so much about story and about the edit that I think, maybe I’m guessing, but I don’t think they want to give up that time to continue working the cut. We were always using our Avid mixes during those previews, which just put an extra, not pressure, but I guess responsibility to make sure that you were representing all of your creatures well. Everything had to be on point because we were screening these for audiences and they had to play real.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

And that mixes with Marvel.

Nathan Orloff:

That’s great to know because I’m a huge fan of not doing temp mixes and just doing it on the Avid. We did that on Star Trek Into Darkness when Avid first introduced 5.1 audio. And then we were like, what if we just didn’t do a temp mix? It was grand experiment, but I’m glad that’s… We did 10 mixes on Ghostbusters and they were very intense and stressful.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

I mean, it’s great for the mixers to be able to go through it.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I want temp mixes.

Sarah Taylor:

You want them?

Nathan Orloff:

I’d rather save the days for later. Take the same amount of money, just put it for final.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Well, I don’t think that’s a money problem with Marvel.

Nathan Orloff:

That’s true. That’s true.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Or anyone. I just feel, especially dialogue, is so important and dialogue is sometimes recorded under very difficult circumstances, whereas pre-sound mix really can save your ass for clarity so people understand what’s being said. That’s why I feel very strongly about getting a temp mix. Also, because I am not a sound person. I do appreciate sound and it’s extremely important to my edit, but I’m not going to do it. I could just as well go and do a heart surgery or something. It’s not my talent.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I edit movies. I don’t do sound. I feel it’s important that people have their expertise. The same way I wouldn’t do graphics. I’m not doing it. Hire a person, a graphic designer.

Sarah Taylor:

For sure.

Nathan Orloff:

That’s how Dana worked as well. I don’t know. Sound and music for me is a place I’ll go to if I’m stuck on an edit and I need to refresh. I like doing sound. And then like I mentioned for the storyboards, we’re very lucky, especially Jason has such a specific vision for this movie to be a lot like the original [inaudible 00:57:34] movies. Having the stems from the original was a huge, huge help. And having what he described as almost steampunk. Yes, someone just created this device, but they made it with duct tape and glue. It barely works. It’s not like a Star Trek shiny thing. It’s supposed to rattle when it turns on. There’s a specific vibe that was very useful to get. Having all the stems, especially for the boards sold you on the world and the tone.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Totally.

Nathan Orloff:

And that stayed on. The most difficult sound, like the story of the Dr. Strange, the trap sounds specifically, when the trap opens, there was no archive of what their original one was. So Will Files, one of the sound supervisors, he had to take the stem and subtract Slimer from the frequency spectrum in order to… It was like sound archeology-

Sarah Taylor:

That’s amazing.

Nathan Orloff:

… in order to get that trap sound.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

That’s just the Slimer notch. It’s in the [inaudible 00:58:37].

Nathan Orloff:

Yeah, exactly.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

There is a funny Marvel music story from Shang-Chi. Someone pulled a number on me and Nat because we were both first timers. We were doing the third act and we needed to temp it with music. It was more or less all postvis. Someone said, “Oh, they want you to take from the other Marvel movies.” I remember we went through the whole music library and temp them to pieces. And then they hated it. We can’t concentrate on this, getting music from another movie.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Kevin saw it and said, “All I can think of is Spider-Man.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

So we had to clear it all out and get something else in, but it was funny.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh my goodness.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Oh, lots of stories.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Someone wanted us to sweat.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I’ll get you to sweat. My next question is, how did you all approach representation in your edit? Because in Shang-Chi we have an almost entirely Asian cast. Ghostbusters, we have a neurodivergent main character. In Eternals were introduced to one of the first South Asian superheroes and a deaf superhero. What were your thoughts and approaches to making sure this was tackled in the best way possible?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It’s certainly something that Marvel has been concentrating on more and more. I really applaud and appreciate their efforts and the earnestness and genuineness with which they have approached inclusivity and representation in their movies because it has typically been a English speaking white guy kind of thing. I think they’ve done fantastic work. Eternals from the get-go, from its conception, was meant to be representative of other less-represented peoples. Chloe cast a, not American, but Asian English person as the lead. We have a gay black character and we have a deaf character, all of that.

I got to say, Craig and I both and Chloe came at this from the point of view of, we’re very proud and are behind all the representation, but that is not the point of the movie. We never wanted to bang that drum or put a spotlight on it. These are just the characters. Marvel went to great lengths to check things with people to show Lauren Ridloff, our deaf performer, the cuts and the ideas. Does this work? Is it okay if we change this one word to make it seem better? Because we don’t want anyone to feel like they’ve been duped or anything like that. Brian Tyre Henry, who plays Phastos, he had an onscreen gay kiss that was a big deal.

Craig cut that sequence, the Phastos house. I said, “I think the kiss in the dailies is fantastic, just as long as we don’t highlight it and push in on it and do music on it as if, look at this, guys.” And he said, “Oh no, we’re not going to do that.” I think we all had the same opinion. This is who the characters are. We support them and we are proud of it, but it’s not what the story’s about. So it gets its place. I think we’re proud of how we did it. In fact, when we would do the early screenings and we would ask, “What do you like about the movie?” And the audience would go. “Love the representation.” We’d all just look at each other and go, great, whatever. Yeah, we love it, too. What about the story? What about the characters? So yeah, I’m proud of how we did that. I’m proud of Marvel in general. I’m pleased to have been part of it. It’ll be great when humanity has passed this bump.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah, I think that was really well put, Dylan. I’m very proud that Marvel makes this a priority. I think it’s in having all the filmmakers involved care about the details and to know what questions to ask so that those details feel correct. Because it’s all about nuances. I think people who are watching for this kind of thing know when it’s surface versus authentic or feels grounded. Everything from what kind of TV program is Katie’s family watching in the background as they’re eating breakfast? How do you pronounce in their dialect the rice porridge that they’re eating in the morning?

Or just being concerned about, there’s been this whole history of a lack of Asian males as desirable characters, as romantic leads in the history of Hollywood. How do we take that into consideration when thinking, should Shang-Chi have a love interest? What is his relationship with Katie like? How do we maintain what their chemistry is like, but still acknowledge that he is potentially a desirable person? There was all of this talk, to ER’s point, a lot of this discussion and it informed the small choices that we made. But those small changes, those small details, I think are the things that audiences really loved and appreciated. When they saw Shang-Chi taking off his shoes before he went into the apartment, there were these little explosions of meaningful details that allowed people to feel seen, that allowed people to say, “Oh, this feels very real. It doesn’t feel like just a surface nod to something. It feels like somebody that I know.”

Nat Sanders, ACE:

I have to say, with that scene the Harry’s alluding to with Katie’s family, that was one from the very beginning that there was always a discussion, is this scene going to stay or not? Because we’d had a scene with their friends at the bar, and then we have another expositional scene with Katie’s family. We come back at the end of the film to the friends at the bar, but we don’t see Katie’s family again. There was always a discussion, is this going to stay? I have to say, Harry really advocated for it. We did a couple previews with it in and we still were on the fence. I think for the third preview, we were going to try it. I think we were leaning towards trying it without it. I think Harry, to his point, I said, “If we take it out, it’s probably not coming back in because it doesn’t move the plot forward. We’re not going to probably in that way we won’t miss it.”

I think at those first couple previews we’d requested that they try to recruit a certain percentage at least of Asian American audience members and I think it hadn’t quite happened. This third one, we were going to have a little bit more of an Asian American audience so we tried it one more time and it was just exactly what Harry said in the talk back afterwards. We just kept hearing, “I felt seen in that scene in Katie’s family,” and pointing out all the details. It was just so obvious how Harry had been to advocate for it. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I think it’s to a big credit, both to Marvel but also Destin, who was extremely keen on bringing forth a contemporary feel of the Asian community and not just the magical one.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

On a more smaller scale, too. Both ER and myself and then Harry when we were back in LA, we always made it a priority that bare minimum have one Mandarin speaker on our edit team. We would always have, I guess, it ended up being a second in each case. It was Lisa in Australia and Ujang back in LA. Especially towards the end with Ujang, she was incredibly informative about the details of phrasing, especially we were rewriting a lot of voiceover that was in Mandarin and she was a really integral part of a lot of creative decisions.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Just real quickly. There was a joke towards the end that played so well with English speaking audiences. The thing that Tony Lang’s character was saying was so funny when it was in subtitle, but one of the things that Ujang and Novar, our other onset Mandarin speaker, said was that, “It’s funny, but it’s totally absurd. It’s too childish a thing for him to say, and therefore it doesn’t fit his character.” But those were the determiners for Destin. He would make the decision, even though it might play for the vast majority of people who don’t speak Chinese, for the people that speak Mandarin it will feel fake. It will feel untrue, and therefore we’re going to take it out even though it’s a huge laugh. I think it’s that adherence to making sure we get those kinds of nuances right that I think really came through and it’s because Destin had that dedication to it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah That’s wonderful.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

At the same time, I agree with what you are saying, especially regarding strong Asian lead male, but let’s not forget we had extremely strong Asian women support. I think they’re all so amazing.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I just think it’s just as much of a showcase of Asian females as the male because there are some really strong women in there.

Sarah Taylor:

Mm-hmm.

Nathan Orloff:

I don’t have a ton to add to what you guys said. All incredible. I completely agree. To echo also with what Dylan said is that, once you get into the edit and it’s there, our approach was a little bit just neutral. Just everything else, just like a VFX shot, you have to earn it. You can’t just wallow and highlight it. You just have to just let it breathe and have to let the character exist authentically. There’s cultural biases that I want to make sure I’m self aware of, that I’m not bulldozing a beat because of my prejudices unknowingly or something like that. But that’s mainly the only thing that I changed about my approach, just making sure every character has what they care about and their stakes and what they want clear. It’s just as important in making these people pop off the screen as real people so that people can identify with them and make them not caricatures of cinema past.

The only interesting example is that, in the storyboard sequence there’s the cut to of Callie and Grooberson in the Chinese restaurant. In the storyboard and the script, a Chinese restaurant. So what did I do? The first thing I did when I did the storyboard, I downloaded Chinese restaurant music and I cut it in. Great. It’s a gag. Wonderful. Blah, blah, blah. You get into the edit and there’s a whole scene before that of Callie on a date with Paul Rudd’s character. I kept trying to put Chinese music in and it’s just like, this is weird, so off. This just feels like-

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

How vaguely racist.

Nathan Orloff:

Exactly. We were like, what are we doing?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

How did I get there?

Nathan Orloff:

[inaudible 01:09:48]. It was just make sure we check that we’re not doing something that’s super stereotypical and not realistic because this is a restaurant that’s in the middle of Oklahoma they’d listen to.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Some modern country.

Sarah Taylor:

There’s a lot of comedy in these films. I just want to know, what’s one joke or one bit that kept you through, that was something that you took away from the film? I have a few of my own, but I want to know yours.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Oh, goodness. Well, I can say we tried hard to keep all the comedy in Eternals, because it’s actually for a Marvel movie pretty heavy drama. Chloe’s bent is, she’s dramatic. She likes funny, but she’s more dramatic. Craig and I are both into funny, so we tried a lot. It’s got to be something with Kumail because he does the lion share of the comedy lifting and he’s really great in the movie. I don’t know. The spit takes of the beer that Gilgamesh ferments in his mouth from corn always got to laugh.

Sarah Taylor:

That was good.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

That’s probably one.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it. Harry, do you have a favorite?

Harry Yoon, ACE:

I think Unfailingly was the story that Ben Kingsley tells before entering the bamboo forest about Planet of the Apes and how the apes are the thing… Convinced him that acting was important. I have a funny story to tell. One of our test screenings during the talk back, there was a huge Marvel fan that was like, “That was the best joke ever told in the Marvel universe.” You’re able to relate that to our writers and [inaudible 01:11:30].

Sarah Taylor:

Oh my gosh.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It really landed.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Aquafina, every single scene. She’s my girl.

Sarah Taylor:

Hotel California, that was my favorite.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

So good.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

This is an example of a perfect joke for me, which was, if I remember correctly, once Aquafina finds out the truth about Shang, she goes, “Wait, so you’ve been hiding and you changed your name to Sean?” I think that’s a trailer moment, too. The reason it’s so good is because it’s exactly what the audience is thinking. It’s going, wait, I hardly hear a difference. And then our character says exactly that, and you go, okay, perfect.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Yeah. When I cut that scene I just laughed so much every single time he said that to me.

Sarah Taylor:

It was such a good scene.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

It was so hilarious.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

That one was fun. That was mostly improvised, probably the most improvised in the movie.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Yeah.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

It just happens. I came up working with directors like Len Shelton and the Duplass Brothers who would shoot mostly improvised movies really based on an outline, so that was my background. That scene was really fun to backpack in for that.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. I love it.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

But I mean, let’s face it, she says magina in the Marvel movie.

Sarah Taylor:

Winning.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Milestone.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Winning.

Nathan Orloff:

I really love when Podcast… After the serious discovery of what Egon has been doing out there and says he sacrificed everything, et cetera, et cetera, and there’s his long beat and then podcast just goes, “Bummer.” That was my favorite. It kills me every time.

Sarah Taylor:

What was something that you learned from this film you’re going to take with you to other films?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

This is my first time working at Marvel and I really fell in love with the way the trio works, Kevin, Lou, Victoria. The review process, I really just got into that. Elísabet said it before, there’s a lot of talking. I love talking and exchanging ideas. When you do it with Marvel, there are three really smart people who love movies. I’ve made a million, not a million, a lot of movies where the execs are not as involved at all, A. Also, when they are, they don’t have much really substantive to contribute. I don’t know if this is a lesson, but it’s a feeling that I’m taking forward from working with them that I just appreciate. Kevin is all about plusing. How can we make this better? No stone is left unturned. You keep working to the last minute. It’s tiring, but it makes the best movie. Great ideas can come from anywhere, which is something that I know and that I’ve practiced forever, but it was just a really great experience. I take that forward. I guess what I’m saying is, I’ll try to push to integrate that style into other places I work.

Sarah Taylor:

Amazing. I love it.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah, I totally concur with what Dylan’s saying. That’s really something that really stood out, was having the attitude that always be 5% better, like a character arc or identification or clarity or something like that. Not giving up just because of whatever stage in the process that you’re at. Marvel really had that attitude. It was wonderful to see all of those resources being put to bear for story. Story, story, story. And making it make slightly better. On a more technical note, I loved digging into ER’s action edits and seeing the importance of micro speed changes. So really seeing how even a 12% speed up could really make the difference.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Don’t need that frame. Don’t need that frame.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah. And just these tiny little frame differences and stuff like that. Just worrying everything. Because I guess that’s part of the it can be 5% better. In that case, a kick can be 12% better if you speed it up by 12%. So yeah, those micro speed changes were something that I’ll definitely be playing with.

Sarah Taylor:

Those are the little tricks we want to hear about.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

Yeah. I think we learned a lot. I also learned one thing that I feel is very important, especially when you start working with people you don’t know very well. The importance of going it together. You can’t just go off in one direction. You all have to go together the same direction. There was something beautiful about that and very rewarding I find to have gone that with this group of people. It was actually quite amazing because everything else was happening. I mean, we were being in a country we didn’t know. So yeah, you got a family way from the people that were stuck there with you.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, no kidding.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

But I’m not talking about that. I’m also just talking about the process of making the movie. Bill Pope shot it, amazing cinema photographer. The thing is, we can’t edit what we don’t get, except if it’s previs and you can have them changed, but you know what I mean. You are governed by what they shoot and what they give you. I just think it was an amazing team.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

I probably learned more on this movie than I had in the previous five movies before. To what Dylan said, you always learn something on every project, but this one for me personally, was just at different levels. I’d never done fight scenes before, hadn’t worked with VFX on this scale and all those things. Actually I really early on leaned on ER and really just tried to soak in everything I could. To what Harry said, yeah, I would go in and look, especially really early in the process, would go and look at her fight scenes, look at her timelines and be like, okay, she sped this up in this moment. And then how did she do the ramp? And then I would just go and analyze all that.

It reminded me of when I was coming up as an assistant editor 15 years ago. When I would stay late at night and work on scenes on myself, I would look at what the editors had done and break down the timelines and analyze how they cut music, analyze how they did this, how they did that, and learn to cut that way. I hadn’t done that in a while, but on this I was doing some things that I had never done before. I really leaned on ER’s experience with all that, asked her questions, was soaking all that in. it was hugely helpful.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

He doesn’t know, I don’t know anything. Every project, you’re just amicably going in because that’s the beauty of it. Every project is different. It has different challenges and different…

Nat Sanders, ACE:

Yeah, so much that we learned. By the end, I guess you become a Marvel… Especially in this case, it was 18 months for me from start to end. You know the lay of the land by the end, but early on you are getting thrown into the deep end.

Nathan Orloff:

Always feels a little unfair because you’re the best editor to cut the project when you’re done with it. On this one, the scale of things, something the third act, was something that… Like I said, it scaled up a lesson and it’s sometimes hard to learn is that just because you put a puzzle together doesn’t mean it’s the right picture. I got it from Calgary, the third act, I think it was 20 minutes long, and I was just exhausted and I’m just so happy that it existed, that it worked, that it tracked, that you followed it. And Dana, to her credit, she’s like, “Eventually this will be like 12 minutes, 15 minutes.” And I was like, “What? No way.” I just couldn’t conceive of it. What I’ve been trying, especially recently since I got back from location a month ago, was that I’ve been like, all right, the editor that was on location that cut the assembly did a great job. Great.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Whoever that was.

Nathan Orloff:

Different person.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Nathan Orloff:

This much is totally fine and let’s just rip it apart. Let’s figure it out. Let’s find a better picture to make with these puzzle pieces and figure out what we don’t need. And to really let go, which is an easy thing to say, but it’s really more about opening your heart and letting go of your ego and really just trying to focus on telling the best story possible. I’m also glad I had Dana as a partner on this. We were really in it together. I learned also a lot of little tricks from here, like I mentioned earlier. You can cut to a shot when someone’s opening their eye halfway if you need that extra frame. You won’t notice that they were blinking. Stuff like that.

Sarah Taylor:

Love it.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

It makes them seem like they’re really paying attention.

Nathan Orloff:

Exactly.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

I mean, it’s one of the great things about having multiple editors is that level of objectivity that your editing partner can give to you, to your sequences, back and forth. You can be brutal and have a screening and come out of it, as you were saying, and they go, “Yeah, that’s still four minutes too long.” And your stomach clenches up. What? But you feel the same way about their work. And it’s because you’re in the trenches dealing with all the minutiae and someone standing 20 feet behind you is going, “I’m done with that shot. Actually, I don’t need that beat because I already guessed that was going to happen.” You’ve been just trying to solve the problem so your perspective is totally different. It’s really helpful. Likewise, that’s what directors can be for, but I think having multiple editors, it can be a great collaboration. I had a great time with Craig.

Nathan Orloff:

And Ivan on Arm Project was a huge help on pushing for pace. Jason was in the same boat. He is never done a movie of this scale, but by the end he was totally singing what Ivan was going for and on just really… Just because it’s fast doesn’t make it… Just sing with the script. It’s not like you screwed up. It’s not like something’s bad, you need to speed through it. It just makes it more exciting. It just makes it more engaging if it’s appropriate.

Sarah Taylor:

What’s coming up next? Is there any shows or films that you want to share with us that you’re proud of or excited about?

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

I’m doing a movie with Scott Cooper now starring Christian Bale.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

We’re filming.

Sarah Taylor:

Excellent.

Harry Yoon, ACE:

I’m doing a dark comedy series for Netflix called Beef starring Stephen Young and Allie Wong, which is going to be a lot of fun.

Sarah Taylor:

That’ll be fun.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I’m locking edit on Bullet Train for Sony.

Nat Sanders, ACE:

I’ve come on to help on a project. It’s a comedy that Taika Waititi shot before the pandemic, and then he’s in with Thor as well called Next Goal Wins. It’s going to be coming out later this year. I have to say, working on the comedy in Shang-Chi reminded me how much I love working with comedy and I hadn’t had a chance to do it in a while so I was seeking that out a little bit for what I…

Nathan Orloff:

I’m cutting John Wick 4 right now.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh.

Nathan Orloff:

I was on location before, so we got back and I’ll be on this until about August. It’s a very exciting project. I am looking forward to hopefully doing a comedy next because the last time I did Plan B was a comedy, and I don’t think I’ve ever been professionally just laughing all day long in my Avid. It’s a very pleasurable experience to cut comedy.

Sarah Taylor:

I’m cutting a comedy right now. Yeah, my cheeks always hurt at the end of my edit, which is great.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

I just want to let you know, Bullet Train is comedy. Just wanted to let you know.

Sarah Taylor:

Okay. Good.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

My movie has no comedy whatsoever. Cat Cooper, not super comedic cat.

Sarah Taylor:

Awesome. Well, thank you all for joining us today. This was a great conversation. I’m so glad to hear the inner workings of how these giant films get made. Thank you for spending the time with us today.

Dylan Tichenor, ACE:

Thank you, Sarah.

Nathan Orloff:

Thanks for having us. Yeah.

Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE:

So nice meeting you all.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks so much for joining us today, and a big thanks goes out to our panelists. A special thanks goes to the 2022 EditCon planning committee, Alison Dowler and Kim McTaggart, CCE. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rush. Original music created by Chad Blain and Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE is proud to support Hire BIPOC. Hire BIPOC is the definitive and ubiquitous industry-wide roster of Canadian BIPOC creatives and crew working in screen-based industries. Check out hirebipoc.ca to hire your next group or create a profile and get hired.

Speaker 8:

The CCE is a nonprofit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.



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The Editors Cut

Episode 075 – EditCon 2022: Learning from the Best

The Editor's Cut - Episode 75 - EditCon 2022: Learning from the Best
The Editor's Cut - Episode 75 - EditCon 2022: Learning from the Best

Episode 075 - EditCon 2022: Learning from the Best

Today?s episode is part 3 of our 4 part series covering EditCon 2022 Brave New World.

Today?s panel is Learning from the Best – Documentary editing is a craft of perpetual learning. Not only do our tools change constantly, but so do approaches to storytelling. Mentorship has long been at the heart of developing the next generation of talent in all mediums, and documentary is no exception. It can be difficult for new and aspiring editors to gain access to the suite to sit, watch, listen, and learn the intangible skill of editing. Pull up a seat as two apprentices interview their mentors on their approach to storytelling, and the importance of passing the torch to the next generation.

This episode is generously sponsored by Adobe.

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The Editor?s Cut – Episode 075 – EditCon 2022: Learning from the Best

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Adobe.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

The mentee has a lot to offer the mentor. I think that’s maybe a misconception about mentorship is that it’s a top-down approach. And it’s somebody who’s, I’m going to show you, you know, I’m going to teach you X, Y, and Z. But, I think one thing that’s come across really obviously in all of the conversations we’ve had here is that openness and honesty, and it has to be a two-way conversation.

Brina Romanek:

Feeling like you have a safe space to make mistakes and to play. You know? Because I think, end of the day, one of the most fun things about editing is that you get to play.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

I would use one word, is empathy and respect. And also, knowing that you are working with a very particular part of our being, which is our fragility, our insecurity, our gift as artists. The fact that none of those things are absolute, but they’re all part of our humanity.

Sarah Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honour, respect, and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions, and the concerns that impact indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today’s episode is part three of our four-part series covering EditCon 2022, Brave New World. Documentary editing is a craft of perpetual learning. Not only do our tools change constantly, but so do approaches to storytelling. Mentorship has long been at the heart of developing the next generation of talent in all mediums, and documentary is no exception. It can be difficult for new and aspiring editors to gain access to the suite, to sit, watch, listen, and learn the intangible skill of editing. Pull up a seat as two apprentices interview their mentors on their approach to storytelling and the importance of passing the torch to the next generation.

 

[show open]

And action.

This is The Editor’s Cut.

A CCE podcast.

Exploring, exploring, exploring the art

of picture editing.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Welcome to Learning from the Best. My name is Chris Mutton. I’ll be your moderator for our panel today. We have an exciting discussion lined up that will hopefully bring out a better understanding of mentorship. Mentorship can be kind of hard to define, comes in many forms, from mentors who follow a lecture format in a large group all the way down to one-on-one mentor pairs. So today we’ll be hearing from two such pairs. We’ll start off with our first group, hear about their experience. Then we’ll move on to our second group. And lastly, sort of bring everybody together for an informal round table discussion. And I’ll be taking a backseat for the most part.

We’re going to try something a little new and have our conversations led by our mentees. In our first group, we have multiple award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor Michèle Hozer. With over 40 documentary editing credits, including the critically acclaimed Shake Hands with The Devil and her directorial debut, Sugar Coated, she is a mainstay of the Canadian doc world in Canada. Michèle is joined by her mentee, Brina Romanek, a documentary filmmaker and editor of the Lifestyle documentary Radical Retirees and editor of the doc feature a Cure for the Common Classroom, which she edited with Michèle’s guidance. Welcome Michèle and Brina.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Hi, thank you.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

In our second mentorship pair, we are joined by Ricardo Acosta, CCE. Also a household name in documentary editing in Canada. Ricardo won the CCE award for best editing in documentary for Marmato in 2014, and is the editor of acclaimed films 15 to Life, The Silence of Others, and Herman’s House. He’s joined by mentee and documentary editor Jordan Kawai. Jordan holds his master’s degree in media studies from Ryerson and has assisted and edited documentaries including Bangla Surf Girls, in which Ricardo served as mentor and story editor. Welcome Ricardo and Jordan. And just to start things off, Jordan, how did you meet Ricardo and how did this mentorship begin with you guys?

Jordan Kawai:

I first met Ricardo when I was in graduate school at Ryerson, the documentary media MFA. And Ricardo was brought in for a class critique and I shared a piece of my film and had Ricardo give me some criticism about it, which was the very first time I met him. And then fast-forward two years later, I met Ricardo again in a job opportunity where I would be assisting Ricardo in a film that was produced by the NFB. And at that time it was called Hispaniola. The name later changed to Stateless.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Awesome. How was it like to have Ricardo look at your work?

Jordan Kawai:

I mean, it was one of those interesting things where I– it was kind of like, foreshadowing a lot of the conversations that were to come. A lot of things surrounding, yeah, simplicity and minimalism and that, and one of the mantras that I kind of, like I always tell Ricardo, at the beginning of every project, I write at the top of my notebook which is “Surrender yourself to your footage.” And that was one of the first things that he had said to me, and that was something that I kind of brought forward later in all my projects.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Excellent. All right. I’ll let you take it away. Go for it.

Jordan Kawai:

Yeah, So Ricardo, when we first met, we had– it was an interview for the project Hispaniola. And at that point in time I was assist editing on a few projects and a lot of them?a lot of my role at that point was moreso coming in and making sure, as assistant editor, that the project was?you know, the wheels were all oiled and it was all afloat. And one of the first things that you said, was kind of like, music to my ears, I was pining for an opportunity to work collaboratively and kind of, shadow an editor and director. And, I don’t know if you remember saying this to me, but you said you didn’t want, an assistant editor who was just going to be a ghost in the room, and you wanted someone who was kind of there for the process. And, I was wondering how that kind of came to be and why that’s what you wanted at that point in time for that project.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

You know Jordan, for me, as I had said to you before, I was a wonderful slave slash assistant editor for a while before I started editing my films. But I also was a very privileged assistant editor because I was able to observe and participate of the creative process– on the creative process of the filmmaking. And the storytelling, in the editing suite, and being able to– to be there, in situ, when the director and the editor and the producer were discussing the story. And I have realized that, in the times of digitizing footage, the role of an assistant editor has been diminished to someone who come, in a very impersonal way, when you are not around, to prepare the material for you.

It was becoming more and more a lonely job of an editor with a footage and a director, but where is the assistant on that? And also, where is the assistant that is also a wonderful filmmaker who I can perceive as a great editor, you know– in progress and where that editor will find the role models, the place where that young assistant can learn how to conduct and how to be, and how to– what is the role of an editor in the editing suite. That’s not something you learn in a school, at Ryerson. That’s something that you have to learn also, assisting other editors. I think.

And you know, I saw on you, from the beginning, that the light of a filmmaker, of someone who took his job and his dream of telling stories very seriously. And the way you talk about editing, I went like, “Okay, this is a fantastic opportunity.” Because a lot of people do not have that drive. And for me it was very, very special at that moment to say, “Okay, here is someone who can also be my buddy in the editing suite.”

Jordan Kawai:

What I really appreciated early on when I was working with you, Ricardo was watching rushes together. And I think as someone who was kind of new to that realm and new to that industry of just… Well, I kind of– What I learned from screening live with you and you would start watching rushes and you’d hit that space bar, pause it, and then you would ask me, “What is the heart of this scene for you?” And I think throwing that question and always having that ability to stop and pause and really be on the ball of figuring out if you shake this down, what it is at the heart of something or the spirit of something.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

At the end of the day we have to deal with tools of dramaturgia to put together a story and it’s a four-minute story. What is the heart of that? What we are doing, we might be wrong, we might be having challenge in finding what is the best. But we have to really be brave and go for it. And based on that thing that we find that is the heart and the most meaningful, build around that. Which is what we did in that scene, also, no? Start embroidering around that idea. How do we present that? Because for me, ultimately, it’s a choreography that is not dictated by the brain only, but also by the emotion of the moment of the story that we are trying to tell. And also of the character. What the character needs and not so much about what I want the character to do, sometimes.

Jordan Kawai:

This was part of a film where that character’s arc didn’t actually make it into the feature film. It was actually– That whole character was then used for a short film that I edited later, which ended up being the opening scene in a different variation way for that film. But it was interesting because there was a lot of elements and a lot of devices that were also part of the feature. And one of them being the use of radio. And I remember Ricardo, early on, one of the obstacles was how to give a lot of the backstory and context of what was happening, between Dominican Republic and Haiti, and this idea of using radio not just for context piece, but to show some of that temperature of what some of the antagonism between those two countries were. So this idea that radio is something that is pepper corned and interwoven throughout the entire piece. For this particular scene, I remember it being more of an exercise about visual storytelling and that’s one of the things that I was really excited about when Ricardo and I worked on this was to not use any voice at the beginning. The radio wasn’t used at the beginning and just try to create a story of one of the protagonists’ father living in Dominican Republic and he was born in Haiti and just showing his daily routine of going to work in the sugar cane fields.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

One thing that we do is spend a lot of time also talking, and for me, it’s very important that my assistant editor or the associate editor is part of those conversations when we are looking at rushes of footage and then sharing with the director what I saw. What I saw sometimes could be a little bit different to what the director saw and he compliments that, but also to what I can foreshadow in the scenes that we find very powerful and how the story we want to tell can be enhanced with the elements, the jewels of this?you know– that are hidden within the footage. And one thing for me that was very important always was there is a subliminal character of hate here, which is on the way in the radio wave. And that it was a thermometer, as you said, of the temperature of the hate speech and the hostility against Haitians in the country.

I always remember we spent a lot of time also talking and sharing with you with what I call the rituals of the footage of the character, of the subject, of the story. And what is the impression that we are painting with a scene that will then become part of a bigger impression that we are painting with the whole story and the whole film. And one thing that I find with you, that we are very much enjoying in our collaboration, is how you understand that and how you incorporate that. We also have these conversations about… It’s complex because sometimes young editors have a hard time having something emotionally because they come from a brain is sometimes perception of everything is about the intellect and not about the emotion. And I come from a different kind of experience with you where I always said to you, it’s more about what you don’t see and what you feel, the way you are trying to compose.

And it’s also always for us not about the trend, but about the essence. And those are things that we, Jordan and me, spend a lot of time talking about when we’re editing and sharing. Sometimes, I also like to do something like, when I’m cutting something and I think I’m excited about it, I will ask him, look what I did. And this idea of sharing like a tutorial, and a discovery with a friend and it’s also about sharing with him why I made the choices that I made. Why? Because I think that all I can share in my mentoring of someone who I think is a great editor on his own and it’s a little bit of my own creative process and my fears and my accomplishments, but there is no book about that.

Jordan Kawai:

One thing I think I’ve gleaned from you, mainly from your relationships with directors, but also I feel that towards you as well is this, is how trust plays in that relationship and how you build that and how that can really obviously really shape a film because it’s a process to begin with.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

I think that’s really a hard thing to teach. Right? And it’s interesting because there’s so many hard skills to editing, but one of the soft skills is all the people stuff in the edit suite and how you deal with a director in the edit suite and how you deal with their emotions as they look at their film coming together and maybe what their expectations were against what?s happening can be very emotional for them. And that kind of skill is so different from Codex and hard drives and all that other stuff that’s in the background. So it’s interesting. I think that is a really important part of mentorship is those people skills.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

So we are collaborating in a film called Betrayal right now and there’s a scene where the director is on the scene. The first time she met the subject, the subject used to be in Canada. He got evicted from Canada and now he’s living in a country in Africa. And the first time that she met the subject is there, in Africa in a refugee camp. And when I was looking at the footage I see that moment, which was filmed in a very informal way because no one ever thought that this going to be part of the story, where she said to him, “Oh nice to meet you.” And then he said, “Finally. Nice to meet you.” And has been talking to each other for so long. But that is on camera, in the center of camera. And then what I have for the next 40 minutes, it’s a very raw but honest and warm situation where this man, our main subject is showing to her the refugee camp and talking about, since they have happened to him, that we may know more or not prior to that scene.

So it was very interesting because it was like, okay, this is going to be a very difficult conversation to have with the director to say, okay, we can make a very evasive scene where he’s talking to a ghost and using shots that are not our best. Or we can try to make a scene that is very warm and authentic where you are on it. I knew that was going to be a conversation that was going to be very difficult. But before that, I also shared this with Jordan and asked his opinion. And we both said, okay, let’s prepare each other. And I said to Jordan, “Okay, please support me on presenting this case to the director.”

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Backup.

Jordan Kawai:

Yeah.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

What was the reaction? How’d it go?

Jordan Kawai:

I think it’s ongoing, I would say. Ricardo?

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Oh, okay, all right. Yeah, it’s not quite there yet, eh?

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

I think that everybody felt the strain of it and the authenticity and Jordan did a great job on putting together a scene that we have choreographed and discussed. And I think it opened a whole new avenue for us also to feel more empowered about how we are going to deal with similar situations through the whole story.

Jordan Kawai:

Yeah, and it’s interesting, Ricardo, that is an example. Because we talked about the idea of surrender yourself to the footage. And I’m thinking about it more and another thing in that example, but in previous films too, where I’ve watched you challenge the footage and I think that means also challenging the director on some of the expectations of what a scene may or may not be. And I find that kind of interesting. What is that dialogue and having that confidence to A, try something but B, to challenge what that scene can possibly be. And I think the one you’re bringing up as an example of that, for sure.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Thank you very much for the discussion. Hang tight for a bit. We’re going to bring you back in just at the end for a sort of round table chat about mentorship. Now we’ll bring in Michèle and Brina.

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Brina Romanek:

Good, how are you?

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Excellent. Welcome back. Now something that not everybody listening today probably knows is that you guys met through the CCE mentorship pilot program, which started in 2019. So maybe Brina, tell us a little bit about that experience and how you were paired with Michèle.

Brina Romanek:

I was working as an assistant editor at the time and I was already a member of CCE when I got the email. And I really felt similar to what Ricardo was mentioning in terms of this idea of that sometimes the assistant editor is the ghost. I felt like the ghost. And I had made a couple of my own films and I felt like I needed to learn, but I needed someone to help me push my own boundaries. So I applied, and I got accepted, and I found out that I was paired with Michèle, who I then very quickly went and googled.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

I’m sure you were pretty happy when you googled her.

Brina Romanek:

Pretty pleased. Pretty pleased. And very intimidated.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Nah.

Brina Romanek:

Starting off, Michèle, I’m kind of curious. I know we’ve talked a little bit about your beginnings, when you started editing and learning from other editors, but I’m curious to know what your experience had been with your own mentors and what made you want to be a part of the program?

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Well, like Ricardo, I always thought it was important to have an assistant editor in the room while we cut because it could be a lonely job. And I think it’s our obligation to… I mean someone taught me, so I think we should keep that going. And so I always kept editors or assistant editors for most of my work. Many producers and director thought, “Are you crazy? It costs too much to have a full-time assistant editor.” And by the end of the project they always loved the assistants way better than they loved me. And they realized, certainly in a documentary setting, how important the assistant editor is because they know everything about the film very intimately. The assistant editor knows the timeline, knows all the problem shots, knows the music. And when it comes to posting and putting all that together, the assistant editor is key.

And the assistant editor, if they’re a good assistant, helps smooth the waters, calm things down when the editor and the director are fighting or there’s tension in the room, the assistant editor can always come and help keep those things afloat. But in terms of our CCE, I don’t know, I got an email that said, “Would you, you be interested in mentoring?” And I thought, “Okay, why not?” I didn’t know what it would entail. I had no clue that you and I would still be working together on the Buffy film.

And I remember meeting you, do you remember that meeting? We were at Insomnia, I don’t know, three days before the first lockdown.

Brina Romanek:

Yes.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

And I remember reading your CV and I thought, “Oh wow, she’s 27. She’s directed a few shorts already.” And I thought to myself, “Oh my God, here she is, someone to replace me. Here we go.” And I remember that was my first impression in meeting you. I don’t know, what was your first impression?

Brina Romanek:

As I mentioned to you before, I definitely sweat right through my blouse. I was very nervous. And you were asking me questions that I don’t think I had been asked in a while. Very direct questions about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. And I wasn’t even sure whether or not those are maybe things that I kept inside, but I wasn’t sure that I had the confidence to just blurt out. And so I felt a bit like I was in the hot seat, but in a good way. And I left the meeting feeling excited. But also I had been given the opportunity to think more specifically about how I wanted to grow. I think that that was a good start to our relationship.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Yeah. And I think you were interested in documentary and I think that’s important. I get a lot of people who come and they want to be fiction writers or dramatic editors or even directors and it’s like, “Why are you coming to me?” But you were very persistent and I think, what did we meet every month or something like that?

Brina Romanek:

Yeah, I think at the beginning it was, we’d have at least a phone call a month. And at first, you watched the films that I had made and gave your thoughts and feedback. And I remember very clearly, you watched my film, A Portrait of Pockets. And afterwards you gave me this note, which I still think about all the time when I’m cutting.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

I hope it’s a good note.

Brina Romanek:

You said really think about when you are giving breath in between the phrases of what your character is saying and when you are making it a full cohesive run-on sentence, let’s say. And you were saying there were some moments in that film where I had split up and given too much breath in between phrases from the main character of Charmaine and so we lost some of the meaning of the scene. I think it was a very good note. I think about that a lot when we’re cutting now. I’m often thinking about, “Okay, is this an idea that is more clearly comes across when we hear the whole thing? Or is this one of those ideas that we need a moment to pause and breathe in part of what’s being said before we can hear the rest of it?”

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We did that yesterday on a scene. When do we let Buffy Sainte-Marie say everything she says, and when do you give the pause, right?

Brina Romanek:

Yes.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

That takes time to figure out and you just re-listen to your scenes over and over again. We’ve been working together for what, two years now? Almost two years. Right now we’re cutting Buffy and now Brina’s taken my place. She’s the editor or co-editor with the director Madison Thompson. Yeah. And I’m story editing with her and maybe giving you too much of a hard time, Brina.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

That’s great. I mean just like Ricardo and Jordan, you guys are now colleagues, which I find is fascinating. It’s great.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Yeah, working that scene. Today, you were pretty tired, was it two days? Two days, we’ve been working on the same scene?

Brina Romanek:

Two and a half. And today it was down to the really minute, minute. And there’s a moment where I was like, “Oh my gosh.” But then-

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

I was a moment there when I gave you a note and you were going, “Oh, for fuck sakes. Really? She’s not happy?”

Brina Romanek:

But when I went for a walk and came back and watched it was like, “Yep, it made a big difference.” As stubborn as I was feeling in the moment.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

I think what was great about this mentorship program… We did a movie club at one point, watched movies and talked, and then I got a call from these producers that I knew and the filmmaker was stuck. They had an assembly, they just couldn’t do the story that they really wanted to do. The film was in trouble, would I cut it? And I’m at a stage in my career where I want to do other things. I don’t want to necessarily work seven days a week or five days a week on a project. And I said, “Look, I’ll story edit. I’ve got this young mentee, she’ll cut it and I’ll story edit it. And I promise you’ll love it.” And I gave you a call, Brina.

I wasn’t sure you were completely on board. I mean, I don’t know, you were very quiet.

Brina Romanek:

Well, I had another project that I was doing currently, but I really wanted to do it. And so I expressed that to you, there’s a bit of a scheduling conflict. And you said, “Well go talk to your parents.” So I got on the phone and I went upstairs because I was quarantining with my parents. And I told them about it and my mom goes, “Well you’re certainly going to work really hard, but it’ll be worth it.” So then I called you back and I said, “Okay.” And away we went. And I’m sure Michèle, you’ll probably attest to this too, but I’m curious to know, because the beginning was a little bumpy. We had to figure out how we were going to work together. And I’m curious to know from your perspective what your expectations were going in. Because I know that I had specific expectations, and it wasn’t necessarily quite like I thought it was going to be, in some ways. And so I’m curious to know if you had any expectations going in?

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Oh no, tell me yours first. What did you expect?

Brina Romanek:

Well, I think that when we started, I had in my brain that we were going to look at the material and we were going to talk about it and then I was going to go away and have to cut something and sort of prove to you that I could cut. And then we would look at it and discuss and go from there.

And instead, which I am so appreciative of, is you really took the time to first of all, say “When we start cutting, because I am teaching you a certain method of how I organize the project and how I cut. And I’m going to ask you to also follow that method so that I can show you the way that I work.” And it was very specific. Right from the beginning I went, “Okay, this is going to be a very detailed approach.” Which I’m very appreciative of.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Yeah, I’m not sure if I had a clear idea of what we were going to do, but I knew I was going to be very hands-on at the beginning. Because I had sold this to these producers and I thought, “Fuck, I hope this is going to work out. I hope I don’t end up working more than I have to.” Or who knows. I thought I knew you and I knew you were very talented and stuff, but I wasn’t completely convinced that I had done the right thing.

Well, you know, it’s that, as I said, you promised the moon in the beginning and hopefully you can deliver. But it worked out. Brina, I think you have enough confidence in who you are and you’re very open to trying things. It was bumpy in the beginning. Just for the audience to know, it was in the middle of Covid still, we shared a screen, we both had clones of material. You had your drive, I had my drive. Whatever we added in the day we would share, so we were always having the same timeline. And then the first thing you cut, I think I took it over right away, which was really bad. But I didn’t know how to explain. It’s like, “Oh shit, let me just show her and she’ll get it.”

And then because also I live in Prince Edward County and the internet is so slow, the lagging thing really was problematic. But we worked it out. We started sending quick times and I think at one point you even said to me, “Is this what’s going to happen all the time? Are you going to just take away my edits? Is this…” So I learned to back off. But also, you picked up very quickly. And after we worked really hard for the first act or so, for the first 20 minutes, then I was really hands-off. And then what we would do is we would talk about the scene in the morning, you would pull the selects, you would cut, call me at lunch if you were in trouble. I was out in the field doing, planting my flowers. And then by the last act I was really hands-off, right?

Brina Romanek:

Yeah. And I will say that, thinking about that, in terms of Buffy, one of the things that you’ve been talking about right now to me is that we’re taking the time right now to find the rhythm and to figure out what the rhythm is. And because we did the last film together and I experienced how it’s that slow turtle start and then you just get on going and you just go, and I don’t know if it comes across this way to you, but I feel like I have a more patience and understanding and “Okay, we have to be slow and deliberate right now and not to stress about the time and just to make sure that we’re finding it.”

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Right. Yeah, it’s always slower in the beginning. Always much slower in the beginning. And I think, for me as an editor, there’s a couple of things that’s exciting us about being a mentor. One, you are not just teaching the technical, but you have real-time experience of saying, “This is how you do it” because we’re working with the material together. And sharing that experience is completely different than just editing. For me, there was an excitement that all of a sudden, I’m doing something different with the work. I’m not just cutting.

And also, working with someone from the younger generation, you have a different sensibility than what I have. And as an older editor, you can easily get used to mining from the same pot that you’ve always, “Ooh yeah, I did this trick on this film. Let’s go back to this. Let’s go back to this.” With you, you challenge and you give me a different perspective. Because the language of film changes over time. There’s new shortcuts, there’s new ways of expressing things, there is new styles. And working with you has allowed me to be on my toes and not sit back and say, “Oh yeah, I did it all.” No, you challenge that. And I think that that’s great. And by the end, the director and producer stopped talking to me, right? After the wrap cut, that was it. I was out of the picture.

Brina Romanek:

With your flowers.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

With my flowers, yeah.

Brina Romanek:

That’s another thing which I think I’d love to have you chime in with me on, is my growth, in terms of learning from you about transitions, because that was probably my biggest learning curve. And one of the things that I’m still really focused on working on and getting better at is transitioning between scenes and sometimes even moments.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

And I think that with time you’ll feel more comfortable with that. But I think that, as an editor, and you’ve got a feature film, there is this feeling of wanting to reach the end. You want to get to the end, you’ve got the weight of the film on your shoulders, and transitions take time. You have to let it breathe. But there is this constant momentum to move forward because of “Oh my god, I’ve only cut two minutes in the last three days. Are you kidding me?” And I think that transitions, as I said, are separate. They’re like putting peaches together. You just sometimes have to undo things and let it sit. Let words reverberate onto other scenes.

So yeah, we talked a lot about that, using sound in transition. There was an important one in the film, just for the audience. It was a character-based film on alternative education. And we had three or four characters. And midway through filming, they too got caught into Covid like everyone else. And that transition was the hardest for you, right?

Brina Romanek:

Yeah, it was really hard. And I remember when I first started cutting it, I did this weird kind of fade out thing and I showed it to you. And you said, “You don’t have to stick to what the footage is giving you. You can throw something in there and kind of turn it on its head.” And you made these suggestions of sound effects that, if you were in this scene, you wouldn’t think that belonged. And I remember you first mentioned that I thought, “She’s crazy. What’s she talking about?” And it was this… What’s that book called? The Art of the Cut. And they talk about the fact that you’re kind of a dream state, so it’s almost real, but then you have the power to bring things into play that wouldn’t actually happen in real life. And that was for me the aha! moment of, “Oh, this is what that book means.”

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

That’s right. And so I think we deliberately build up one of the characters. Again, the film is about alternative education. And each of the characters, each of the kids from the school, had their challenges to overcome. And we deliberately– we decided to have one of the kids overcome their challenge, just meet their goal and just get to the point of transforming into the character he wanted to be. And for us, if you bring that up high and then when Covid hits, the whole world falls apart. And you needed to find a transition to help you do that, right?

Brina Romanek:

Yes.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

I watched the film over the break and one of the things popped into my head was just how appropriate of a film this is to tie into mentorship, because they talk so much about how everybody learns differently and you need to have a catered approach to each person. We all have different ways we learn and understand things. So in these mentor/mentee pairs, you’ve got a unique teaching situation or learning situation where you guys get to know each other as people and your communication styles and how you best learn. And from there, you can really see how it’s an enriching process.

Brina Romanek:

Yeah, and I would also say, to jump off that point you said Chris, about learning about each other. It was a nice way to learn about each other because there were so many discussions that came about up about “What were you like as a kid? What were things that affected you in school or things that impacted you in how you learned?” And it was a really great way to not only get to know Michèle as a teacher, but also to get to know her as a person.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Amazing. Well, it seems like a great time to maybe bring everybody back in. So we’ll have Jordan and Ricardo join us again. So to start this off with everybody, I just wanted to ask one question to each of you. And that question is, what does an effective mentorship mean to you? And Jordan, let’s start with you. What does an effective mentorship mean to you personally?

Jordan Kawai:

Well, I found it really interesting when Brina and Michèle were talking about part of their mentorship program, watching films together and dialoguing with that. And I think mentorship for me is being in dialogue with what moves you. And I find when you watch a film together, not when you’re just cutting, but when you’re– as an audience and editors as viewers as well, of what gets you excited. And I think so much of it as the process of watching a director and editor’s relationship. But when I was watching with Ricardo is just seeing that passion come out and then really focusing on that and making sure that that’s the center of everything you do, when you’re editing at every scene. So being in dialogue with what moves you, I would say is what mentorship means to me.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

And Michèle, how about for you?

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Wow…

Chris Mutton, CCE:

It’s an open-ended question, but…

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

It’s a hard one. First of all, the two people need to have a good relationship. I think that’s really important. It takes a lot from… You’re giving and taking on both sides, it’s not just a one-way street. You’re not just talking about yourself and saying, “Oh yeah, I did this, I did this.” No. I mean the idea is, Brina came in, what can I do to advance and help her in her career? And in bringing what I have learned and what people had given me, how do I give back?

And I think that that’s really, really important. And you have to be honest. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with your mentee. There are times when Brina was very frustrated and was having difficulty. And so you share your own fears, you share your own struggles. Because even today, you still have them. I mean, how many times do you get a new film and you go, “Okay, that’s it. They’re going to find out that I can’t do this anymore.” And to be able to listen. To listen to her, to her ideas, what she brings to the table. And not always try and lead and control the situation. I think that that’s really important because they’re there. They have a lot to offer as well. So I think it’s very much a two-way street.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, I like how you touched upon earlier, too, about learning from Brina and that the mentee has a lot to offer the mentor. And that’s maybe a common misconception about mentorship is that it’s a top-down approach and it’s somebody who’s, “I’m going to teach you X, Y, and Z.” But I think one thing that’s come across really obviously, in all the conversations we’ve had here, is that openness and honesty and it has to be a two-way conversation to make it work well. Brina, what does an effective mentorship mean to you?

Brina Romanek:

Well, first of all, I think both those answers are so great that it’s hard to keep coming up with things. Two things stick out for me. One is a safe space. Feeling like you have a safe space to make mistakes and to play. Because, end of the day, one of the most fun things about editing is that you get to play. And so if you have the space to do that, then it makes the whole experience better. And it probably makes your film better.

And the other thing that I would say is that having a mentor who can see what you’re capable of, even when you can’t, and so will sometimes push you to places that you don’t think you can go to is a very lucky thing to come across and I think makes the growth that much better. I know Michèle has certainly pushed me sometimes and I don’t think there’s any more pushing that can happen and then suddenly it’s like, wow. And we go somewhere completely different.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

That’s true.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

So I wasn’t too mean?

Brina Romanek:

No.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Amazing. And Ricardo, what does an effective mentorship mean to you?

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

I think everybody has said something very meaningful. For me, really, it’s a collaboration. Also, I would use one word is empathy and respect. And also knowing that you are working with a very particular part of our being, which is our fragility, our insecurity, our gift as artists. The fact that none of the scenes are absolute, but they’re all part of our humanity. I cannot be the mentor of someone who is competing with me, or I cannot be the collaborator as an editor, as a story editor, or as writer of a director that is competing.

It’s about complimenting. And I always said, “Doesn’t matter who had the idea. If the idea works, that’s what the story needs and we are happy about it.” And that’s one thing that I always share with Jordan, for example, and with other editors and directors that I am mentoring about, it has to be always a pleasurable and in collaboration. It cannot be about a clash of egos or a clash of my idea is better than your idea. There’s no such a thing. At the end of the day, the movie works or it doesn’t. And everybody else ego will banish it out of the screen. And that’s something that I love to be able to understand that the mentee really see in me someone that see this… We have to have the same kind of empathy and excitement about finding each other interesting, I would say.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Yeah, for sure. Do you guys have any questions for each other?

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

I have a question for Ricardo and Jordan. Jordan, I know you just– was the Surf Girl film the first feature or second feature that you cut? And if so, was Ricardo a mentor on it, a story editor for you? And how did that work?

Jordan Kawai:

Bangla Surf Girls was the second film that Ricardo mentored and story supervised for. The first one was a CBC doc channel piece called Stage: The Culinary Internship. And both instances were actually interesting because Ricardo brought me in for both. And both films were in a spot where they had edited a full rough cut and then they reached a point where they wanted to open it up and to reconstruct and reimagine the film.

So I was brought in for both those pieces and in that situation. The relationship with Ricardo is very much so, again, what I was talking about before, this idea of watching something as a viewer and then having a conversation about it. It was interesting because both those films, you’re able to watch a full rough cut and then have a conversation about what you got excited about and what just wasn’t holding tension. So that relationship, for that film, really was about reacting to something that was already present. And it was interesting because it kind of gave me a bit of a road map to stand on. And for a first feature to cut, it was also a blessing and curse because you were also trying to completely reimagine something, but at the same time, you also were reacting to something that was already done. And yeah. Ricardo, you have anything? What was it like for you in terms of that?

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

No. For me, Stage was a very interesting [inaudible 00:48:14] because I was approached by the directors and producer to edit the film and I said, “I’m busy, but I have the magic team for you.” Because for me, it was very important to– I knew that Jordan was ready to do a feature length documentary. But I also knew that not everybody was seeing Jordan as being ready, because that also happens. Sometimes you have an editor in waiting that is still a ghost because the producers that he’s working with don’t see him as someone that they want to give the chance.

And one thing that we can do, Michèle, me, and editors who are more established and they have done it, is that we can become that signature behind that opportunity. And I saw it as well, okay. And I remember saying, “Jordan, you have to tell me yes about this because this is something nice for you. And these directors will never hire you on your own because there is this layer of insecurity about who are– what have you done?” But the deal I have made is that you get me if you get him.

And that was an opportunity that for me was super important to do in that case, because I know Jordan will be able to do it. But I also knew that directors and producer will not be able to hire him. So I have to pitch Jordan to the producer, director. And that was a very powerful pitch and a very important pitch. I was also mentoring the director and the producer because for them was also, in some cases, first time experience of feature length business. And that way there were so many classic mistakes that were made on the first incarnation of the film. And what we were trying to do here also was we are not coming in to follow something that’s not working, but we are coming in to reimagine that story with the same footage. And that alone is a very powerful and complicated intervention that when we do it, we have to be able to have the room and the freedom to do that.

And that was a great collaboration because constantly, Jordan and me were talking about, “Okay, first is identifying what are those things that absolutely work from what is there before us and what is not working? What is problematic? What is actually a liability to their story?” And start doing this kind of casting the scenes that are in and the scenes they’re out. And then out of that, being left with the bones that we thought, “Okay, this could be the first element to build that story.” That alone will have been very difficult for a young editor to do, on his own or on her own, without having someone like Michèle or me or many other editors who can say, “Okay, let’s resurrect or reinvent this film together.” And how we are going to talk to the director and the producer about this, which are people who had spent perhaps two years working on the same, no working, failing story.

And they has been rejected by everything film festival. And the people are actually very tired about hearing about their story. But then you are coming and saying, “No, there is always a mañana.” That that’s what we did. And I feel very proud because ultimately, that was a dream for me, to be able to help Jordan to get there with a film that, by the time that we got into the other film, it was different. Because he has so much… He have learned to find his own strength much more than at that time, I think. Right, Jordan?

Jordan Kawai:

Well, the time, yeah. The timing was really interesting for me because as an assistant editor who, as you were saying before, I was getting really comfortable with doing the assist edit role. And a lot of that is some of the IT support. So I do get that. I was having that feeling that I was so hungry to work on something in a full creative capacity, but then it’s a dog chasing its tail. When you called me and said, “Oh, there’s an opportunity,” it’s just all of a sudden just trying to find that confidence. Am I actually ready to do that? And I think just by hearing your confidence in me, that definitely was the push. It’s interesting, when you get that opportunity, and I’m curious for you, Brina, is that something that “Hands down, for sure, a hundred percent I’m going to take,” or do you have that moment of consideration of, “Am I actually ready to take this on and will I deliver?” And I struggle with that. But Ricardo, you definitely helped me find that confidence.

Brina Romanek:

It’s very nice to hear someone else… It’s a kind of up here feeling that way because I think, I don’t know about you, Jordan, but I have had minimal contact with other people in my experience and age group who are assistant editing and moving into editing. Because usually I’m working with a team of a lot of people who are very experienced. Sometimes that second guessing is in the back of my brain. I’m going, “Okay, is this normal? Is this okay? Does everybody feel this way at one point or another?”

So in some ways it’s kind of nice to be confirmed that I’m not alone in that feeling. But to echo or answer your sentiments, both times that Michèle has come to me and said, “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking,” there has been that large inhale and going, “Okay, I think I can do it. I think I’m ready.” And I’m curious to know, in your process of working with Ricardo, and I know that Michèle knows this, that I have many days of feeling overwhelmed or I’m not quite sure if I have the chops. And so I’m curious to know if you have had those moments as well when working on both of your films.

Jordan Kawai:

Yeah, definitely. Imposter syndrome is real. I definitely feel that on all the projects at a certain point. But I also find that, in some ways, it’s because there’s this skill of editing, but there’s also just understanding the world that you’re entering. And I think that’s such a gift about editing is just every project is a whole new realm and world that you’re coming into. All this new research, all this new information, all these new contexts. And I think that I convinced myself that fish-out-of-water feeling is normal for every project. And I’ve started to really just embrace that.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

And who better to learn that from than your mentors, who have that feeling too, I’m sure. And to have that confidence check, the ability to check in with somebody, rather than being on your own and left to just to wonder and have some maybe fear come through your mind. But you guys both have someone very experienced to check in on you, which is fantastic.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

I have a question for Michèle and for Brina also about, in this relationship that you have as mentor, mentee and collaborators, Michèle also, how has been the experience of learning? Because sometime, a lot of what I do is also being there for the director as much as for the editor that I am mentoring. And sometime even for the director, the producer, and the editor in different capacities, sometime. But how have you been sharing with Brina that whole idea about how do we deal with this director or this situation or this other? What is your role as a editor? How much active or forceful you are? Or how do you stand as an editor? Because I mean, those things are not written on the wall.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

No, no. And those are very good questions, Ricardo. And I think, Brina, we’re learning this now with Buffy. We’re working on Buffy Sainte-Marie. It’s a big team. There’s way too many executive producers. There’s way too much pressure that this film is supposed to be fabulous. And so I want to make sure the scenes that Brina’s culling out right now are perfect. Are beyond perfect. Because the team is waiting, they’re waiting, and they’re just too nervous.

And so, I don’t know about you Ricardo, a lot of time, it’s just getting that team to calm down. And to say, “We know what we’re doing, we’ll get it done.” Brina, I don’t know, but is the amount of pressure I’ve been putting on you to make sure that, to keep cutting that scene, to make it that there’s no structural problems, there’s no pacing problems. As you know Ricardo, it’s a matter of trust. Can your team trust you because they’re going in blindly with you. You don’t have all the answers right now. And Brina doesn’t have. We’ll work it out. And I think on the first film, Brina, it was that first act had to be great, right? We’d show them scenes, but once that first act and they were like, ‘Oh, thank God. This is so good.” And they relaxed. You know that feeling.

Sometimes I work with directors and they’re new directors. I worked on one and we had barely 12 weeks to cut a feature. I’ll never do that again. No. It’s ridiculous. And you could do it on your own. I’m not following that kind of schedule. But I never worked with a director before and I said, “Well, we don’t have time to make a mistake and go, I’m going on the wrong path. You don’t have time.”

So I cut a scene, like a sizzle reel. I hate that term, but I cut one anyways, just to make sure we’re on the same page. But the director took over 10 days to look at it. You know, you give a Vimeo and you see, how come he hasn’t looked at it yet? What’s going on? And he actually admitted to me that he was afraid to look at it because he thought, “What if I didn’t like it?” Thank God he liked it because he would’ve been in trouble and I would’ve been in trouble. Because it’s, as you know, Ricardo, it’s a relationship with between the filmmaker and the editor. It’s like you’re married for a while and gaining that trust. And I think, Brina, we do a lot of that, how to gain the trust of the filmmaker. And it’s an important skill to learn.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

And it’s very delicate because sometime, at one scene I really feel that I always said we all have to embrace our insecurities, our creative panic, as an asset, not as an obstacle. Because we are human. And nobody has the formula of how to make the movie work. And you probably will agree with me, I cannot work with someone’s expectation because that does not give me any tools to make the movie better or worse. I can only work one step at a time with what feels right in front of us at the editing suite. So this idea that somebody is building a film outside the editing suite based on their own pretension, and then projecting that inside then editing suite, can create a lot of demoralizing around the creative process. And for us, it’s super important to protect that. It’s like, yeah, if you want to go to Sundance, that’s your own dream. Please leave it outside the door. I mean, come on.

But I love the idea of be able to share that with my mentees and say, “Yeah, you have the right to push and to exercise those things outside the creative…” That you create the space. Also, this idea that you created space, it’s not the office of the film, where people go to do production stuff. It’s your sanctuary. You are the boss. Yes. That is important because sometimes people don’t see it that way. And then you become an asset to their own world and it’s like, “No, no, no. This is my kingdom.”

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Yeah. I like that idea of how you have to protect that.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

I was one working in a production that was few very brilliant editors. And I came in and when I was the last one who came in and everybody was basically working with the window or with the door open, because the control freak executive producer liked to be going around looking at all and I went, ?oh no, that?s not me.? It was like a fish tank. I closed my door and it was such a shock in the work environment, because it was, “My God-

Chris Mutton, CCE:

How dare he?

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

And he was like, “Hey, he closed his door.” It’s like, “Yeah, I closed my door because this is my territory. You’re welcome to my editing suite. This is not a chorizo factory, it’s my creative space.” But it’s very interesting because I realize, okay, I am in a situation where there is a bully, but I was not hired to deal with that. I was hired to try to work on a story. And it was interesting because then I created a trend. All the editors said, “Okay, let’s cross the door.”

Chris Mutton, CCE:

I’m going to close the… You started it.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

And those are things that you have to share. And it’s also this idea of that I’m mentoring someone who said, “No, I’m preparing my demo reel and you know what I think about that.” And I’m going like, “You don’t have a demo reel as an editor.?

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Your films.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

Whole conversations about what are the trend that you are getting in that’s disrespecting our craft. And that’s important because when a producer asks you for something like that, you are not obligated to bend to that requirement. And people are still asking for demo reels.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

Yeah. Amazing. And in that case you just send them, “Nope, you want want to hire me, watch my film.”

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

And one day I said, “So you have not that many films on your back, but you also know how to talk. You are entitled to say, let’s talk about a story. Because that’s what I can offer you.”

Chris Mutton, CCE:

I’m afraid we’re going to have to wrap it up. This could go on forever. You guys are having an amazing conversation and I think everybody could agree that both of your mentor/mentee pairs are really excellent examples. I love all the conversation around the intangible skills that mentors can pass on to their mentees. Because there’s so much more to editing than just what’s on the timeline. So thank you to Jordan, Ricardo, Michèle, and Brina.

Michèle Hozer, CCE:

Thank you, Chris.

Brina Romanek:

Thank you.

Ricardo Acosta, CCE:

Thank you, Chris.

Chris Mutton, CCE:

You bet.

Jordan Kawai:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks so much for joining us today. And a big thanks goes out to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to the 2022 EditCon planning committee, Alison Dowler and Kim McTaggart, CCE. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music created by Chad Blain and Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE is proud to support Hire BIPOC. Hire BIPOC is the definitive and ubiquitous industry-wide roster of Canadian BIPOC creatives and crew working in screen-based industries. Check out HireBIPOC.ca to hire your next crew or create a profile and get hired.

Speaker 9:

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member, please visit our website, www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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The Editors Cut

Episode 074 – l'EditCon 2022: Remanier le scénario

The Editor's Cut: Episode 74: EditCon 2022: Flipping the Script
The Editor's Cut: Episode 74: EditCon 2022: Flipping the Script

Episode 074 - EditCon 2022: Flipping the Script

Today?s episode is part 2 of our 4 part series covering EditCon 2022 Brave New World.

Today?s panel is Flipping the Script – The age of streaming has fully arrived. We?ve experienced a boom of topnotch shows, but how do you set yourself apart in such a crowd? Whether it?s bucking the trend of antagonistic conflict to create the arc of TED LASSO; using comedy to punctuate the lives of non-binary characters in SORT OF, exploring familiar characters in new ways with WANDAVISION or reinvigorating period drama with the diverse world of BRIDGERTON, these shows prove that discarding past norms leads to success. Sit with the editors behind these phenomenal series as they discuss the ins and outs of their groundbreaking approaches to storytelling.

This episode is generously sponsored by JAM Post.

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The Editor?s Cut – Episode 074 – EditCon 2022: Flipping the Script

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Jam Post.

Omar Majeed:

Some of these words we use in television are so outdated in a weird way you know. It’s like a comedy-drama, but it’s like we think of comedy, our association is mainly the high comedy. We think of drama, you think of high stakes drama, right? Life is so often lived in the middle zones of those extremes. And then, you know, you add something high concept like WandaVision in there, and it feels like, oh, we got to have huge, big action, not scale things down to emotions of grief, right? So similarly for a character like Sabi, they’re queer, they’re marginalized, they’re racialized. These are labels that we tend to think of as having high stakes drama or outrageous comedy. And I think we were trying to kind of find what was more just the authentic truth.

Sarah Taylor:

Hello and welcome to the Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We would like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast, and that many of you may be listening to us from, are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where Indigenous Peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honor, respect and recognize these Nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions and the concerns that impact Indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action.

Today’s episode is part two of our four part series covering EditCon 2022 Brave New World. Today’s panel is flipping the script. The age of streaming has fully arrived. We’ve experienced a boom of top-notch shows. But how do you set yourself apart in such a crowd? Whether it’s bucking the trend of antagonistic conflict to create an arc of Ted Lasso, using comedy to punctuate the lives of non-binary characters in Sort Of, exploring familiar characters in new ways with WandaVision, or reinvigorating period drama with the diverse world of Bridgerton. These shows prove that discarding past norms leads to success. Sit with the editors behind these phenomenal series as they discuss the ins and outs of their groundbreaking approaches to storytelling.

Speaker 1:

And action. Action today, this is the editor’s cut, CCE podcast, exploring, exploring, exploring the art of picture editing.

Gillian Truster:

Hello everyone, I’m Gillian Truster. I’m your moderator for this panel Flipping the Script, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to chat with editors of some of the most critically acclaimed and popular shows on the planet. I would love to introduce our panelists today in the order in which you appear on my screen. We have Melissa McCoy who’s here to talk about Ted Lasso. We have Omar Majeed and Sam Thompson who are here to talk about Sort Of. We have Jim Flynn who’s going to be discussing Bridgerton. And we have Nona Khodai who’s here to talk about WandaVision. Welcome everyone.

 

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Thanks for having us.

Gillian Truster:

Yay, I’m very excited. So all of you have shows that there’s something very unique about them and we could fill a panel on each of your individual shows. So with our limited time, I’m going to focus my questions on what makes your shows unique and innovative, creative challenges and what you feel resonated with audiences. And then I’m going to leave time for a less structured section where all of you can ask each other questions and share your experiences. So with that, let’s get started. So Nona, let’s start with you on Wanda Vision. So you were nominated for two Emmys for this show. That is very exciting, congratulations.

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Thanks, in the same category, but yes.

Gillian Truster:

That is amazing. That is amazing. So before we dive into it, can you tell us what the premise of the show is for those watching who may not have had a chance to see it yet?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

It’s basically, well it’s an exploration on grief, actually. The show in the short term, basically. The reason the show is kind of unique is that it’s structured in a way that you think it’s about happy sitcoms, and then you reveal, as we reveal episode by episode, little things are a little odd. The character goes from decade to decade in sitcoms, and it’s her way of dealing with her grief over the years. And so instead of showing it in this traditional way of how we see grief, we see it in her love of sitcoms and how those sitcoms have helped her get through the grief as each person in her life has passed, basically.

 So we start in the fifties with an episode that’s similar to Dick Van Dyke, and we go decade by decade until we get into the present day. And then we reveal in a way, in the clip I’ll be showing, how she changes the world from present to the past into the sitcom world that she’s created to protect herself from grief. And then it’s based on the characters, Wanda Maximoff, who has powers being able to mind control people and move things with her mind and Vision, who is, who’s the lover of her life and is a Synthozoid, a robot essentially, but has human emotions. And she’s lost him in the last Avengers movie. He has passed away and this is her dealing with his death basically is the show. That’s the exploration of her grief over his death and all the deaths that she’s had to deal with. So that’s basically what the show is about.

Gillian Truster:

So exactly, your show, it’s the way that it’s told. That’s super, super innovative. So with that, let’s show your clip because I think, well why don’t you set up, the clip?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Basically goes through her life and it flashes back through what’s happened to her and where she has ended up today in the present, in her present day in the show. This witch, Agatha Harkness, basically is trying to open her up because she has this power within her that she doesn’t know why she has all this power. And so she’s basically Wanda’s walking her through her memories. It’s kind of like a Christmas Carol episode basically. So she’s walking her through all her memories and the clip is she’s found this letter, that vision has gone to this one location and we reveal why in a clip, basically why she’s gone because she basically… Well, I don’t want to give it away, but basically there’s a deed to a house that he’s bought in her name and their name and because it would’ve been this life that they would’ve lived together and yet they don’t get to live it. And so it’s the catalyst to what happens next, which is she creates this world to protect herself.

Gillian Truster:

So let’s roll that clip.

 

[clip plays]

Gillian Truster:

Thank you very much. That’s a great clip.

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Thank you.

Gillian Truster:

And I love how there’s so much information that’s conveyed nonverbally and I think that clip also is great that it gives people who haven’t seen the show a really good sense of actually what the show is. If somebody asked you what genre do you consider WandaVision? I legitimately think you could say all of them. I mean, it has drama, it has comedy, it has mystery, it has action, adventure, superhero. It has sci-fi, it has fantasy. But what do you consider it?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

I mean, it’s whatever, whoever’s watching it considers it. I think it’s such a show for everyone, hopefully. And you can’t put it in a… I mean it’s a limited series, so it’s its own thing. So there is no genre, I guess you would say in it. I think essentially it is like a drama and comedy, a dramedy. We have both elements. It could also be a multi-cam sitcom at times because we have laugh track and whatnot. I don’t know. I can’t… I don’t know what it is.

Gillian Truster:

Right, it’s it. It’s a bit of everything. It’s a bit of everything. So actually speaking of sitcoms, so the first few episodes starts in this sitcom world. Did you watch old sitcoms in order to emulate the style?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Yeah, I mean we knew from the start of signing on that we would have to emulate older sitcoms. So I was a big fan of I Love Lucy, so I know all of those episodes. So I just went and rewatched a lot of that. I was a big fan of Dick Van Dyke, so I went and started watching some of those. And it’s amazing how crisp that timing is and the pacing and how much they rehearsed, it looked like they rehearsed, to get that because it was all so fast-paced. And they would just stay in those wide shots and they would just banter back and forth. It’s pretty incredible. Bewitched, I watched a lot of Bewitched and Brady Bunch and Family Ties for the ’80s episode, Full House, and then Modern Family and The Office were our ’90s, 2000s episodes. So all of those decades, and I grew up with all those.

Gillian Truster:

So you’re familiar?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

I was familiar. I knew the timing, but it was good to refresh and go back, even Laverne and Shirley and Mary Tyler Moore for the main title sequences. I had to go, because we had to create those main title sequences too. And so it was a good way to look at all of those different sitcoms and what they did and how it evolved from the ’50s to the ’60s to the ’70s, especially style and music. Music was really hard to temp because if you go back and watch, they don’t really have scores right now. We can’t go and buy those scores and put them in. So it was a lot of library music that we found to sprinkle it in for temp until we had the composer come in and write to the show.

Gillian Truster:

So even though you were emulating those sitcoms, did you end up taking any liberties with that in order for them to work for a modern audience?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Absolutely. I mean I think at some point I had a little bit more pauses and whatnot and I tended to kind of squeeze in places just because we needed it to be paced-up for modern times and even cutting it a little cuttier than say the older sitcoms because they would just stay in those mediums for most of it. And I did do that, but sometimes you do have to just pace it up for time and so people won’t get bored, especially those early sitcoms because no one knew what was happening. And I think we were worried that no one would like the show because you’re like, what is the show? Why would people stick around and watch it? But I’m glad they did.

Gillian Truster:

Well actually, I mean that does bring up a couple of questions I have. When the show starts, the narrative is not immediately clear. So did you end up doing anything in editing to parcel out the information differently than maybe perhaps as scripted?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

I mean, a lot of it was scripted, I’ll say that. But yes, we did the end of 101, that was scripted, but we come out of frame and you see that someone’s watching the show and you’re like, what’s that? And then at the end of 102 and mainly the first two, mostly because we aired those together and they were originally going to air all three, but we needed time on the back end for VFX for the finale. So we needed that extra week to get all those VFX approved. And so instead of having all three air, and the end of two they added a bit of sound and Randall Park has a line at the end that you don’t know it’s Randall Park, but it’s him saying, “Wanda, Wanda, do you hear me?” And we added that at the very end of 102 so that it would entice audiences to come back for the next episode because we just didn’t have anything to come back to this mystery of what’s really going on.

You did a little bit with the Beekeeper coming up and staring at Wanda at the end of 102. You see all that bit. That was all done intentionally, but you just needed something extra there, I think, just to get the audience to come back for the next episode. And I think it worked. And then after the end of 103 with Monica Rambo getting thrown out of the Hex, definitely people came back for episode four, which is where we really get ya, I feel like. Four is the episode where people want to come back and watch and they’re like, okay, I get it. I get the show. But up until that point, I think it’s a bit of a mystery and it was, I think, a lot of audiences probably left because they were like, what is this? What am I watching?

Gillian Truster:

You wanted people to know that, oh not every episode is going to be a sitcom. That just wait, there is something that is going to come. And you just giving them those little tidbits just to let them know, just wait, patience.

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Just wait a second.

Gillian Truster:

Patience people patience and then it will, the mystery will unfold.

Nona Khodai, ACE:

It’ll pay off eventually. Exactly, yeah.

Gillian Truster:

Working on this show, how much did you need to know about the Marvel Universe?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

I mean, I went back and watched all the movies. I think most of what I needed to know is Wanda and Vision’s backstory. I needed to know that, how they met and what happened to her and her brother in Age of Ultron, Avengers Age of Ultron, that he had died. And just knowing her and his backstory, I think, was probably what I needed to know. But I did, I went and watched all of them and it was fun to go back and watch the whole catalog because I don’t think I had actually done that before I started the show. So it was just fun to just learn about the world and all the various different characters. And you just go everywhere. You go to a space, you go… It’s a universe of its own. It’s pretty fun.

Gillian Truster:

Now I’ve heard you say that this show was treated as if you were making a movie, not a TV series. So can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Well, the way that the shows are structured at Marvel, we have a director who’s the showrunner essentially. There is a writer, but we never dealt with the writer really. We would get notes through the director from the writer, but essentially the director was our leader and we took the show from production all the way to delivery. And usually on TV shows, you lock your show, you say goodbye, they do all the VFX, and then they deliver after. Like on The Boys I would lock shows and then they would spend another six to eight months working on VFX and then they would deliver the show. And I would never see them until the final mixed playback, which would be six to eight months later. And then I’d be like, whoa, look at all this, all these VFX that I had never seen before.

That’s not the way it works at Marvel. You’re there, you’re working with the VFX team, you’re working with the Sound Department, the Music Department, you’re giving your insight in all of it. You’re giving notes on all of it. You’re changing timing on shots based on VFX to the very end. And a lot of TV shows do that, but for the most part, being on very high genre shows, I haven’t had the privilege of doing that. And I don’t know about the other panelists here, but I had never experienced that in TV before. So it was refreshing to just be able to finish the show properly. And that’s what I mean by it feels like a feature.

Gillian Truster:

Right, it sounds like you’re until the end collaborating with a lot of different departments, right through the-

Nona Khodai, ACE:

Taking it right through to the end. Yeah, I mean we delivered the finale, I think, 15 days before it aired. And that was 15 because we just had no time, so. We were there to the very end. And I know working at Shonda and other places, they’ve done that or I’ve heard that too, that they take it to the very end too sometimes with shows, and I’m sure Jim could speak to that.

Gillian Truster:

That’s great. No, that sounds like a fantastic process, a fantastic way to work.

Nona Khodai, ACE:

It was a pleasure.

Gillian Truster:

So Melissa, let’s get into Ted Lasso.

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Okay.

Gillian Truster:

So you won an ACE award and earned an Emmy nomination for Ted Lasso. Yes, congratulations, that’s incredible.

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Thank you , yeah.

Gillian Truster:

So before we get into it, could you please give us the premise of the show for those who may not have a chance to see it?

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Well, it’s about an American football coach who goes over to England to coach soccer or football over in the UK. And he’s brought over by the team owner who’s acquired the team in a nasty divorce. And the reason she brings him over is not to take the team, basically. And so that’s kind of the setup. It’s very Major League, but from there it basically turns into a workplace comedy that also deals with the human condition and loss. Much like WandaVision, where it’s kind of hard to put in a box because I remember going through season one and getting things and thinking, okay, I’m getting a lot of sad episodes. Him and his wife go through a divorce, and Rebecca’s dealing with a lot of pain and shame. And Roy Kent is dealing with the end of his career and who is he going to be?

It’s all about the human condition really. And it wrapped in a workplace comedy with a little bit of sports mixed in. Yeah. So it’s more of a dramedy in that way. But for me at least, you just fall in love with this cast of characters that revolve around this world. And it’s not all, you know you have your team, you have your soccer players, you have the coaching staff who have their own world. You have the behind the scenes with Rebecca, and then she brings in Keeley who starts out as a… She’s a kind of model-star dating one of the soccer players. And then, or football players, I’ll say football, that’s what we kind of try to stay with the right vernacular, even though Americanized.

Anyways, it’s complicated. I feel like I’ll say soccer and I’m pissing off some people over here and I’ll say football and people are like, wait, what are you talking anyways, football. She was dating one of the football players and that turned into a love triangle. And so there’s just a lot of world blendings of this ragtag team of characters that are all going through some pretty big life stuff. But you still find the comedy in those moments.

Gillian Truster:

No, it is actually said that I was going to ask you about, because for awards you have to choose the category, but it’s not, and so it’s won all these awards in the comedy category, but it’s really, really not a straightforward comedy. So when you signed onto the show, did you have an idea of, oh, I’m on a comedy and this is how I’m going to cut it. Did your perception of it change over time when you got the footage?

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Yes. Yeah, so I signed on because I was working with Bill Lawrence, who’s the executive producer. So I just basically saw him developing with Jason, didn’t know the script or anything. I didn’t really even know the skit. It’s based on a skit, like an NBC promotional thing for when they brought football to America. The Olympics were coming up and it was done back in the day and it was just like a snappy, ridiculous comedy. But I knew that he was developing the script and I just basically was like, I want in on that because I love Jason from SNL. I’m a big SNL fan, and I just.

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

I love Jason from SNL. I’m a big SNL fan, and I just thought he was charming and a wonderful performer. I don’t know, just something in me, script unseen, I didn’t know anything about it. I was like, please, please, please, can I be on that? They let me do it. I got to do the pilot. I had signed on before even reading the pilot. And then when I got sent the pilot, I was reading it and I was like, okay, comedy, comedy, comedy. Then you get to the end and in the script, I remember they were like, this song plays, please play this song as you read this scene. I was like, okay. I remember I was in a coffee shop and I was like, okay, I brought up the song and I’m listening to it and reading the scene and I’m like, this feels really heavy.

It’s this conversation with his wife and you don’t hear the other side of it where you basically, oh, he’s come here for a different reason than Rebecca bringing him over. He’s got a reason to want to get away as well, which I really loved. Then when the footage started coming in, I was kind of by myself. Everybody was in London, I was in LA and we never had a tone meeting about it or anything like that. When it was coming in, I was like, “I am not cutting this 30 Rock.” It just didn’t feel like that. The performances didn’t feel like that. It felt like I want to land this moment. I definitely took my time in some places to build the relationships. Then of course did some snappy stuff. We like some more stylized stuff. There was a press conference which was kind of a nod to the original skit, so that was a little more frenetic and fast paced.

But as we were trying to figure out what the show was when we started cutting it, first Apple was like, “This needs to be 28 minutes.” and we were at 36 minutes or something. I think we got it down to 30 minutes in and around there, but everyone was like, it’s a comedy, it’s got to be fast. it just didn’t feel right. Talking to Jason, we had cut a scene that he was like, looking back now, he was like, nobody ever said, I wish these were shorter. He was like, I wish we would’ve kept that scene in it. So it was just little things. We made some concessions early on that we didn’t do in season two. As our times kind of grew, we didn’t ever get close to 30. I think our longest episode in season one was 34 minutes, and that was our shortest episode in season two.

It’s interesting to see how the world has evolved and Jason really leaning into his beliefs in the show and what he wants to say and what he wants the characters to be feeling and going through and giving them the space to do that has been a really enjoyable process to find it along the way and be like, this is what it is. And I think we all just fell in love with the people and wanted to spend some time with them and gave ourselves, luckily we’re on a platform that you don’t have to fill to the tee of a running time. 

Gillian Truster:

So then in terms of like you said originally it sounds like Apple was like, oh, this is a comedy. It’s a sitcom, it?s supposed to be this many minutes. You have to get it to be shorter. Then is it with season two that they allowed more leeway because they saw how successful it was? Is it that they really had to wait to see what the audience reaction was before they were like, “Oh, right, it is this, we could let it breathe.”

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Yeah, I think they found that over season one, it was just how much pilot, because we were a straight to series pickup, so it was like they didn’t work out anything with the pilot. They just got that and we were already moving along. I was working on episode three because I did every other episode, and so it was just like we were still going and finding it. Luckily season one, everything was open until the very end. We didn’t have to lock anything, so we didn’t have air dates. It was lovely. We were finding things later and being like, let’s go back and plant, oh, I see why the writers did this. We were letting moments land early that had we had to lock and move on and not have found what it was later. I think over the course of season one, Apple was like, “Oh, okay.”

It was only in that opening, what is this? It’s all that, trying to find the music and the tone. It was really tough. I was burning through all my soundtracks, just trying to find the right musical tone for this, because it’s just like, is it a comedy? But we have these kind of interpersonal moments that we’re trying to let land, and it feels more real in that moment and less slap sticky, which if you watch the original skits, it was all just like joke, joke, joke, joke and kind of outlandish. Even though there’s some of that, Ted Lasso you could send him off and he could be a complete caricature, but Jason grounds it in so much reality that that’s one of the things I love is he’s being silly, but then he gives a little wink to the audience of there’s something deeper of reason why I’m deflecting with the joke or trying to make you comfortable with the joke or open you up with this joke, especially with him and Rebecca and how he just keeps working at her and then they kind of reach a deeper relationship.

Well, everybody in that way, Keeley and Rebecca and Roy and Keeley and Jamie and Roy, they all kind of have this friction that then breaks down into a real relationship, which has been really enjoyable to kind of, I guess create in the editing room.

Gillian Truster:

You also brought a clip with you. Do you want to set that clip up?

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

Sure. This is from season two, episode 205 called Rainbow. It’s basically, it’s basically the rom communism episode where it’s a romantic comedy, but it’s not about love interest, it’s about the love of football and Roy Kent’s return to the pitch. It’s basically the romantic comedy of Roy and football and actually between him and Jason really, or Ted. Yes, and he’s retired after season one and he’s become a sports announcer and he thinks this is where he needs to be. He needs to be away from the pitch but our team captain Isaac is having a bad start of the season and Ted wants a big dog Roy to come in and kind of set him straight and get him on the right path to get out of his head. So Ted has kind of asked Roy to do this, and he has helped him.

One night he comes and he takes Isaac to his hometown football field and plays a scrappy pickup game with some of the guys there that are really, really good pickup game. He gets his love of the game back and Roy has kind of done that for him. Now it’s game day. Roy is on the show for the, it’s soccer Saturday I think it’s called. Yeah, starts there.

Gillian Truster:

Let’s roll the clip.

[clip plays]

Gillian Truster:

Thank you very much. That’s a great clip. Why did you select this clip?

Melissa McCoy, ACE:

For me, it was, when I think about Ted Lasso, it’s like, again, it’s not really about the football, it’s about what’s going on in these people’s lives. And that was such a turning point for him. There was a bunch of different ways you could cut that, but I chose to stay on him for longer and not cut around to all the things that were happening because he’s going through this decision moment. That’s basically what Ted Lasso is about, is these people going through these really real things and we have to cut it in a way that you are on that journey with him. When it starts out, it’s ratatat back and forth with the commentators. Then as you’re going and he’s seeing what’s happening, his change that he imparted onto Isaac and the team, when you come back out, you just stay with him and you see it on his face and you hear the announcers having the conversation in the background, but it’s not about that for him anymore.

He’s making his decision to not do this anymore. I remember I cut the scene basically how it is, and then when the director came in, she was like, “I think maybe we need to see the guys that they’re saying it’s lovely weather back there and all that stuff.” I was like, “Sure, I could cut it that way, but I did it this way because who cares about that at this point? Roy doesn’t care about that. Why would we go there?” She was like, “Yeah, I get that, I get that, but let’s see it that way.” I cut a version of it and then she was like, “Oh no, you’re right. Go back to how that was.” It was important to go through that process because that’s traditionally how you do it. Somebody’s talking, go to them. You should see it that way, sort of thing. Ultimately it was about his character and what he is going through.

Gillian Truster:

Thank you Melissa. Omar and Sam let’s get into it, because I think that your show does share some of the same challenges that Melissa experienced in terms of tone and finding the right tone and music for your show. You brought a trailer with you. Why don’t we roll that clip to set that up for the audience.

 

[clip plays]

Gillian Truster:

Thank you for showing that. That’s a great trailer. Sort Of has been on a lot of top 10 lists for 2021. It premiered at Tiff. It’s gotten a lot of acclaim. It’s a show that similarly to your main character or a lot of the characters actually don’t fit into any typical boxes. It doesn’t fit into boxes. Was it difficult for you to find the tone of this show? How did you find the tone of this show? What do you think the tone of this show is?

Omar Majeed:

We had to really discover the tone of the show and it was a process. I think it’s very fitting that actually Sam and I are both here on the panel. Because even though we had our individual episodes, especially in the beginning, there was a lot of back and forth on episodes that I was working on and that Sam was working on. We would share a lot and just sort of trade off ideas with Fab and Bilal who were the creators of the show to really define what wasn’t even, I think clear to all of us at first in terms of we kind of knew what the show wasn’t more than maybe what the show was, and we had to figure out a lot of things along the way. The character of Sabi is not a very usual character and that’s obviously something to be celebrated.

I think that presented unique challenges tonally. Melissa, like what you were saying, and I’m sure for you as well similar feelings about in this genre is supposed to be funny. I tend to feel like some of these words we use in television are so outdated in a weird way. It’s like it’s a comedy drama, but it’s like we think of comedy, our association is mainly the high comedy, the broad comedy. We think of drama, you think of high stakes drama and life is so often lived in the middle zones of those extremes. Then you play something high concept like WandaVision in there and it feels like, oh, we got to have huge big action, not scale things down to emotions of grief. Similarly for a character like Sabi, they’re queer, they’re marginalized, they’re racialized. These are labels that we tend to think of as having high stakes drama or outrageous comedy. I think we were trying to find what was more just the authentic truth of the character and that situation and also the characters around Sabi because they mattered just as much as Sabi did. What are your thoughts there, Sam?

Sam Thomson:

No, absolutely. I mean I totally agree with that. I think from the get go, it was really important from for Bilal and Fab to have this be a show that was about a non-binary or trans character that wasn’t about their body or about some of the other frequent sort of storylines that end up popping up about these types of characters on television and have it just be just more universal and about their humanity. There’s a line in the show that I think we come back through often, which is we’re all in transition and we’re all sort of constantly experience transition in our life and not every transition is the same or is it seen the same way in society. I think that was the core of the show is that we’re all in transition. I think for Sabi, that character, the show is about identity and just defining who you are and feeling comfortable in who you are.

It’s a journey that I think everybody can relate to. Then in terms of the process around that, I’ll echo, what Omar is saying about, repeating what Melissa was saying, I think it was hard to define how funny the show is going to be or how broad it’s going to be. I mean a lot of it was already on the page, but I think that was a huge part of the editing process was testing different directions and then seeing where we could come back to. Sometimes it feels like sometimes it feels like a little bit of a circle and sometimes you’re discovering new things along the way. I think just the fact that we could be experimental and that we had kind of the support to do that and the time to do that, but also be really collaborative like Omar was saying, just to lean on each other for new ideas. I think that was the biggest, I don’t know, the biggest takeaway I guess from the process in general.

Gillian Truster:

Yeah, I really want to get into the collaborative process on your show because I feel like, so you could say this show is about a queer, trans-feminine, non-binary, Pakistani Canadian Muslim, but it’s really not reducible to those descriptors. I think your show has really gone out of its way, just as you said, to do that. I had seen an interview between Bilal Baig and who plays Sabi and Amanda Cordner, who plays their best friend 7ven. Bilal said something like, they’re straddling all these identities, but it’s not the identity stuff that keeps them up at night. It’s like, are the kids okay? Am I letting my best friend down? Am I letting my mother down? Is the bar going to close? It’s just all this human stuff. It’s just about how people navigate the world. The show really is, it’s really trying, I mean there’s so many different people in the show and it’s really trying to find the authenticity. Everybody has depth down to the most minor characters. What was the collaboration process on your show to achieve that?

Sam Thomson:

Wow. I mean I think initially, Omar and I both knew Fab through different sort of origins. I think for us to get to know each other, a lot of it was maybe about sharing musical ideas or film ideas and things like that early on just to talk about tone because it’s like Omar brings his lived experience to the editing process and I have my own experience. And it’s like, I think again, to go back to the collaborative nature was just us having the freedom to be open-minded, to ask questions of each other and not assume that we know the answers and be comfortable with that. It was such a strange experience I think in so many ways.

I mean know, we don’t really want to get into the technical stuff too much, but we’re all sort of remote on this. It was sort of during the height of Covid and we’re just sort of trying to feel out what the show is and that’s a process and feel out each other. We were cutting while they were shooting and it was just a lot happening sort of all at once. We can speak to other sort of specifics like music and a few other things were very important in terms of that part of the process. I don’t know Omar if you wanted to say anything else just about the initial collaboration.

Omar Majeed:

I think that’s sort of the thing I would say the show’s, I really feel the show’s success owes a lot to the spirit of collaboration because I think this is a bit of a double-edged sword for me being somebody who kind of occasionally benefits from these diversity kind of initiatives. But the show did have real diversity in its, it worked weaved into its actual collaboration. The writer’s room was diverse. They were well represented in the edit suite in the sense that both Fab and Bilal were very actively involved in the edit. Then at the same time.

Omar Majeed:

Actively involved in the edit, and then at the same time, Sam and I are collaborating back and forth. And then there was other editors on the show. There’s Craig, who I didn’t get a chance to work with directly, but he as well, and we’re all sharing ideas and bringing our own experiences into things and discussing stuff. Even just to be able to raise a point, if I thought maybe there was something let’s say from a Pakistani angle that maybe let’s say rubbed me the wrong way, well, I wasn’t the only person speaking to that point. Bilal, they would put their opinion in. The writers had obviously, they had enough sort of lived experience there to speak to those points as well. The cast… It was all reflected in such a way that no one had to be the one person speaking to one specific experience, whether it was racialized, gender-fluid perspectives or even just the specifics of how you put a show together.

I mean, all of us had varying levels of experience coming into it, but I think there was a sense of like, okay, we’re trying to go for something tonally… I mean, I’ve heard the show described in some reviews as having a certain sort of gentleness, and we didn’t think of it that way, but it sort of hits as like, yeah, that sort of makes sense. We were I think consciously not trying to go for… Even though one of the characters in the show is in a coma in the hospital, it’s not like, “Oh my god,” or it’s not like laugh out loud pratfalls kind of comedy. I mean, we did have those experimentations here and there, mostly towards trying to make it more comedic, but I think it was always clear that, no, it sort of occupied a sort of middle zone here where the comedy isn’t like I-got-you-in-stitches, MacGruber kind of style comedy.

I’m speaking to my own sense of humor here. It’s more of the comedy grounded in the characters and the absurdity of certain situations. And I think we had to figure that out through a lot of real discussion where no one, I think, had to feel the burden of having to speak for one specific thing. It was real, genuine discussion on an artistic level, not just on the level of identity. So inside the show and outside the show, we touched on those issues, but it wasn’t those kinds of discussions, if that makes sense.

Gillian Truster:

Mm-hmm, fantastic, thank you. No, because I read an interview or an article about Bilal, and they were talking about the same thing that you’re mentioning, which is that it would have been very stressful for them to be the only non-binary person on the show, but what you had is real diversity, where you’re not relying on a single person to speak for an entire group of people, where there’s a spectrum within every group. There’s diversity within groups. And so I think part of the reason why you achieve such authenticity in the depth of your characters is, it sounds like, because of this collaborative process. That collaborative process is really the heart of your show.

Omar Majeed:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, even just one example comes to mind where I think one time, and I don’t know, I think in the end this didn’t even happen in the show, but just as an example of the kinds of things we would have, I was just talking with Fab about how to structure a scene, and then I was thinking about the music that’d be playing in the background in the scene between Sabi and their mother, and they’re playing music that their mother would enjoy. So I was trying to think, okay, what’s a Pakistani kind of piece that would work? And so I put a couple things in there, and Fabri liked it, but then I went and had a discussion with Bilal about it too, and then we got into this whole thread about what would Raffo have liked? How would she have grown up? And you know what I mean?

So it was an interesting… It’s one of those type of sidebar conversations you have that are very deep, that you go, okay, maybe it doesn’t even come into the final edit, but it was informative because we were sharing our own references. But it was like Bilal and I were sort of frequently trying to figure out what would be a good… And this was just for temp purposes, but we were trying to figure out what is the right tone. So tone was everything, I think, for us and trying to figure that out. And in terms of pacing, in terms of how to work with music, how to work with each other, and even how to fight back against certain boxes that maybe we were feeling pressured to conform to kind of echo some of what Melissa was talking about.

Gillian Truster:

Thank you. Thank you. So speaking of smaller moments and a warm, gentle show, so Bridgerton is not. So Jim, let’s get into Bridgerton a bit. So this series reached number one in 76 countries on Netflix, and it became the most watched series on Netflix ever at the time of its premier. So it is a monster hit, just a monster hit.

Jim Flynn, ACE:

A lot of people saw it, and it’s great.

Gillian Truster:

That must feel quite good, to have worked on something that just blows up like that. So a question I have before we get into sort of creative challenges is this. So Bridgeton is a Shondaland production. Shonda Rhimes is known for being a hitmaker. I mean, she really knows how to read the tea leaves. When you’re working on a Shondaland production, is working with Shonda Rhimes different than working with other producers? When you go into the show, does she say to everybody, “Okay, everyone, we are making a hit show, and this is what we need to do?” Or is she just like any other producer just trying to make the best show they can?

Jim Flynn, ACE:

Well, I mean I think all producers are different, but Shonda is different still. I’d never worked with Shonda before, but if she said at any point, “We’re going to go and make a hit, and here we go,” it wasn’t in my presence. But she does know how to do that, and her instincts are so attuned to how to construct a series for television better than anyone I’ve ever worked with by a lot. And she doesn’t even seem to spend any time sort of contemplating any ideas. She’s so direct, she’s so frank. She seems to know exactly what she wants all the time, and she makes sure that she gets it.

It’s a treat working with her. She’s a force of nature. She’s a little intimidating, and she’s very, very brief when she speaks to you or when she sends you notes, which at first blush you’re kind of like, whoa, she didn’t really like what I sent. But then over time you realize actually this is a great way to deal with her notes. She just tells you “This sucks. Take it out. Don’t use that. I don’t know why you used this take. We should do this.” And it’s really refreshing. It’s not couched in any sort of pleasantries. She doesn’t have the time.

Gillian Truster:

Right, she just gets right to the point, right to the heart of the matter.

Jim Flynn, ACE:

For sure.

Gillian Truster: