Catégories
Événements passés

EditCon 2024

EditCon 2024

EditCon 2024 in Review

Le CCE vient de conclure sa 7e édition de l’EditCon, avec trois jours formidables de tables rondes, de discussions en salles virtuelles et de réseautage avec plus de deux cents soixante-dix participant⋅es du Canada et de partout dans le monde. Nous avons tenu des événements dans quatre villes cette année : Toronto, Montréal, Edmonton et Vancouver.

Nous avons accueilli des monteur·euses de CANADA’S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE, HEY, VIKTOR!, LE PLONGEUR, FITTING IN, THE KING TIDE, MERCREDI, MOONSHINE, SHORESY, LE SALAUD DU HOCKEY et FAKES. Nous avons eu également une invitée spéciale qui a présenté une table ronde à propos de l’IA et de son impact en postproduction.

Lors de nos événements en personne, nous avons reçu, à Toronto, le monteur du documentaire TUER UN TIGRE, en nomination aux Oscars, nous avons rencontré Amélie Labrèche à Montréal, exploré le documentaire à Edmonton et le cinéma d’horreur à Vancouver!

L’EditCon ne serait pas ce qu’il est sans un bon vieux tirage, réalisé grâce aux dons de nos généreux commanditaires. Par la suite, les participant·es ont pu bavarder dans un salon de réseautage virtuel.

Vous n'avez pas pu être des nôtres?

Abonnez-vous à nos balados pour ne pas manquer les épisodes qui relaieront les conférences de l’EditCon 2024.

Présenté en anglais

Conférence en français

En exclusivité : balado

Barbie

BARBIE a été l’un des plus gros succès de l’été! Ne manquez pas ce balado en exclusivité le 1er janvier prochain : Sarah Taylor, CCE, s’entretiendra avec Nick Houy, ACE, au sujet de son expérience de travail sur un film ludique mettant en lumière ce personnage charmant et iconique qui existe depuis des décennies.

Nick Houy, ACENick Houy, ACE, est un monteur établi à New York. Avant de monter BARBIE, Houy a fait le montage des deux précédents films de Greta Gerwig nommés aux Oscars, LES QUATRE FILLES DU DOCTEUR MARCH et LADY BIRD, pour lequel il a reçu une nomination aux prix ACE en 2017. Houy a aussi remporté un prix Emmy en 2017 pour le montage de la minisérie THE NIGHT OF. Il a été en nomination aux prix Independent Spirit pour le montage d’ÉTÉ ‘95 en 2018 et en 2022, il a monté STUTZ, un documentaire produit par Netflix et acclamé par la critique.

Sarah Taylor, CCESarah Taylor, CCE, est une monteuse reconnue et primée qui a à cœur de faire entendre des voix sous-représentées grâce à son travail qui a été vu au TIFF, à Tribeca, Sundance, Hot Docs, et au festival de film ImagiNATIVE. Elle déploie son talent tant en documentaire, en séries télévisées qu’en longs et courts métrages, ce qui fait d’elle une force versatile en matière de mise en récit. En plus de son expertise en montage, elle anime les balados THE EDITOR’S CUT et BRAAAINS.

Les tables rondes (virtuel)

Canada’s Drag Race : que la meilleure gagne

Maquillage, mode et performances incroyables ne sont que quelques aspects de cette téléréalité de compétition. Ce qui fait en sorte que les auditoires de partout au monde sont à l’écoute, c’est l’exubérance des drag queens et un certain je-ne-sais-quoi qu’elles déploient dans l’émission. Qui vaincra son saboteur intérieur et surmontera tous les défis pour ravir le cœur des juges et remporter le titre tant convoité d’étoile montante de la drag au Canada? L’équipe de postproduction de l’émission, qui en est maintenant à sa cinquième saison, se joindra à nous pour une table ronde au cours de laquelle elle nous racontera comment se fait le travail sur cette émission éblouissante et hilarante. Shantay, vous ne voudrez pas quitter cette discussion!

Beth BiedermanBeth Biederman fait du montage depuis 17 ans au Canada, en Nouvelle-Zélande et en Australie, tant en documentaire qu’en téléréalité, en information et en émissions pour enfants. Peu importe le genre, iel cherche toujours à infuser humour et vérité dans chaque histoire. En dehors de la salle de montage, on peut voir Beth faire du vélo, danser ou s’exprimer sur des sujets aussi cruciaux que les bagels! Parmi ses projets, on compte CANADA'S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE, BONDI VET, THE PROJECT, GABY'S FARM, STYLED et MY RESTAURANT IN INDIA.

Porté par sa passion pour les histoires racontées en images, Dean évolue dans l’industrie du cinéma et de la télévision depuis plus de 20 ans en tant que monteur et réalisateur. Il a commencé sa carrière en créant des courts métrages expérimentaux, des films d’art et des vidéoclips. Il est ensuite arrivé dans le monde de la téléréalité en travaillant dans plusieurs genres : compétitions, documentaires criminels et docuséries. Dean a reçu plusieurs subventions et une nomination aux prix Écrans canadiens pour meilleur montage et il est toujours à la recherche du prochain défi en matière de récit en images.

Jonathan Dowler, CCEJonathan travaille dans l’industrie depuis 2001, tant en Australie qu’au Canada. Il a monté de tout, y compris des documentaires, de l’animation, des nouvelles sportives, mais il a développé une réelle expertise en téléréalité. Il a travaillé sur de nombreuses émissions à grand déploiement comme BIG BROTHER, CANADA’S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE, TOP CHEF CANADA, THE AMAZING RACE CANADA de même que LOVE ISLAND et LOVE ISLAND GAMES. Il a été en nomination 17 fois aux prix Écrans canadiens et 17 fois aux prix CCE et il a gagné 5 prix Écrans canadiens consécutifs et 5 prix CCE.

Lindsay RagoneLindsay Ragone est une monteuse basée à Toronto qui cumule plus de 20 années d’expérience. Elle a reçu deux nominations aux prix Écrans canadiens pour son travail sur CANADA’S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE et une nomination aux prix Emmy pour THE QUEST, une série hybride entre fiction et téléréalité sur Disney Plus. Parmi ses projets récents, on compte également VERRE LA VICTOIRE pour Netflix et ALL-ROUND CHAMPION pour BYU.

Avec son don pour la mise en récit et sa maîtrise des aspects techniques de la postproduction, Zoya Rezaie a commencé sa carrière en postproduction à l’ONF, où est née sa fascination pour le contenu factuel alors qu’elle a pu collaborer à divers documentaires. Zoya a ensuite élargi ses compétences en tant que monteuse de médias sociaux, où ses talents versatiles ont été vus plus de 50 millions de fois. Sa carrière a connu une douce transition vers le montage d’effets spéciaux quand elle a eu l’occasion de travailler sur des projets remarquables tels que DESCENDANTS 2, la troisième saison de FARGO et CATCHER WAS A SPY. Se découvrant un amour pour la téléréalité, Zoya est passé de monteuse junior sur CANADA’S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE à productrice au contenu. Elle est aussi productrice au contenu sur CANADA’S GOT TALENT, où elle se sert de son expertise approfondie en postproduction pour guider et soutenir les personnes talentueuses à l’écran.

Le meilleur de la comédie télévisée : Nominations aux prix CCE 2023

La comédie exige la maîtrise du rythme pour réussir à raconter une histoire, mais surtout pour faire rire le public. Nous irons mener notre enquête avec MERCREDI dans la comédie d’horreur du même nom, explorer les infortunes d’une famille dysfonctionnelle dans MOONSHINE, tenter de sauver une équipe de hockey médiocre avec SHORESY, ou bâtir une entreprise de fausses identités qui débouche sur de réelles conséquences dans FAKES. Cette année, nous avons invité les monteur·euses de ces émissions spectaculaires en nomination aux prix CCE 2023 qui nous parleront de l’art du montage en comédie. Peut-être qu’ils et elles auront une ou deux blagues à nous raconter…

Drew MacLeod Drew MacLeod est un monteur de Toronto dont le CV comporte plus de 40 épisodes de comédie télévisée, et ce n’est qu’un début. Avec des nominations aux prix CCE, GDR et Écrans canadiens, le travail de Drew laisse sa marque dans l’industrie depuis les tout débuts de sa carrière. Parmi ses plus récents accomplissements, on note le montage de l’ultime saison de LETTERKENNY pour Crave TV/Hulu et il monte présentement la troisième saison de SHORESY, LE SALAUD DU HOCKEY. On peut souvent voir Drew arborer un sourire chaleureux, une attitude amicale et une belle moustache.

Kimberlee McTaggart, CCE Kimberlee McTaggart, CCE, vit à Halifax, en Nouvelle-Écosse, et a collaboré avec certain·es des meilleur·es réalisateur·trices et producteur·trices au pays. Elle fait donc du télétravail depuis bien avant que ça devienne cool! Au cours de sa carrière d’une trentaine d’années, elle a monté de tout, depuis le long métrage documentaire jusqu’au vidéoclip. Depuis quelque temps, elle travaille exclusivement sur des séries de fiction, avec un penchant pour la comédie. Grâce à son travail, Kim a reçu plusieurs prix et nominations, dont un Gemini pour CALL ME FITZ et cinq nominations aux prix Écrans canadiens en comédie, drame et long métrage, la plus récente étant pour la série humoristique MOONSHINE.

Sabrina Pitre, CCESabrina Pitre, CCE, est une monteuse primée qui a un instinct naturel pour raconter des histoires dans une multitude de formats et de genres. Son dévouement envers son travail est infaillible et elle carbure aux défis créatifs que lui apporte chacun de ses projets. Armée d’un esprit avenant et coopératif, elle a forgé de nombreuses relations professionnelles. Elle travaille actuellement sur un film d’horreur indépendant, CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, et s’attaquera bientôt au plus récent épisode de la série de films DESTINATION ULTIME. En plus d’être monteuse, Sabrina mène aussi une carrière d’actrice de doublage en dessins animés. Dans ses temps libres, elle s’entraîne secrètement pour devenir championne olympique en curling.

Jay Prychidny, CCEJay Prychidny, CCE, est un producteur et un monteur maintes fois primé, ayant remporté notamment un prix Écran canadien deux années de suite, en 2017 et 2018, pour SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK et THE AMAZING RACE CANADA. Son travail en téléréalité comprend THE WEEK THE WOMEN WENT, TOP CHEF CANADA et CANADA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, pour lequel il a remporté un Gemini et un prix CCE en 2010 et en 2011. En tant que producteur sur SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK, LOST & FOUND: LE STUDIO, THE NEXT STEP: LE STUDIO et LE TRANSPERCENEIGE, il a supervisé le montage, le son, la musique et les effets spéciaux de chaque épisode. Il vient de terminer le montage de son premier long métrage, FRISSONS VI. Son plus récent projet est BÉTELGEUSE 2, sa deuxième collaboration avec Tim Burton. Il avait précédemment monté MERCREDI, pour lequel il a remporté un prix CCE en 2023.

Le cinéma canadien en 2023

Les films canadiens trouvent toujours leur place sur nos écrans grâce à des thèmes fascinants. FITTING IN touche à des notions sociétales en examinant la relation entre le corps et la féminité. HEY, VIKTOR! s’attaque à la quête de la célébrité et de la fortune qui se transforme en épopée menant à la découverte de soi. THE KING TIDE réfléchit à l’idée de communauté, au fondamentalisme et au rejet d’un monde plus vaste. Le heavy metal, la violence, la dépendance au jeu et une pile infinie de vaisselle sale tissent la toile de fond du PLONGEUR qui nous emmène avec lui sur le chemin cahoteux de la rédemption. Joignez-vous à une conversation avec les monteur·euses de ces films qui nous dévoileront comment ils et elles ont façonné ces histoires.

Maureen Grant, CCEMaureen Grant, CCE, est une monteuse de cinéma et de télévision primée, basée à Toronto. Elle a à cœur de contribuer à des projets qui changent et bouleversent la représentation à l’écran. Ses plus récents projets en long métrage sont FITTING IN (SXSW ‘23, TIFF ‘23) de la réalisatrice Molly McGlynn et THIS PLACE (TIFF ‘22) de la réalisatrice V.T. Nayani. Pour la télévision, elle a monté la troisième saison de EN QUELQUE SORTE, le long métrage STOLEN BY THEIR FATHER, qui a remporté un prix Écrans canadiens pour meilleur téléfilm, et la minisérie I HATE PEOPLE, PEOPLE HATE ME, qui a été présentée à Tribeca.

Isabelle Malenfant, CCEIsabelle Malenfant, CCE, est une monteuse talentueuse et passionnée basée à Montréal. Au fil des années, elle a travaillé sur bon nombre de films et de séries télévisées et s’est taillé une réputation enviable grâce à sa collaboration exceptionnelle avec Francis Leclerc et d’autres cinéastes reconnu·es comme Yves Simoneau, Louise Archambault, Quentin Dupieux, Olivier Asselin et Mélanie Charbonneau. Le talent d’Isabelle pour la mise en récit et son travail méticuleux met en valeur les performances des artistes à l’écran et lui a valu de nombreuses nominations, notamment aux prix Gémeaux, Jutra et Iris. Elle a aussi remporté deux prix CCE. Isabelle sert également sur le CA du CCE en tant que représentante du Québec.

Justin OakeyJustin Oakey est un réalisateur bilingue originaire de la campagne de Terre-Neuve, élevé à chasser, pêcher et à raconter des histoires. Ses courts métrages primés ont permis à ses visions atmosphériques de Terre-Neuve de voyager dans les festivals internationaux avant que son premier long métrage, RIVERHEAD, un film dramatique à microbudget sur les disputes de village, reçoive une nomination aux prix Écrans canadiens et soit acclamé dans nombre de festivals. A FIRE IN THE COLD SEASON, un film noir rural situé dans de petits villages éloignés, a aussi été nommé aux prix Écrans canadiens. Il a actuellement plusieurs longs métrages en développement, dont HANGASHORE, un thriller haletant sur la chasse aux phoques. Justin est aussi un monteur de cinéma et de télévision accompli et il a récemment monté THE KING TIDE, un drame fantastique acclamé par la critique, et BLOOD FOR DUST, un thriller très attendu.

Sarah Taylor, CCESarah Taylor, CCE, est une monteuse reconnue et primée qui a à cœur de faire entendre des voix sous-représentées grâce à son travail qui a été vu au TIFF, à Tribeca, Sundance, Hot Docs, et au festival de film ImagiNATIVE. Elle déploie son talent tant en documentaire, en séries télévisées qu’en longs et courts métrages, ce qui fait d’elle une force versatile en matière de mise en récit. En plus de son expertise en montage, elle anime les balados THE EDITOR’S CUT et BRAAAINS.

Chandler LevackChandler Levack vit à Toronto où elle a étudié le cinéma à l’Université de Toronto et la scénarisation au Canadian Film Centre. Elle a réalisé plusieurs vidéoclips, remportant deux nominations aux prix JUNO, et elle est critique de cinéma au Globe & Mail. En 2022, son premier long métrage, MANIAQUE DE FILMS, a été présenté au TIFF, a figuré au Top 10 des films canadiens et a remporté des prix à l’international. Elle travaille présentement à son deuxième long métrage, ANGLOPHONE, un portrait de la scène musicale montréalaise en 2011, avec Zapruder Films.

Art & IA: Les histoires de demain

Joignez-vous à Valentine Goddard pour sa présentation sur l’IA qui inclura de l’information au sujet :

• De l’utilisation de l’IA dans la postproduction, le montage et les flux de travail
• Des importantes implications sociales, économiques et légales que cela comporte
• Du contexte général autour de l’IA

Cette présentation se fera en anglais et en français.

Valentine Goddard

Avocate et artiste, Valentine Goddard est membre du Conseil consultatif canadien sur l'IA et experte de l'ONU en matière de politique et de gouvernance de l'IA. Valentine est la fondatrice et directrice exécutive d'AI Impact Alliance, une organisation interdisciplinaire qui intègre des approches basées sur l'art à l'étude des implications sociales de l'IA. Elle analyse les réglementations et les politiques émergentes en matière d'IA et conçoit des programmes qui relient l'engagement citoyen, la mobilisation des connaissances et l'innovation politique. Ses meilleures pratiques en matière de commissariat ont pour but de faciliter l'IA responsable. Elle est lauréate du Mozilla Creative Media Award et dirige la Coalition Art Impact AI, dont près de 2 000 signataires demandent d'être présents à la table de la réglementation générative de l'IA.

Événements en personne

Edmonton : Explorer le documentaire

Rejoignez-nous à Edmonton, en Alberta, pour un après-midi enrichissant au cours duquel des monteur·euses de documentaires nous livreront leurs conseils et leurs expériences. Explorez l’art de la mise en récit à travers la loupe du montage pour mieux comprendre le processus créatif de ces documentaires albertains captivants : THE LEBANESE BURGER MAFIA, SEND KELP, PUSH : CHASSÉS DES VILLES, BLIND AMBITION : THE WOP MAY STORY et ARTHUR ERICKSON’S DYDE HOUSE.

Ne manquez pas cette chance de prendre contact avec des professionnel·les de l’industrie et d’autres passionné·es de la communauté cinématographique de l’Alberta.

Krystal MossWith over 15 years of award-winning experience, Krystal strives to inspire, educate, and captivate her audiences through exceptional documentary editing. Born and raised in Edmonton, she developed a love for editing while studying Design & Motion Image at MacEwan University, and has since become a sought-after collaborator in the Alberta Film & TV industry. Her work has been featured on CBC, PBS, UnisTV, in film festivals and concert halls across Canada. Noteworthy projects include EQUUS: STORY OF THE HORSE, FRICK I LOVE NATURE, PUSH SEASON II and SEND KELP. In addition to being an editor, Krystal is francophone, a dancer, and mama.

Sarah Taylor, CCESarah Taylor, CCE, est une monteuse reconnue et primée qui a à cœur de faire entendre des voix sous-représentées grâce à son travail qui a été vu au TIFF, à Tribeca, Sundance, Hot Docs, et au festival de film ImagiNATIVE. Elle déploie son talent tant en documentaire, en séries télévisées qu’en longs et courts métrages, ce qui fait d’elle une force versatile en matière de mise en récit. En plus de son expertise en montage, elle anime les balados THE EDITOR’S CUT et BRAAAINS.

Weyme TeeterWeyme [way-mee] is an award winning, freelance video editor based in Edmonton, Alberta. Her range of experience includes corporate video, documentary, indie film and broadcast television projects. Weyme has been professionally editing since 2013 and has been part of several award-winning projects including: BLIND AMBITION: THE WOP MAY STORY (EIFF 2021), and was awarded Best Editor for an episode of the APTN docu-series RODEO NATION (AMPIA 2022) and the Storyhive short film ONE, ONE THOUSAND (AMPIA 2017). With her love of storytelling and digging for the truth, Weyme brings a fresh and unique voice to each project she works on.

Colin WaughColin Waugh is an Alberta based documentary filmmaker and editor. As part of the creative team at Sticks & Stones, his work shares the stories of mountains, prairies, and the people who live there. Colin’s previous projects have received a CSC Award (2019), CCE Award (2020), 8 AMPIA Rosie Awards – including Best Documentary Over 30 Minutes (2023), and nominations at the Banff World Media Festival (2018) and Webby Awards (2018 and 2020). Beyond commercial and documentary work, Colin teaches an intro to video production course at MacEwan University.

Guy Lavoie

Guy Lavallee is a music industry survivor, TV veteran, cat lover and award-winning documentary filmmaker.   His previous films include MAKING THE TOUR, GENERATION NEXT, RIDE ANOTHER DAY, A MATTER OF PRIDE and the Edmonton Film Prize winning FAMILY EVER AFTER.  He is currently in production on a feature length passion project music doc, GODS OF RADIO.  In addition to his filmmaking pursuits, Guy is a creative producer for Bell Media, feature film programmer for CIFF, and is lead programmer for the NorthwestFest Documentary Festival, Rainbow Visions Film Festival and NorthwestFEARFest Genre Film Festival. 

Montréal : Une conversation avec Amélie Labrèche

Ne manquez pas cette conversation avec Amélie Labrèche, une prolifique monteuse de Montréal dont la récente filmographie a été largement reconnue, tant au Québec qu’ailleurs dans le monde. Que ce soit avec les longs métrages comme NOÉMIE DIT OUI, RICHELIEU et TU PEUX VIVRE ÉTERNELLEMENT ou les courts métrages GABY LES COLLINES et CHAT MORT, elle collabore avec certains des cinéastes émergent·es les plus en vue et qui ont été remarqué·es dans les festivals à l’international. Elle est très en demande dans son domaine et son récent travail sur la série AVANT LE CRASH élargit son champ d’action. Nous plongerons dans l’univers de la personne qui se cache derrière toutes ces histoires.

Amélie Labrèche Amélie Labrèche est une monteure établie à Montréal. Elle a signé le montage de 13 longs-métrages de fiction, dont NADIA, BUTTERFLY de Pascal Plante, sélectionné au Festival de Cannes 2020, et divers documentaires, séries et courts-métrages. Reconnue pour son dévouement à chaque projet, les réalisateurs et producteurs apprécient sa sensibilité, son souci du détail, sa rapidité, son sens du rythme, sa rigueur et son point de vue sincère lui permettant de pousser l'œuvre à son apogée. Cinéphile, son désir est d'approfondir le processus créatif du montage et de contribuer à des œuvres profondes et innovantes par la puissance narrative et émotionnelle du montage cinématographique.

Xi FengXi Feng est une monteuse de cinéma sino-canadienne basée à Montréal. Ayant vécu en Chine, au Canada et en France, elle cultive un mélange unique de sensibilité culturelle et artistique. Feng a travaillé comme assistante-monteuse et monteuse sur plusieurs documentaires primés, tel que CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT - L'ÉCOLE DES CHAMPIONS, dont la première a été diffusée à Sundance en 2012, et le court métrage CLEBS, qui a reçu l'Ours de cristal et figuré dans la section Génération 14 de la Berlinale 2020. C’est aussi une monteuse diplômée du CFC 2019 et des Berlinale Talents 2020.

Toronto : Tuer un tigre: Mike Munn, CCE et Nisha Pahuja

La réalisatrice Nisha Pahuja et le monteur Mike Munn, CCE, nous parlent de leur expérience lors du montage de TUER UN TIGRE, un documentaire maintes fois primé. Le film raconte l’histoire d’un père indien qui demande courageusement justice pour sa fille, survivante d’une agression sexuelle. Le film plonge dans les dynamiques d’une famille, d’un petit village et d’un système de justice national, tout en touchant aux thèmes plus larges de la culture du viol, de la culpabilisation des victimes et du musellement des femmes.

Mike Munn, CCEMike has edited several award-winning scripted and documentary features, including STORIES WE TELL for director Sarah Polley, BATATA for Noura Kevorkian, winner of a 2023 Peabody Award, and TO KILL A TIGER for Nisha Pahuja, winner of the 2023 Canadian Screen and DGC Awards for best feature documentary and editing. As well, TO KILL A TIGER won the 2023 Canadian Cinema Editors award for documentary.

Films edited by Mike have played at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Telluride and Sundance, with 13 features accepted into TIFF. Sarah Polley?s STORIES WE TELL was short listed for the documentary Oscar as well as being voted in TIFF and CBC polls as one of the 10 best Canadian films of all time.

Nisha PahujaNisha Pahuja is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker based in Toronto. Her latest film, TO KILL A TIGER, had its world premiere at TIFF where it won the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film. Since then, it?s won 21 awards including Best Documentary Feature, Palm Springs International Film Festival and three Canadian Screen awards. The film grew out of a long career of addressing various human rights issues, notably violence against women in India. In 2015, she won the Amnesty International media award for Canadian journalism after making a short film about the Delhi bus gang rape for Global News. Pahuja?s other past credits include the multi-award-winning THE WORLD BEFORE HER, the series DIAMOND ROAD and BOLLYWOOD BOUND.

Nick Hector, CCE, BFE (mod)Nick Hector, CCE, BFE, is a Canadian Screen, HotDocs, Canadian Cinema Editors, Directors Guild of Canada, and Gemini Award-winning documentary film editor, producer, and professor. His research explores the possibilities of constructed narrative in observational documentary and actuality drama. Nick?s work has been included in the Criterion Collection and screened at most major international festivals, including the Berlinale, Sundance, and TIFF. He is perhaps best known for his work on the feature documentaries DYING AT GRACE, FORCE OF NATURE, SHARKWATER EXTINCTION, and PREY. Nick is an Associate Professor of film production at the University of Windsor?s School of Creative Arts.

Vancouver : De quoi avez-vous peur? Une exploration des films d'horreur, de suspense et de tension

Qu’est-ce qui rend un film effrayant? Qu’est-ce qui nous pousse à les regarder? Comment le montage influence et manipule notre expérience de l’horreur, du suspense et de la tension? Est-ce que monter un film d’horreur donne des cauchemars? Rejoignez-nous pour une discussion avec :

Jon Anctil, CCE (50 STATES OF FRIGHT, VAN HELSING, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES)
Cindy Au Yeung (JONAH, SHADOW OF THE ROUGAROU)
Graham Kew (SATAN WANTS YOU, L’ GE DE L’IA, PUNK)
Justin Li (THE TERROR, SNOWPIERCER, LUCKY HANK)
Trevor Mirosh (LE JOUR DES MORTS-VIVANTS, V FOR VENGEANCE, TRUE JUSTICE)
Nicole Ratcliffe, CCE (CREEPSHOW, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES, VIRGIN RIVER)

Cindy Au YeungCindy Au Yeung is a Vancouver-based editor with over seven years of experience in both scripted and documentary content. Even though she didn?t sleep well for weeks after watching Hereditary, she does enjoy horror films and thrillers. Her recent horror-related works include an independent sci-fi thriller 

JONAH, an APTN Lumi web-series SHADOW OF THE ROUGAROU, and a short film ITSY BITSY SPIDER. Cindy?s additional projects range from producing and editing stand-up comedy shows to her own documentary projects featuring Asian-Canadian musicians. Outside of work, Cindy serves as a Board of Director at the Vancouver Post Alliance and is the co-chair of the Diversity & Inclusion committee.

Justin LiJustin is a CCE award-winning film editor based in Vancouver with a diverse portfolio in film and TV, including contributions to shows like LUCKY HANK, DIRK GENTLY?S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY and THE TERROR all on AMC, and ANOTHER LIFE, the second season of SNOWPIERCER, and THAI CAVE RESCUE, all on Netflix. Currently immersed in the world of feature films, Justin is collaborating on the A24 project HERETIC with directing duo Scott Beck & Bryan Woods.

Jon Anctil, CCE

Jon is an award-winning editor based in Vancouver who?s found joy, creativity, and glory working across a wide range of genres and formats. A graduate of Capilano University?s School of Motion Picture Arts, Jon clawed his way up through the ranks of the editing department and has happily plopped himself in the Big Chair editing on shows like VAN HELSING, 50 STATES OF FRIGHT, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES, and FAKES.  

Graham KewGraham Kew crafts compelling and emotionally-driven documentaries. Selected credits include SATAN WANTS YOU, exploring the origins of the Satanic panic; WOMEN WHO ROCK, a tribute to iconic female musicians; and PUNK,a deep dive into the history of punk culture. His work extends to AGE OF AI, discovering the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, and I AM RICHARD PRYOR, a nuanced depiction of the iconic comedian. In SOMEONE LIKE ME, he wove together the story of 11 strangers uniting to help a gay youth escape life-threatening violence in Uganda. His CV’s most unsettling horror project is THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF VANCOUVER.

Nicole Ratcliffe, CCENicole est née et a grandi à Vancouver, où elle a complété le Foundation Film Program de la Vancouver Film School en 1997 avant de travailler aussitôt en postproduction en tant qu’assistante-monteuse pour une compagnie de production locale. Elle a débuté comme monteuse sur la série de science-fiction ANDROMEDA de Gene Roddenberry et elle travaille depuis en fiction sur des séries télévisées d’importance et des téléfilms américains et canadiens tels que LE FOU DE L’HÔTEL, TOI, MOI ET ELLE, ENQUÊTES CODÉES : SAN FRANCISCO, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES et, plus récemment, CREEPSHOW de même que la cinquième saison de VIRGIN RIVER pour Netflix.

Trevor Mirosh

Trevor Mirosh, ACE, is a Canadian born picture editor specializing in action and thriller films.  He has been creatively influenced by Thelma Schoomaker?s editing style in films like RAGING BULL and THE DEPARTED. He also has a fetish for monster-in-the-house films from watching JAWS and Jordan Peele/Guillermo del Toro films. Trevor had an auspicious start to his editing career being mentored by long-time film editor Dede Allen (BONNIE AND CLYDE, DOG DAY AFTERNOON and THE BREAKFAST CLUB). Whatever the project, Trevor relishes his role in shaping the final product.

Greg Ng, CCE (mod)Greg Ng, CCE, is a film and television editor based in Vancouver, B.C. and is a proud member of the Canadian Cinema Editors. Greg tries to maintain a balanced diet of both narrative and documentary editing, and periodically writes about himself in the third person. Some recent credits include LONGLEGS, BONES OF CROWS, and I?M JUST HERE FOR THE RIOT.

Salles de discussion (virtuel)

Qu’est-ce qu’une salle de discussion?

Animées par des professionnel.les de la postproduction, ces salles offrent l’occasion aux participant·es de se joindre à des discussions et de poser des questions sur des sujets spécifiques. Chaque session se tiendra l’une à la suite de l’autre, donc nul besoin de choisir! Vous pouvez participer à chacune d’entre elles si vous le désirez.

BARBIE: Nick Houy, ACE

Réécoutez le balado puis rejoignez Nick dans la salle de discussion pour poser toutes vos questions sur le montage de BARBIE!

Nick Houy, ACENick Houy, ACE, est un monteur établi à New York. Avant de monter BARBIE, Houy a fait le montage des deux précédents films de Greta Gerwig nommés aux Oscars, LES QUATRE FILLES DU DOCTEUR MARCH et LADY BIRD, pour lequel il a reçu une nomination aux prix ACE en 2017. Houy a aussi remporté un prix Emmy en 2017 pour le montage de la minisérie THE NIGHT OF. Il a été en nomination aux prix Independent Spirit pour le montage d’ÉTÉ ‘95 en 2018 et en 2022, il a monté STUTZ, un documentaire produit par Netflix et acclamé par la critique.

Un coup de pouce de mon agent·e

Vous en avez assez de vous battre en solo et vous êtes curieux au sujet du travail des agente·s? Ou peut-être y avez-vous déjà recours mais vous vous demandez comment en profiter pleinement? Comment trouver la bonne personne, quels sont les avantages et comment utiliser ces ressources?

Jane MacRae et Roderick Deogrades, CCE, seront là pour discuter des différents aspects de la représentation et des façons de bâtir une relation solide avec son agent·e.

Jane MacRaeJane avait 10 ans quand elle a débuté comme monteuse en branchant deux lecteurs VHS ensemble dans le but de supprimer les pauses publicitaires dans ses émissions de télé préférées. Depuis, elle a eu la chance de trouver des gens qui ont suffisamment cru en elle pour lui confier leurs propres projets, ce qui fait qu’elle a aujourd’hui 15 ans d’expérience à monter des longs métrages et des séries télévisées. Elle a reçu trois nominations aux prix CCE et deux aux prix Écrans canadiens pour meilleur montage et son travail a été présenté dans des festivals partout à travers le monde. Elle aime toucher à tous les genres et, le plus souvent, on peut la convaincre facilement de travailler quand elle devrait plutôt prendre congé.

Roderick Deogrades, CCERoderick fait du montage et du montage sonore depuis plus de vingt-cinq ans et il a reçu de nombreux prix pour son travail. Son expérience en longs métrages, en séries télévisées et en documentaires fait de lui un collaborateur très recherché dans l’industrie.

Côté cinéma, il est connu pour son travail sur JUSQU’AU BOUT, VICTORIA DAY et SEPT JOURS. Pour la télévision, il a monté THE EXPANSE, CHAPELWAITE, TEGAN ET SARA AU SECONDAIRE et HALO. Il a monté des documentaires salués par la critique comme 100 FILMS & A FUNERAL, THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE, DAVID ET MOI et SILAS.

En montage sonore, il a notamment travaillé sur NOUVELLE ESPÈCE, LA BATAILLE DE PASSCHENDAELE et SILENT HILL.

Être assistant·e-monteur·euse : tour d’horizon

Rejoignez les assistant·es-monteur·euses Victoria Cho et Adam van Boxmeer qui reviendront sur leur expérience de travail sur la saison 2 de la série Netflix GINNY & GEORGIA. Il sera question de leur collaboration et de leurs parcours en tant qu’assistant·e, de leur travail avec les mêmes monteur·euses mais sur des projets différents, du travail à distance ou en bureau et de leur impact dans la formation d’autres assistant·es.

Adam van BoxmeerAdam van Boxmeer travaille comme assistant depuis 6 ans dans différents formats, depuis des formats courts pour enfants en passant par des épisodes d’une heure jusqu'aux longs métrages. Il a débuté sa carrière chez Sinking Ship où il a été initié aux flux de travail lourdement chargés d’effets spéciaux sur leurs émissions comme ORGANISATION SUPER INSOLITE : UNITÉ MOBILE, LES DERNIERS RESCAPÉS et LE SECRET DE LA PLUME. Plus récemment, il a collaboré à GINNY ET GEORGIA et LE LAC, qu’il a complété en mars 2023.

Victoria ChoVictoria Cho est une assistante-monteuse en cinéma et télévision qui a une formation en littérature. Elle allie une attitude décontractée et une solide éthique professionnelle et elle adore la collaboration et le travail d’équipe. Elle se voue à raconter des histoires qui façonnent de nouvelles manières de voir le monde et l’appartenance. En 2022, elle a complété le programme de stage de la GCR Ontario en travaillant sur GINNY ET GEORGIA ainsi que MON PETIT CÔTÉ VAMPIRE. Plus récemment, elle a collaboré à ORPHAN BLACK: ECHOES et I HATE PEOPLE, PEOPLE HATE ME.

Parents in post (english)

Vous vous demandez comment font les parents en postprod pour conjuguer le travail et la vie familiale? Comment ils et elles font pour gérer les emplois du temps chargés au travail et à la maison, tout en comblant les attentes des collègues selon des horaires qui ne sont pas toujours compatibles avec la vie de famille? On ne peut pas tout faire, mais on fait de notre mieux!

Rejoignez Kathryn Dickson et Eugene Weis dans notre salle anglophone pour leur demander leurs secrets et astuces.

Eugene WeisEugene Weis est un monteur primé. Il maîtrise l’art de la mise en récit, ce qui lui a permis de façonner des films qui s’attaquent à d’importantes questions sociales (CATEGORY: WOMAN) ou qui dépeignent de prolifiques icônes de la pop (REVIVAL : L’AUTRE CONCERT LÉGENDAIRE DE 1969). Le travail d’Eugene a reçu plusieurs prix et reconnaissances, dont une nomination aux prix Écrans canadiens (WHO THE F**K IS ARTHUR FOGEL) et deux nominations aux prix CCE (HOWIE MANDEL: BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME et MÉTAMORPHOSE). Tout en touchant à une grande diversité de projets (OUR DANCE OF REVOLUTION), Eugene vise l’excellence sur chacun d’entre eux (DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME: THE JEFF WITTEK STORY) et il a à cœur de garder une approche objective dans ses mises en récit (PAIN WARRIORS). Son projet le plus récent est le film à paraître: BAM BAM, THE SISTER NANCY STORY.

Kathryn DicksonDepuis plus de 20 ans, Kathryn fait preuve de créativité et d’assiduité dans l’art de raconter des histoires et, en tant que superviseure en postproduction, elle démontre l’étendue de sa polyvalence en touchant tant à des productions factuelles, des téléréalités ou des documentaires, qu’ils soient expérientiels ou traditionnels, sans perdre la raison (ce qui reste à vérifier). Kathryn en est arrivée à la supervision de postprod après plusieurs années dans la salle de montage, à travailler sur toutes sortes de projets imaginables. Plus récemment, elle a supervisé la postproduction de FULLY AND COMPLETE, une série documentaire sur les Tragically Hip pour Amazon Prime, et elle assurera bientôt le même rôle sur BIG BROTHER CANADA, l’une des plus grosses et plus anciennes émissions de compétition au Canada.

Parents in post (French)

Vous vous demandez comment font les parents en postprod pour conjuguer le travail et la vie familiale? Comment ils et elles font pour gérer les emplois du temps chargés au travail et à la maison, tout en comblant les attentes des collègues selon des horaires qui ne sont pas toujours compatibles avec la vie de famille? On ne peut pas tout faire, mais on fait de notre mieux!

Rejoignez Catherine Legault et Arthur Tarnowski, CCE, dans notre salle francophone pour leur demander leurs secrets et astuces.

Arthur Tarnowski, CCE, ACEArthur Tarnowski, ACE, CCE, est un monteur prolifique et maintes fois primé qui a œuvré tant en films d’auteur qu’en comédies populaires, avec un penchant pour les films d’action. Il a collaboré à des films francophones et anglophones de tous les genres, dont les titres suivants : TESTAMENT, IRENA’S VOW, LES OISEAUX IVRES, BEST SELLERS, JUSQU’AU DÉCLIN, LE PROJET HUMMINGBIRD, LA CHUTE DE L’EMPIRE AMÉRICAIN, LE TROTSKI, ASSAUT EXTRÊME, CHUTE MORTELLE, WHITEWASH : L’HOMME QUE J’AI TUÉ et MENTEUR. Pour la télé, il a contribué à THE STICKY, 19-2, LES LIENS DU SANG, BEING HUMAN : LA CONFRÉRIE DE L’ÉTRANGE, BELLES FIÈRES ET MOHAWK, THE MOODYS et VIRAGE. Il a aussi créé plus de 150 bandes-annonces, dont celles des plus gros succès du box-office de son Québec natal.

Catherine LegaultCatherine Legault est une cinéaste et une monteuse documentaire primée, diplômée de l’Université Concordia en Film Production. Depuis une vingtaine d’années, elle signe le montage de nombreux films présentés internationalement dans les festivals, au cinéma et à la télévision. Ses collaborations incluent PilgrIMAGE, de Peter Wintonick et Mira Burt-Wintonick, Mort subite d’un homme-théâtre, de Jean-Claude Coulbois, Les manèges humains, de Martin Laroche, La démolition familiale, de Patrick Damien, Les lettres de ma mère, de Serge Giguère, et les films Rebels on Pointe et FANNY: The Right to Rock, de Bobbi Jo Hart. Récipiendaire de deux prix Gémeaux pour son travail de montage en série télé, elle reçoit le prix Iris du Meilleur Montage Documentaire au Gala Québec Cinéma pour La démolition familiale, en 2017. Elle est de nouveau nominée pour Les lettres de ma mère et Fanny : The Right to Rock. En 2019, Catherine réalise son premier long métrage documentaire, Sisters: Dream & Variations. Son film est récompensé aux IndieFEST Film Awards dans cinq catégories, dont le montage, et au Gala Québec Cinéma pour Meilleure Musique Originale Documentaire. Catherine est présentement en post-production de son prochain film, LARRY (they/them), qui sortira en 2024.

ART X AI: Valentine Goddard

Vous ne trouverez pas de réponses générées par l’IA dans cette salle de discussion! Rejoignez-y Valentine Goddard pour poser toutes vos questions sur le sujet de l’intelligence artificielle!

Valentine GoddardAvocate et artiste, Valentine Goddard est membre du Conseil consultatif canadien sur l'IA et experte de l'ONU en matière de politique et de gouvernance de l'IA. Valentine est la fondatrice et directrice exécutive d'AI Impact Alliance, une organisation interdisciplinaire qui intègre des approches basées sur l'art à l'étude des implications sociales de l'IA. Elle analyse les réglementations et les politiques émergentes en matière d'IA et conçoit des programmes qui relient l'engagement citoyen, la mobilisation des connaissances et l'innovation politique. Ses meilleures pratiques en matière de commissariat ont pour but de faciliter l'IA responsable. Elle est lauréate du Mozilla Creative Media Award et dirige la Coalition Art Impact AI, dont près de 2 000 signataires demandent d'être présents à la table de la réglementation générative de l'IA.

Billets de tirage des l'EditCon

Félicitations aux gagnant.e.s du tirage !

Merci à nos commanditaires

Platine

Or

Bronze

Merci à nos commanditaires

2024 Editcon Sponsor Banner

Remerciements à nos comités et bénévoles :

Comité des l'EditCon CCE

Mikaela Bodin

Xi Feng

Alejandro Tello

James Tracey

Adam van Boxmeer

Bénévole

Idriss Askour

Mac Dale

Jonathan Dowler, CCE

Scott Lalonde

Merci à toute l’équipe du CCE :

Responsable des opérations du CCE :

Alison Dowler

Spécialiste des communications du CCE :

Samantha Ling

À propos de l’EditCon

February 9-11, 2024

en ligne, Edmonton, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver

Catégories
Communiqué de presse

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 7e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2024

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 7e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2024

Toronto, 15 décembre 2023 – The Monteurs et monteuses de cinéma canadien (CCE) sont heureux et heureuses de présenter l' EditCon 2024, la septième conférence annuelle sur l’art du montage qui se tiendra du 9 au 11 février 2024La conférence comportera des événements virtuels de même qu’en présentiel à Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver et Edmonton. Nous sommes aussi enthousiastes à l’idée de présenter un épisode de notre balado exclusif à l’EditCon! Il sera lancé tout spécialement le 1er janvier et accessible à tous et toutes!

Une vague d’innovations est à nos portes et de vastes questions émergent dans notre industrie. Mais la technologie n’est rien sans les personnes derrière, qui racontent les histoires. L’industrie se transforme et les monteur·euses se situent à l’intersection de ces changements technologiques. Comment se frayer un chemin dans ce monde nouveau et excitant? Par quels moyens les monteur·euses peuvent s’assurer de raconter les meilleures histoires possibles? L’EditCon 2024 donnera la parole à certaines des voix les plus talentueuses de la profession, qui nous parleront des défis qu’elles doivent affronter.

Tout au long de cette fin de semaine, nous assisterons à des tables rondes sur le montage de comédie, de films sortis en salle et d’émissions de téléréalité, où des monteur·euses parmi les meilleur·es au pays livreront leur savoir et leur expérience. II y aura aussi une présentation sur l’intelligence artificielle (en anglais et en français)

En plus de tables rondes passionnantes et d’un balado, il y aura une série d’échanges en salles de discussion virtuelles de même qu’une riche programmation d’événements en personne. Nous aurons aussi des supers produits à faire tirer!

Parmi les invité·e·s, nous recevrons :

  • Beth Biederman – CANADA'S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE
  • Dean Davis – CANADA'S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE
  • Jonathan Dowler, CCE – CANADA'S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE
  • Valentine Goddard - ART & IA: LES HISTOIRES DE DEMAIN
  • Maureen Grant, CCE – FITTING IN
  • Nick Houy, ACE – BARBIE
  • Drew MacLeod – SHORESY, LE SALAUD DU HOCKEY
  • Isabelle Malenfant, CCE – LE PLONGEUR
  • Kimberlee McTaggart, CCE – MOONSHINE
  • Justin Oakey – THE KING TIDE
  • Sabrina Pitre, CCE – FAKES
  • Jay Prychidny, CCE – MERCREDI
  • Lindsay Ragone – CANADA'S DRAG RACE : QUE LA MEILLEURE GAGNE
  • Sarah Taylor, CCE – HEY, VIKTOR!

Les billets seront en vente à partir du 18 décembre 2023. 

2024 Editcon Sponsor Banner-01
Avec la participation du gouvernement du Canada.

Rediffusion de l'EditCon 2023

Vous avez manqué l’EditCon 2023? Nous allons rediffuser les 4 tables rondes de l’EditCon pour un temps limité! Procurez-vous un accès à ce contenu! Il sera disponible du vendredi le 2 juin au dimanche le 4 juin.

 

**Si vous avez déjà acheté un billet pour l’EditCon, vous aurez de nouveau accès à ces tables rondes. Nous allons vous envoyer les liens quand ils seront disponibles à partir du 2 juin.

**Finaliste aux Prix CCE 2023 Jay Prychidny, CCE

Le producteur et monteur Jay Prychidny, CCE, sera notre conférencier d’honneur cette année. Dans sa vaste expérience, Prychidny a monté certaines des télé-réalités les plus populaires au pays, dont AMAZING RACE CANADA. Il a supervisé la postproduction sur SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK et il a récemment monté la nouvelle série MERCREDI de même que FRISSONS 6, à paraître. Jay nous parlera de son processus de travail en montage et des leçons qu’il tire de sa dynamique carrière en postproduction.

L’organisation des images au cinéma se base sur ce qu’on peut qualifier de langage cinématographique. Mais c’est l’art subtil de combiner l’image et le son qui réussit à nous happer, en tant que spectateurs. Une mise en récit puissante sur les plans visuel et audio nous immerge dans un monde où les dragons sillonnent le ciel dans LA MAISON DU DRAGON. Elle donne vie à nos pires cauchemars issus du monde à l’envers dans STRANGER THINGS. Ne manquez pas cette occasion d’entendre les concepteur·trices sonores et les monteur·euses derrière ces productions exceptionnelles.

Polyvalent, le documentaire a le pouvoir d’explorer les questions sociales critiques, mais aussi de mettre en récit des histoires intimes à la première personne ou même de devenir un lieu d’expérimentation cinématographique. Cette année, nous invitons les monteur·euses de trois documentaires canadiens célébrés par la critique. Que ce soit la collaboration sensorielle et cinématographique d’une réalisatrice et d’une naturaliste sur l’île de Sable (GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE), le témoignage renversant de la Coloured Hockey League à propos de l’histoire méconnue du racisme dans le milieu du hockey (BLACK ICE) ou le récit bouleversant de la mort d’un grand frère dans BACK HOME, chacun de ces films est empli de bravoure et sublime à sa façon. 

**Simone Smith, CCE et Anthony Shim, récipiendaires d’un prix CSA 2023

** Sophie Leblond, Simone Smith, CCE et Christopher Donaldson, CCE, ACE, finalistes aux Prix CCE 2023

Dans un paysage médiatique qui favorise consommation rapide et uniformité, le cinéma canadien est devenu un vecteur pour une diversité d’histoires. RICEBOY SLEEPS dépeint les difficultés de l’immigration alors que nous partons à la recherche du prochain stade de l’évolution humaine dans LES CRIMES DU FUTUR. Avec VIKING, nous abordons une réflexion sur la condition humaine au moment de se lancer dans l’exploration de Mars. La nostalgie des clubs vidéos d’un adolescent cinéphile prend vie dans le film I LIKE MOVIES. Les monteur·euses de ces captivants films canadiens se joindront à nous pour une discussion en table ronde.

Rediffusion de l'EditCon 2023

This content is for members only.
Devenez membre
Already a member? Nom d?utilisateur
Catégories
The Editors Cut

Episode 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.

IATSE 2018 Sponsor Event logo

Écoutez maintenant

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.



Abonnez-vous là où vous écoutez vos balados

Que voulez-vous entendre sur L'art du montage?

Veuillez nous envoyer un courriel en mentionnant les sujets que vous aimeriez que nous abordions, ou les monteurs.euses dont vous aimeriez entendre parler, à :

Crédits

Un grand Merci à

Kim McTaggart, CCE

Alison Dowler

Shyra Joauin

Hosted and Produced by

Sarah Taylor

Design sonore du générique d'ouverture

Jane Tattersall

ADR Recording by

Andrea Rusch

Mixé et masterisé par

Tony Bao

Musique originale par

Chad Blain

Sponsor Narration by

Paul Winestock

Commandité par

IATSE 891

Catégories
Événements passés

l'EditCon 2023

l'EditCon 2023

Retour sur l’EditCon 2023

« Le montage c'est comme une passion...La découverte de tout un monde dans lequel on s'apprête à entrer. »
Arthur Tarnowski, ACE
Monteur, LES OISEAUX IVRES

Le CCE vient de conclure sa 6e édition de l’EditCon, avec trois jours formidables de tables rondes, de discussions en salles virtuelles et de réseautage avec plus de deux cents participant.es du Canada et de partout dans le monde. Et après deux ans d’EditCon exclusivement en ligne, cette édition a marqué le retour à des événements en personne à Toronto, Montréal et Vancouver.

Présentée sous le thème « En quête de sens », cette édition a accueilli le monteur de FRISSONS 6 et de MERCREDI pour notre événement d’ouverture de même que les équipes de montage et de son des séries irrésistibles que sont STRANGER THINGS et LA MAISON DU DRAGON.

D’autres tables rondes mettaient en vedette les monteur·euses de I LIKE MOVIES, LES CRIMES DU FUTUR, VIKING, RICEBOY SLEEPS et RACISME SUR LA GLACE (des films qui figuraient dans le Top 10 du TIFF!) de même que GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE et BACK HOME.

Pour nos événements en personne, nous avons accueilli l’équipe de FRAGGLE ROCK à Toronto, nous avons tenu une table ronde sur les femmes en postproduction à Vancouver et une autre sur le court métrage à Montréal.

L’EditCon ne serait pas ce qu’il est sans un bon vieux tirage, réalisé grâce aux dons de nos généreux commanditaires. Par la suite, les participant·es ont pu bavarder dans un salon de réseautage virtuel.

Vous n'avez pas pu être des nôtres?

Abonnez-vous à nos balados pour ne pas manquer les épisodes qui relaieront les conférences de l’EditCon 2023.

Présenté en anglais

Conférence en français

Les tables rondes (virtuel)

VENDREDI LE 24 FÉVRIER
« J'ai une réaction émotive devant les performances et j'essaie de monter rapidement avec mon intuition plutôt qu'avec ma tête. »
Michelle Szemberg, CCE
Michelle Szemberg, CCE
Monteuse, ALL MY PUNY SORROWS

Dans la salle de montage avec Jay Prychidny, CCE

Le producteur et monteur Jay Prychidny, CCE, sera notre conférencier d’honneur cette année. Dans sa vaste expérience, Prychidny a monté certaines des télé-réalités les plus populaires au pays, dont AMAZING RACE CANADA. Il a supervisé la postproduction sur SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK et il a récemment monté la nouvelle série MERCREDI de même que FRISSONS 6, à paraître. Jay nous parlera de son processus de travail en montage et des leçons qu’il tire de sa dynamique carrière en postproduction.

Jay Prychidny, CCE est un producteur et un monteur maintes fois primé, ayant remporté notamment un prix Écran canadien deux années de suite, en 2017 et 2018, pour SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK et pour THE AMAZING RACE CANADA. En tant que producteur sur SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK, LOST & FOUND : LE STUDIO, THE NEXT STEP : LE STUDIO et LE TRANSPERCENEIGE, il a supervisé le montage, le son, la musique et les effets spéciaux de chaque épisode. Son dernier projet était le montage de tous les épisodes de MERCREDI, la série Netflix de Tim Burton, ce qui lui a permis de travailler avec ce réalisateur légendaire sur les plateaux de tournage en Roumanie et au Royaume-Uni. Il travaille présentement au montage de son premier long métrage, FRISSONS 6 pour Paramount Pictures.

Cheryl a plus de 20 ans d’expérience en salle de montage partout dans le monde. Ses plus récents projets sont LE SEIGNEUR DES ANNEAUX : LES ANNEAUX DE POUVOIR pour Amazon, LES TOUCHÉES pour HBO, HANNA pour Amazon, LE TRANSPERCENEIGE pour TNT et THE ALIENIST : ANGEL OF DARKNESS. Précédemment, elle a été monteuse additionnelle sur plusieurs projets dont SOLO : UNE HISTOIRE DE STAR WARS de Ron Howard, ALIEN : COVENANT de Ridley Scott et SEUL SUR MARS.

Le son en lumière

L’organisation des images au cinéma se base sur ce qu’on peut qualifier de langage cinématographique. Mais c’est l’art subtil de combiner l’image et le son qui réussit à nous happer, en tant que spectateurs. Une mise en récit puissante sur les plans visuel et audio nous immerge dans un monde où les dragons sillonnent le ciel dans LA MAISON DU DRAGON. Elle donne vie à nos pires cauchemars issus du monde à l’envers dans STRANGER THINGS. Ne manquez pas cette occasion d’entendre les concepteur·trices sonores et les monteur·euses derrière ces productions exceptionnelles.

Paula Fairfield a grandi en Nouvelle-Écosse et elle est une monteuse son pour la télé, le cinéma, la publicité et pratiquement tout ce qui fait du bruit.. Elle travaille partout dans le monde et elle a remporté un prix Emmy. Elle nourrit une passion pour la conception sonore de grande envergure et son intérêt principal est de travailler avec des créateur·trices visionnaires, comme en témoignent son CV et sa formation artistique. Parmi ses projets récents, on note MOTHERLAND : FORT SALEM, SŒUR D’ARMES, LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, THEM : COVENANT, LES TOUCHÉES, PERDUS, LE TRÔNE DE FER et, plus récemment, LA MAISON DU DRAGON et LE SEIGNEUR DES ANNEAUX : LES ANNEAUX DE POUVOIR.

Craig Henighan est un superviseur de montage sonore, un concepteur sonore et un ingénieur du son de mixage. Il a été nommé aux Oscars en 2019 dans la catégorie meilleur montage sonore pour ROMA et il a remporté 6 Primetime Emmys pour STRANGER THINGS et pour LOVE, DEATH AND ROBOTS. Craig est originaire de Mississauga, Ontario et il est diplômé du Sheridan College en arts médiatiques. Il est membre de la Cinema Audio Society, des Motion Picture Sound Editors et de l’AMPAS. Certains des projets auxquels il a collaboré sont : L’HOMME LIBRE, LE CYGNE NOIR, DEADPOOL, LE BATMAN, TONNERRE SOUS LES TROPIQUES et THE WHALE.

Katie Halliday est une monteuse de son qui a remporté deux prix Emmy pour son travail sur l’émission STRANGER THINGS. Elle travaille aussi comme superviseure en montage sonore et elle a reçu une nomination cette année aux tout nouveaux prix Emmy destinés aux émissions pour enfants pour son travail de supervision et de conception sonore sur HÔTEL TRANSYLVANIA : TRANSFORMANIE. Après avoir amorcé sa carrière à Toronto, Canada, elle a vite gravi les échelons du monde du son à Hollywood. Elle a aussi travaillé avec des gens de la trempe de Guillermo del Toro et elle a remporté de nombreux prix au Canada avant de déménager à Los Angeles.

Siân Fever est une première assistante-monteuse, pré-monteuse et monteuse préviz qui cumule plus de 15 ans d’expérience dans l’industrie. Elle a travaillé sur THE CROWN, LES TOUCHÉES, DUMBO, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE : RÉPERCUSSIONS, TOMB RAIDER et WONDER WOMAN. Plus récemment, elle a collaboré à LA MAISON DU DRAGON. Siân a d’abord monté du contenu télévisuel, publicitaire et corporatif et elle a su démontrer son talent pour les programmes musicaux et multicam avant de se tourner vers les séries télé et les longs métrages de fiction. Siân a fondé la branche londonienne du Blue Collar Post Collective, un organisme à but non lucratif accessible qui soutient les talents émergents en postproduction, et elle a été invitée à parler de son métier dans divers événements tels que l’EditFilmFest et l’EditFest, la National Careers Week et des conférences de l’IBC et du NAB.

Sarah Taylor est une monteuse maintes fois primée, cumulant plus de vingt ans d’expérience. Elle a monté un large éventail de documentaires, d’émissions de télé et de courts et longs métrages. Sarah s’efforce de donner forme à des histoires uniques portées par des voix peu entendues. Elle est membre de la Guilde canadienne des réalisateurs (GCR) et elle anime le balado sur l’art du montage The Editor’s Cut et un autre portant sur la santé mentale, Braaains. Sarah a notamment collaboré aux projets suivants : FAST HORSE, JESSE JAMS, THE LAST BARON et THE LEBANESE BURGER MAFIA.

Nos voix, nos histoires

Dans un paysage médiatique qui favorise consommation rapide et uniformité, le cinéma canadien est devenu un vecteur pour une diversité d’histoires. RICEBOY SLEEPS dépeint les difficultés de l’immigration alors que nous partons à la recherche du prochain stade de l’évolution humaine dans LES CRIMES DU FUTUR. Avec VIKING, nous abordons une réflexion sur la condition humaine au moment de se lancer dans l’exploration de Mars. La nostalgie des clubs vidéos d’un adolescent cinéphile prend vie dans le film I LIKE MOVIES. Les monteur·euses de ces captivants films canadiens se joindront à nous pour une discussion en table ronde.

Comme monteur, Christopher Donaldson a touché à une grande variété de longs métrages de fiction et documentaire ainsi que de séries télévisées. Son projet le plus récent, WOMEN TALKING, marque sa deuxième collaboration avec la réalisatrice Sarah Polley. La première était TAKE THIS WALTZ. — UNE HISTOIRE D’AMOUR. Parmi ses plus récents longs métrages, on note LES CRIMES DU FUTUR de David Cronenberg et SOUVIENS-TOI d’Atom Egoyan. Pour la télévision, il a travaillé sur LA SERVANTE ÉCARLATE, REACHER, PENNY DREADFUL, THE KIDS IN THE HALL : DEATH COMES TO TOWN et SLINGS & ARROWS. Il a collaboré aux documentaires L’EAU, C’EST LA VIE de Kevin McMahon et à la trilogie du miroir d’Alan Zweig : VINYL, I, CURMUDGEON et LOVEABLE.

Simone Smith, CCE, est une monteuse primée. Elle a notamment collaboré aux films FIRECRACKERS, GOALIE, NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL et I LIKE MOVIES, qui a été présenté au TIFF en 2022. Pour la télévision, Simone a travaillé sur AGENCE ROMAN : MAISONS HANTÉES À VENDRE (SYFY), STRAYS (CBC) et la série Amazon Original LE LAC.

Anthony est né à Séoul, en Corée du Sud, avant d’immigrer à Vancouver, avec sa famille au début des années 90. Il a débuté sa carrière en tant qu’acteur quand sa mère l’a inscrit à un cours de théâtre au secondaire et peu après il cofondait une compagnie de théâtre dans laquelle il agissait comme directeur artistique tout en jouant, produisant et dirigeant divers projets. En 2019, Anthony écrivait et réalisait son premier long métrage, DAUGHTER, qui a été tourné avec un microbudget et l’aide de plusieurs de ses ami·es et pair·es de ses années de théâtre, tant devant que derrière la caméra.

Sophie Leblond est une monteuse basée à Montréal. Après ses études à Concordia, elle a monté plus de 40 films, tant des fictions que des documentaires réalisés par André Turpin, Denis Villeneuve, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, Stéphane Lafleur, André-Line Beauparlant, Kaveh Nabatian et Pedro Pires. Elle a obtenu un poste de professeure à l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) en décembre 2019 où elle enseigne le montage et elle réalise actuellement Lhasa, son premier long métrage documentaire. Eamonn O’Connor Sophie Leblond est une monteuse basée à Montréal. Après ses études à Concordia, elle a monté plus de 40 films, tant des fictions que des documentaires réalisés par André Turpin, Denis Villeneuve, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, Stéphane Lafleur, André-Line Beauparlant, Kaveh Nabatian et Pedro Pires. Elle a obtenu un poste de professeure à l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) en décembre 2019 où elle enseigne le montage et elle réalise actuellement Lhasa, son premier long métrage documentaire.

Lara Johnston est une monteuse basée à Toronto et qui a travaillé avec des cinéastes comme Patricia Rozema, Cary Fukunaga et Brian De Palma. Récemment, elle a monté des épisodes de la série télé THE CONSULTANT (MGM) et elle travaille présentement sur la minisérie FELLOW TRAVELERS (Freemantle/Showtime). Pour MOUTHPIECE, film de Patricia Rozema présenté au TIFF en 2018, elle a reçu une nomination aux prix Écrans canadiens et elle a remporté les prix CCE et GCR pour meilleur montage d’un long métrage. Elle détient un baccalauréat en cinéma de l’Université de Toronto et une maîtrise en production documentaire de l’Université Ryerson.

Sculpter la mémoire

Polyvalent, le documentaire a le pouvoir d’explorer les questions sociales critiques, mais aussi de mettre en récit des histoires intimes à la première personne ou même de devenir un lieu d’expérimentation cinématographique. Cette année, nous invitons les monteur·euses de trois documentaires canadiens célébrés par la critique. Que ce soit la collaboration sensorielle et cinématographique d’une réalisatrice et d’une naturaliste sur l’île de Sable (GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE), le témoignage renversant de la Coloured Hockey League à propos de l’histoire méconnue du racisme dans le milieu du hockey (BLACK ICE) ou le récit bouleversant de la mort d’un grand frère dans BACK HOME, chacun de ces films est empli de bravoure et sublime à sa façon.

Eamonn est un monteur, lecteur-analyste de scénarios et auteur de 20 ans d’expérience. Parmi ses projets récents, on compte BLACK ICE, qui a remporté le prix du choix du public au TIFF 2022. Il a aussi co-monté le film NAVALNY, qui s’est mérité le prix du public à Sundance en 2022, et il a été monteur additionnel sur FIRE OF LOVE, qui a décroché le prix du meilleur montage au même festival. En 2021 et 2022, Eamonn a gagné un prix CCE pour la série documentaire FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE et un autre pour la série TED BUNDY : CRAQUER POUR UN ASSASSIN, qui a été salué par la critique. En 2019, Eamonn a monté ONCE WERE BROTHERS, le film d’ouverture du festival international de films de Toronto en 2019.

Jacquelyn Mills est une cinéaste basée à Montréal. Son travail est immersif et sensoriel, explorant souvent une connexion intime et salutaire avec le monde naturel. Son documentaire primé IN THE WAVES a été présenté au festival Visions du réel. Son plus récent film, GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE, a été vu au Forum de la Berlinale où il a remporté trois prix, avant d’en gagner une douzaine d’autres à l’international, incluant le prix du meilleur long métrage canadien et celui pour le ou la meilleur·e réalisateur·trice émergent·e au festival Hot Docs. Jacquelyn est diplômée de l’institut Sundance et elle a été nommée aux prix IDA Documentary. Elle a aussi travaillé en tant que monteuse, conceptrice sonore et directrice photo sur plusieurs films reconnus internationalement.

Pablo Álvarez Mesa est un cinéaste, un caméraman et un monteur travaillant surtout dans le domaine du documentaire. Ses films ont été présentés dans de nombreux festivals internationaux tels que la Berlinale, l’IFFR, la Viennale, le festival Visions du réel ainsi qu’au Anthology Film Archives. Récemment, il a travaillé comme monteur sur GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE et comme caméraman sur FIRE OF LOVE. Il est actuellement un membre du comité de sélection du Camden International Film Festival (Camden, Maine) et un programmateur associé pour le MidBo (Bogota, Colombie). Álvarez Mesa détient un baccalauréat en cinéma de l’université Simon Fraser et une maîtrise en production cinématographique de l’université Concordia et il est membre de l’Académie canadienne du cinéma et de la télévision.

Milena Salazar est une réalisatrice et une monteuse de documentaires basée à Vancouver, C.-B. Parmi ses projets récents, on compte BACK HOME, VIOLET GAVE WILLINGLY, la production de l’ONF AUTOROUTE VERS LE PARADIS et SUE SADA WAS HERE, qui est dans la collection permanente de la Vancouver Art Gallery. En plus de son travail comme monteuse, Milena réalise actuellement son premier long métrage documentaire et œuvre comme conseillère à la programmation pour le festival de film documentaire DOXA.

Jenn Stromm est une réalisatrice, monteuse et animatrice de documentaire basée à Vancouver. Comme monteuse de longs métrages, elle a collaboré à BACK HOME de Nisha Platzer, qui a été présenté au VIFF, à STUFFED d’Erin Derham, qui a figuré dans le concours documentaire à SXSW, et au documentaire musical THE ROAD FORWARD de Marie Clements, qui a été présenté à Hot Docs et qui a reçu un prix Leo pour meilleur montage de long métrage documentaire. Elle réalise actuellement son premier long métrage documentaire portant sur l’artiste E.J. Hughes pour le réseau Knowledge.

Greg Ng, CCE, est un monteur de cinéma et de télévision basé à Vancouver, C.-B., et il est un fier membre du CCE. Greg essaie de maintenir un régime équilibré de montage de fiction et de documentaire et, à l’occasion, il écrit à son propre sujet à la troisième personne. Parmi ses projets récents, il compte la série TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES pour The CW, BONES OF CROWS pour CBC et THE GRIZZLIE TRUTH, qui a remporté le prix Special Presentations Audience au VIFF 2022.

Événements en personne

Samedi le 25 février
« Laisser les personnages vivre leurs émotions et leur donner l'espace nécessaire pour le faire. Ces personnages sont irrésistibles et nous voulions passer du temps avec eux. »
Melissa McCoy, ACE
Melissa McCoy, ACE
Monteuse, TED LASSO

Montréal: Le 3e écriture des courts

Le court métrage a souvent été un laboratoire pour l’avant-garde et l’expression cinématographique. Après l’écriture et la production, le montage devient souvent une troisième réécriture de l’œuvre. Venez entendre les prolifiques réalisateur·trices et monteur·euses Miryam Charles, Myriam Magassouba (AU CRÉPUSCULE), Aziz Zoromba et Omar Elhamy (SIMO) qui, dans une discussion modérée par Xi Feng, viendront nous raconter le parcours de ces deux films et d’autres réalisations importantes du même format.

Miryam Charles est une réalisatrice, productrice et directrice de la photographie d’origine haïtienne vivant à Montréal. Elle a produit plusieurs courts et longs métrages de fiction. Ses films ont été présentés dans divers festivals au Québec et à l’international. Son premier long métrage Cette maison a été présenté à la Berlinale , au AFI film festival en plus de faire partie du TIFF Top 10 en 2022. Elle a également lancé le court-métrage AU CRÉPUSCULE au festival de Locarno. En tant que productrice, elle travaille présentement à la post-production de la série APRÈS LE DÉLUGE.

Après une maîtrise en production cinématographique à l’université Concordia, Myriam Magassouba écrit et réalise LÀ OÙ JE SUIS, récipiendaire d’une douzaine d’honneurs dont le Jutra du meilleur court métrage. En parallèle à son travail de réalisation, elle monte plusieurs courts métrages et documentaires primés. En 2021, elle complète le montage de deux longs métrages de fiction, ARSENAULT ET FILS de Rafaël Ouellet et PAS D'CHICANE DANS MA CABANE de Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers. Elle travaille actuellement au montage de deux documentaires (LE PLEIN POTENTIEL d’Annie St-Pierre et FANTÔMES de Sophie Bédard-Marcotte) et entâme le montage du long métrage de fiction LE DERNIER REPAS de Maryse Legagneur.

Aziz Zoromba est un scénariste et réalisateur canadien d’origine égyptienne. Son travail en documentaire et en fiction explore les thèmes de l’identité culturelle, de l’assimilation et des traumatismes intergénérationnels. Il a étudié à l’école de cinéma Mel Hoppenheim et bénéficié du programme Sundance Ignite en 2019.

LOINTAIN : FARAWAY (2020), son premier court métrage documentaire, a été présenté dans plus d’une trentaine de festivals de films à travers le monde (Slamdance, Camerimage, RIDM). Aziz a aussi coproduit le court métrage documentaire PAS DE PLEURS À LA TABLE DU DÎNER (Carol Nguyen, 2019), gagnant de plus de 25 prix et sélectionné dans plus de 80 festivals dont le TIFF, SXSW et IDFA. Son premier court métrage de fiction, SIMO (2022), a remporté le prix du meilleur court métrage canadien au TIFF, a été présenté en première internationale à Sundance et fera sa première européenne dans la section Génération de la 73e Berlinale.

Omar est né et a grandi en Égypte avant de s’installer à Montréal en 2012. Il œuvre en tant que monteur et réalisateur et son travail a été vu dans des festivals de films comme la Berlinale, Sundance et ceux de Rotterdam et Toronto.

Xi Feng est une monteuse de cinéma sino-canadienne basée à Montréal. Ayant vécu en Chine, au Canada et en France, elle cultive un mélange unique de sensibilité culturelle et artistique. Feng a travaillé comme assistante-monteuse et monteuse sur plusieurs documentaires primés, tel que CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT - L'ÉCOLE DES CHAMPIONS, dont la première a été diffusée à Sundance en 2012, et le court métrage CLEBS, qui a reçu l'Ours de cristal et figuré dans la section Génération 14 de la Berlinale 2020. C’est aussi une monteuse diplômée du CFC 2019 et des Berlinale Talents 2020.

Toronto: Dans la caverne de Fraggle Rock

FRAGGLE ROCK, ce succès international des années 80 encore adoré à ce jour revient en force avec toujours plus de couleurs, d’énergie et de peluche! Joignez-vous à Paul Winestock, CCE et Duncan Christie, CCE, qui s’entretiendront avec Paul Ackerley à propos de leur expérience et de leur fonctionnement au cours du montage de cette nouvelle mouture d’une émission pour les jeunes et les jeunes de cœur.

Paul Winestock est un monteur qui a pu travailler sur des projets de tous les genres et sur plusieurs émissions dont il est très fier… mais rien n’arrive à la cheville du rêve ultime qui est de travailler avec la Henson Company, le rêve de toute une vie qui a enfin pu se réaliser grâce aux remarquables talents qui constituent l’équipe de FRAGGLE ROCK.

Duncan Christie est un monteur primé qui cumule 25 ans d’expérience. Il a commencé dans le domaine du documentaire pour ensuite passer à la comédie puis au drame et il est vite devenu réputé pour sa maîtrise de l’art de raconter une histoire, pour sa nature coopérative, son sens aigu du rythme et son désir constant d’élever le niveau de qualité.

Le travail de Duncan peut être vu sur des chaînes partout dans le monde et il a reçu un grand nombre de prix et de nominations incluant sa récente nomination aux Emmy pour son montage de FRAGGLE ROCK : L’AVENTURE CONTINUE sur Apple TV+. Il est aussi un musicien accompli, un réalisateur, un grand voyageur et un maître de la plongée sous-marine. Il habite actuellement à Toronto avec sa femme et son fils

Paul Ackerley travaille en tant que producteur et superviseur de postproduction depuis bien plus longtemps qu’il ne veut l’admettre. Il a touché à une très vaste gamme de projets, allant des séries dramatiques à gros budget aux longs métrages indépendants à microbudget. Travailler avec la compagnie Jim Henson constitue un moment phare de sa carrière.

Quand il n’est pas en train de superviser ses collègues, Paul écrit, fait de la photo et est même artiste en voix hors champ. Il est aussi un musicien en réhabilitation.

Vancouver: Femmes en postprod

Daria Ellerman, CCE (monteuse sur VIRGIN RIVER), Buket Biles (coordonnatrice de postproduction sur LE TRANSPERCENEIGE) et Lisa Pham Flowers (assistante-monteuse sur TOUJOURS LÀ POUR TOI) échangeront avec la modératrice Nicole Ratcliffe, CCE pour parler de leur travail et nous faire part de leur grande expérience.

Buket est une coordonnatrice et superviseure de postproduction turco-canadienne qui a de l’expérience en montage son et image. Après avoir travaillé quelques années en postproduction dans sa ville natale d’Istanbul, Turquie, elle s’est installée à Vancouver en 2013 et a travaillé depuis sur une multitude de projets en tant qu’assistante-monteuse, coordonnatrice et superviseure de postproduction En plus de son travail, Buket fait partie du CA de la Vancouver Post Alliance et dirige actuellement le comité des événements. Elle a à cœur de promouvoir l’engagement envers nos communautés locales de postproduction dans toute leur diversité.

Daria raconte des histoires depuis plus de deux décennies, tant en séries télévisées qu’en téléfilms, documentaires et longs métrages. Elle a notamment travaillé sur les longs métrages MEDITATION PARK et BIRDWATCHER, sur plusieurs téléfilms et des centaines d’heures de séries télévisées. La diversité des projets dans lesquels elle a été impliquée lui confère une grande versatilité, lui permettant d’œuvrer sur toutes les plateformes et dans tous les genres, y compris 140 épisodes de sitcom enregistrés devant public. Daria a reçu 10 nominations aux prix Leo, un prix du Southampton International Film Festival, un prix Gemini et un prix CCE et elle a reçu cinq prix Leo pour son travail sur les séries VIRGIN RIVER, MALIBU RESCUE : LA SÉRIE, TAKE TWO : ENQUÊTE EN DUO et LE MESSAGER DES TÉNÈBRES.

Lisa Pham Flowers est une cinéaste, scénariste et assistante-monteuse canadienne d’origine vietnamienne. Elle a étudié le cinéma à l’Université Simon Fraser et cumule plus de dix ans d’expérience en postproduction, contribuant à des projets de télévision et de cinéma (TOUJOURS LÀ POUR TOI, LOUDERMILK, TOI, MOI ET ELLE, NOUVEAU DÉPART, MAMAN DISPARUE : L'HISTOIRE VRAIE DE JENNIFER DULOS, DATE MY DAD et YUKON GOLD : L’OR À TOUT PRIX). Elle a touché à une vaste gamme de projets en cinéma indépendant en montant des courts métrages de fiction, des vidéoclips et des documentaires. Lisa termine présentement la coréalisation de son premier long métrage, un hybride entre le documentaire et le film d’action intitulé JIMBO, et l’écriture d’un recueil de nouvelles autobiographiques, GLASS ATTIC.

Nicole est née et a grandi à Vancouver, où elle a complété le Foundation Film Program de la Vancouver Film School en 1997 avant de travailler aussitôt en postproduction en tant qu’assistante-monteuse pour une compagnie de production locale. Elle a débuté comme monteuse sur la série de science-fiction ANDROMEDA de Gene Roddenberry et elle travaille depuis en fiction sur des séries télévisées d’importance et des téléfilms américains et canadiens tels que LE FOU DE L’HÔTEL, TOI, MOI ET ELLE, ENQUÊTES CODÉES : SAN FRANCISCO, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES et, plus récemment, CREEPSHOW de même que la cinquième saison de VIRGIN RIVER pour Netflix.

Salles de discussion (virtuel)

dimanche le 26 février

Qu’est-ce qu’une salle de discussion?

Ces espaces à capacité réduite sont les salles VIP de la conférence. Elles accueilleront des petits groupes qui pourront participer à des discussions animées par des professionnel.le.s de la postproduction dans un contexte plus intime. Les participant.e.s auront l’occasion d’interagir et de poser des questions. Dans chaque salle de discussion se tiendront deux séances consécutives de 30 minutes chacune, ce qui fait que vous n’aurez pas besoin de choisir entre deux discussions intéressantes!

Joignez-vous à Anna Catley et Holden Mohring pour une discussion sur le passage d’assistant·e à monteur·euse. Quels sont leurs trucs appris en tant qu’assistant·e à travailler sur des séries et des longs métrages comme MOUTHPIECE, DÉBORDEMENT, DINO DANA et LE SECRET DE LA PLUME? Comment trouver l’équilibre entre leur travail d’assistant·e-monteur·euse et leurs débuts en tant que monteur·euse et quels sont les éléments appris en tant qu’assistant·e qui les ont suivi·es jusque dans leur propre salle de montage pour THRIVING : A DISSOCIATED REVERIE et JANE?

Cheryl a plus de 20 ans d’expérience en salle de montage partout dans le monde. Ses plus récents projets sont LE SEIGNEUR DES ANNEAUX : LES ANNEAUX DE POUVOIR pour Amazon, LES TOUCHÉES pour HBO, HANNA pour Amazon, LE TRANSPERCENEIGE pour TNT et THE ALIENIST : ANGEL OF DARKNESS. Précédemment, elle a été monteuse additionnelle sur plusieurs projets dont SOLO : UNE HISTOIRE DE STAR WARS de Ron Howard, ALIEN : COVENANT de Ridley Scott et SEUL SUR MARS. Retrouvez Cheryl dans la salle de discussion pour en apprendre davantage sur les projets auxquels elle a contribué!

Le producteur et monteur Jay Prychidny, CCE, sera notre conférencier d’honneur cette année. Dans sa vaste expérience, Prychidny a monté certaines des télé-réalités les plus populaires au pays, dont AMAZING RACE CANADA. Il a supervisé la postproduction sur SANS ORIGINE : ORPHAN BLACK et il a récemment monté la nouvelle série MERCREDI de même que FRISSONS 6, à paraître. Retrouvez Jay dans la salle de discussion avec votre liste de questions!

Simone Smith, CCE, est une monteuse primée. Elle a notamment collaboré aux films FIRECRACKERS, GOALIE, NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL et I LIKE MOVIES, qui a été présenté au TIFF en 2022. Pour la télévision, Simone a travaillé sur AGENCE ROMAN : MAISONS HANTÉES À VENDRE (SYFY), STRAYS (CBC) et la série Amazon Original LE LAC.
Retrouvez Simone dans la salle de discussion pour discuter d’I LIKE MOVIES et des autres projets sur lesquels elle a travaillé!

Comme monteur, Christopher Donaldson a touché à une grande variété de longs métrages de fiction et documentaire ainsi que de séries télévisées. Son projet le plus récent, WOMEN TALKING, marque sa deuxième collaboration avec la réalisatrice Sarah Polley. Parmi ses plus récents longs métrages, on note LES CRIMES DU FUTUR de David Cronenberg et SOUVIENS-TOI d’Atom Egoyan. Retrouvez Chris dans la salle de discussion pour poser vos questions et découvrir ce qui l’occupe en ce moment!

Billets de tirage des l'EditCon

Félicitations aux gagnant.e.s du tirage !

Merci à nos commanditaires

Rolling Picture Company Logo Sponsor
IATSE 2018 Sponsor Event logo
DGC ontario sponsor logo
Black Magic Design Logo Sponsor
Boris FX Logo Sponsor
Adobe EditCon 2021 Sponsor
DGC National sponsor logo
Avec la participation du gouvernement du Canada.

Visitez la page de promotion de nos commanditaires.

Remerciements à nos comités et bénévoles :

Comité des l'EditCon CCE

Mikaela Bodin

Xi Feng

Craig Macintosh

Stephen Philipson, CCE

Alejandro Tello

Adam van Boxmeer

Bénévole

Jonathan Dowler, CCE

Jason Konoza

Sarah Taylor

James Tracey

Merci à toute l’équipe du CCE :

Responsable des opérations du CCE :

Alison Dowler

Spécialiste des communications du CCE :

Samantha Ling

À propos de l’EditCon

February 24-26, 2023

en ligne, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver

Catégories
Articles Membres Communiqué de presse

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 6e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2023

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 6e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2023

Toronto, 16 décembre 2022Les Monteurs et monteuses de cinéma canadien (CCE) sont heureux et heureuses de présenter l' l'EditCon 2023, la sixième conférence annuelle sur l’art du montage qui se tiendra du 24 au 26 février 2023. La conférence comportera des événements virtuels de même que des événements en présentiel à Toronto, Montréal et Vancouver.

l'EditCon 2023 se présente sous le thème suivant : En quête de sens.

En ces temps incertains, nous avons besoin de nous raconter pour trouver un sens dans toute cette folie. Ce n’est donc pas étonnant de constater qu’il y a eu une véritable explosion ces dernières années dans l’offre de contenu cinématographique et télévisuel. Avec toutes ces voix et ces opinions différentes qui se font concurrence pour capter notre attention, il peut être difficile de trouver ce qui est significatif pour nous parmi cette abondance.

Lors de l’EditCon 2023, nous allons accueillir certain·es des monteur·euses les plus en demande qui nous parleront du travail qui leur a été le plus significatif. Que ce soit en explorant la mémoire pour reconstruire une histoire vraie, en plongeant au cœur des sujets qui comptent le plus pour les Canadien·nes ou en élaborant de captivantes séquences à partir des émissions les plus regardées de 2022, les invité·es de cette année ont mis leur talent au service des histoires qui comptent vraiment pour nous. Du 24 au 26 février 2023, venez les entendre partager avec nous leurs conseils et leurs expériences dans la création de contenus qui nous aident à trouver un sens en cette période de folie.

En plus de tables rondes passionnantes présentant des invité·e·s de partout, il y aura une série d’échanges en salles de discussion virtuelles de même qu’une riche programmation d’événements en personne. Nous aurons aussi des super produits à faire tirer!

Parmi les invité·e·s, nous recevrons :

  • Christopher Donaldson, CCE, ACE – LES CRIMES DU FUTUR
  • Paula Fairfield – LA MAISON DU DRAGON
  • Siân Fever – LA MAISON DU DRAGON
  • Katie Halliday – STRANGER THINGS
  • Craig Henighan – STRANGER THINGS
  • Sophie Leblond – VIKING
  • Pablo Álvarez Mesa – GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE
  • Jacquelyn Mills – GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE
  • Eamon O'Connor - BLACK ICE
  • Jay Prychidny, CCE – FRISSONS 6
  • Milena Salazar – BACK HOME
  • Anthony Shim – RICEBOY SLEEPS
  • Simone Smith, CCE – I LIKE MOVIES
  • Jenn Stromm – BACK HOME

Les billets seront en vente à partir du 9 janvier 2023.

EditCon Banner 2023
Avec la participation du gouvernement du Canada.
Catégories
The Editors Cut

Episode 064: EditCon 2021: Breaking the Mold in Series TV

Episode 064 - EditCon 2021: Breaking the Mold in TV series

Episode 064 - EditCon 2021: Breaking the Mold in Series TV

This episode is part 6 of a 6 part series covering EditCon 2021 that took place virtually in February 2021.

We?re currently experiencing a watershed moment for increased representation in storytelling. This year we?ve seen a wealth of stories originating from the BIPOC, LGBTQ2S and female perspectives that not only tackle tough topics surrounding mental health, addiction, sexual assault and racial prejudice, but also present powerful aesthetic and editorial triumphs. The editors behind I May Destroy You, Euphoria, and #BlackAF join us to discuss their groundbreaking work.

 

Christine Armstrong is a picture editor splitting her time between Los Angeles and Toronto. She has edited a variety of feature films, television series, short films, web series and commercials. Armstrong?s recent work includes editing the series #BlackAF (Netflix), Barbelle (Amazon) and feature films Sugar Daddy, Mary Goes Round and The New Romantic which premiered at SXSW and won the Special Jury Recognition for Best First Feature. She is currently editing the series Rutherford Falls (NBCUniversal/Peacock) starring Ed Helms.

Shannon Baker Davis, ACE is an award-winning television and film editor. She began her career in unscripted television on iconic and Emmy-winning shows such as Top Chef and Project Runway. Her feature film credits include collaborations with directors Stella Meghie (The Weekend, The Photograph), and Ali LeRoi (The Obituary of Tunde Johnson). She has worked with creators Issa Rae (Insecure), Ava DuVernay (Queen Sugar), and Kenya Barris (Grownish, #BlackAF).

Julio C. Perez, IV, ACE lives and works in Los Angeles, editing in both narrative and documentary. His feature film work includes Chad Hartigan?s award-winning This is Martin Bonner, which screened at Sundance, and an ongoing collaboration with director David Robert Mitchell, editing The Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows, and Under the Silver Lake, which have all screened at Cannes. He has recently worked with director Sam Levinson on the series Euphoria, as well as the upcoming feature Malcolm and Marie.

Christian Sandino-Taylor is a film editor, and occasional screenwriter. His career started in the writers room and as editor on the surreal comedy series Campus. Recent work includes I May Destroy You, Sally4ever, Love Wedding Repeat, and the upcoming From Devil?s Breath, directed by Orlando von Einsiedel (Virunga/The White Helmets). In 2018 he wrote and edited To Wendy Who Kicked Me When I Said I Love You, an offbeat, romantic short film which premiered at the London Film Festival.

Shonna Foster is an award-winning director, storyteller, and producer. She received her BFA honors degree in Theatre from York University, where she studied in the Creative Ensemble Conservatory. She currently works as a freelance director, producer, and story consultant in film, television, and branded content, and is a long standing board member of BIPOC TV and Film.

Écoutez maintenant

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 064 – ?EditCon 2021: Breaking the Mold in Series TV?

[show open]

 Sarah Taylor:

Hello, and welcome to The Editor?s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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.

[show open]

Today’s episode is part six of our six-part series covering EditCon 2021 that took place in February of 2021, Breaking the Mold in Series TV.

We’re currently experiencing a watershed moment for increased representation in storytelling. This year, we’ve seen a wealth of stories originating from the BIPOC, LGBTQs plus, and female perspectives that not only tackle tough topics surrounding mental health, addiction, sexual assault, and racial prejudice, but also present powerful aesthetics and editorial triumphs.

The editors behind I May Destroy You, Euphoria, and Black As Fuck join us to discuss their groundbreaking work. This panel was moderated by award-winning director, storyteller, and producer, Shauna Foster.

Intro Voices:

And action. This is The Editors Cut, a CCE podcast exploring, exploring, exploring the art of picture editing.

Shauna Foster:

Let’s start by thanking the CCE and welcoming everybody to EditCon 2021. I just want to take the time to introduce our panelists.

So we have Christine Armstrong and Shannon Baker Davis from Black As Fuck, #blackAF; Christian Sandino-Taylor from I May Destroy You; and Julio C. Perez from Euphoria. So we are super lucky today to have you all here.

Thank you for being with us. I May Destroy You, #blackAF, Euphoria are shows that definitely line with today’s theme for discussion, which is Breaking The Mold in Series Television.

These are three shows that, through their story, through content, through structure, through editing, through the creative teams, definitely align with breaking molds. To break molds, we have to be daring.

We have to be daring. And there’s a lot of discourse out there where the creators behind these shows, they talk about these shows coming from deeply personal places and from personal experiences.

And I just want to quickly read a quote that Sam Levinson, who’s the creator of Euphoria, said. He said, “I just wrote myself as a teenager. I think those feelings and memories are still extremely accessible to me, so it’s not hard to reach.”

And this notion of feelings and memories being extremely accessible is applicable, I think, to all these shows and the way that shows lift off the screen in such an explicit way, and so with the notion in mind of being vulnerable and being daring, let’s start with the question, how do you all as editors manage the process in a way that supports the creator and the personal element of each story? And let’s start with Christine.

Christine Armstrong:

I think it’s just being able to create a creative space. My favorite times in the edit suite, in the edit room, is when the showrunner is just having fun and just in the creative juices.

And I’m able to create that for them, and kind of when they have different ideas and everything, just kind of playing in the sandbox, I think, is the best way to kind of support them because this is all about being creative, and it’s a collaborative process. And even creating that space in the edit suite, I think, is the best way to support.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you. Julio.

Julio C. Perez:

So speaking of vulnerability, that’s how I feel right now, very vulnerable. But I think for me, I mean, there’s a lot of different approaches, I think, to this.

But for me, it’s sort of starting with the foundation of sort of the philosophy of what kind of editor that I’d like to be, and when you’re, one, interested in things that are tonally complicated and intricate, disturbing sometimes, emotional, and then also being very interested in working with directors of vision and conviction… And then for me as an editor, to do everything with my skillset and everything within my powers as an editor to help hone and possibly even enhance that vision, do everything I can to get it out in the world at its optimal state. And I care about what the director and/or showrunner wants to say, and I desperately want to help bring that out into the world, I guess.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you, Julio.

Julio C. Perez:

Thank you.

Shauna Foster:

Christian.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just sort of, I suppose, echoing what Christine and Julio have already said, I mean, it’s all about the edit suite, such as we all know and I’m sure the audience who are watching.

It’s a sort of priest’s hold, isn’t it? It’s a place of trust.

There’s two of you, and they’re getting to know each other. I mean, I think a big thing is, especially on these three shows where you have these very powerful voices and distinct voices, you want to get to know the people you’re working with, right?

I mean, in order to sort of please them and challenge them at times and surprise them, you have to get to know them. So I think, as Christine was saying about playing, I was saying to a lot of people, like Michaela, for example, is such a great person to talk to.

She’ll come in, and you’ll start talking, and then 10 minutes later, you’re talking about your divorced parents. And you sort of build on these things, and you start to get to know each other.

And I think our job as editors a lot of the time is to get to know our directors or whoever the creative force is behind the projects we’re working on, so not psychoanalyze them but understand them and be sympathetic to them. And then we know we can be the best creative partner we can be for them.

But yeah, play and trust is, I suppose, the big thing. As soon as you have creative trust with each other, then you can go anywhere. And yeah?

Shauna Foster:

And Shannon.

Shannon Baker:

I think everything that’s been said, of course, I agree with. I live those themes all the time.

I think something that hasn’t been said is that I think directors and producer writers expect you to bring yourself to the project so that the part of you that is triggered or the part of you that questions a character’s motivation, all of those things come into the edit and give what you’re doing so many layers, because if you are not bringing the real world and your experiences to it, it becomes kind of blank.

And like Christian said, you get into it when you have these conversations, and your producer or your director is sitting on the couch. And they’re tired, and they’ve been with it for so long, and I think they expect you to bring something to it that they maybe haven’t heard or haven’t thought of, and I always aim to be that sort of editor.

I don’t want to just push buttons or blankly just cut the script together. That’s just not the kind of person that I am.

Shauna Foster:

Since I have you on, Shannon, I’m going to go around again with this question. Do you get to do the first pass?

Shannon Baker:

Yes.

Shauna Foster:

Is the process you get to do the first pass and then they come in, or are they with you?

Shannon Baker:

Normally, for the television shows, you get to do an editor’s cut. That’s part of bringing your ideas to it.

Some of that stuff may get vetoed, and it goes through many, many iterations, but it’s always a feather in your cap when a scene you cut exactly the way you cut it ends up in the final product.

Sometimes, you’re like, “Oh, I keyed in. That particular day, I keyed into something.”

And you’re always looking for that high, but yeah, you get to do a first pass that is yours. And a lot of times, some of the best editors that have mentored me always say, “That’s your pass.

“That’s your pass. Do what you want to do to it. Stay within the tone of the overall series, but it is yours,” because it might not be yours after you release to the director [crosstalk 00:10:06] no longer.

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah.

Shauna Foster:

Is that a similar experience for everybody in terms of doing that first pass?

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

In the UK, I mean, I don’t know if maybe I’m wrong about this in general, but my experience has been… Maybe we have less time than you guys, but two days after they wrap, the director’s in.

So for us, and I May Destroy You is completely different and is a kind of crazy one because we had a mad deadline to hit. So basically, we finished, and bear in mind, Michaela is writing and acting and co-directing.

She comes in two days later, and then basically, there’s six editors going at the same time, and she’s just dancing between us, so I don’t know. It’s interesting.

For me personally, I was not trained as an editor. I wasn’t assisting or anything, so sort of my way has always been, in a way, in reacting to that, has just been to go for it on the assembly.

So exactly, as you were saying, Shannon: All of the stuff I want to try and put out, I’ll just throw into that. But we don’t get the luxury of a kind of necessarily first proper pass.

The director’s in two days later, and you’re going through it, and then it depends on the director, so on this, Michaela’s in and out, off over there. She has to jump between six edits.

So it was specifically quite different, but in general, yeah, we don’t get that time. I mean, so do you guys literally get some time to fine cut a first cut for yourselves?

Shannon Baker:

[crosstalk 00:11:46] four days. It’s not like you get a whole lot of time. [crosstalk 00:11:48].

But it just depends because block shooting changes everything, changes all of that. And I’m assuming you’ve done a block shot, so to have six going on at once, it’s a different thing.

Usually you’re just in the round robin, and it depends. Limited series are different, but the director is for hire, and the directors, they’re in there for four days, and then the producer writers come in and do the final cut.

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah, you’re cutting as they’re shooting, and then so I’m shaping my editors cut in that time. And using that time while they’re shooting is the best part, because it’s just like, you have no holds barred.

You can have any music. You can put everything. It’s so great to have that kind of editors cut, to have-

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

And it comes back to what Shannon was saying. I’ve found, anyway, that the really good directors and creators are always enablers of other people’s creativity, right? They want your opinion on stuff.

They want a fresh opinion. I mean, I think that the myth of the director genius, the auteur, is dangerous in that sense because actually, the truth is usually that there’s a million people coming up with brilliant ideas all the time, and they’re just open to them.

They have good taste. They choose a good one.

Shauna Foster:

Going off that, that’s a perfect segue into where we’re going next, topic of doing things differently. So in my discussions with each of you, in one way or another, you all talked about how to do the job in a way that’s different from what’s been traditionally done and this notion of being a little bit anti-establishment, which I think is awesome.

And so let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s watch this clip from episode nine of I May Destroy You.

 

[clip plays]

Shauna Foster:

Hey. [crosstalk 00:15:36].

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Not my editing though, not my editing. The brilliant Amy Hounsell cut that episode, so props to Amy.

Shauna Foster:

Can we talk about though how the show uses POV and the fracture of time and sound in the cutting? And in episode nine that we just saw, it is definitely very heavy in that episode, but in episode 101, which we saw in the trailer, which just uses everything, all the things, can you talk about how you used that in the cutting?

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah, and I suppose also the question you asked before about breaking the mold and being anti, all of that stuff, I think what was fun about this show creatively was that Michaela’s, she’s not someone who’s obsessed with television. So I think her obsession is people and their motivations, and she’s curious about the world and systems.

She has a real sort of amazing, kind of omnivorously curious intellect, so what’s interesting is when they shot all this stuff, and we were sort of able to shape it in an interesting way as long as it reflected the script… So yeah, the first episode, when the lead character, she’s drugged and then comes round and then basically has post-traumatic stress and a panic attack, it was just a way of trying to find a way of doing that on screen.

So I don’t know if anyone remembers in the beginning montage, there’s sort of a jump cut sort of drug sequence where time starts to go back and mix, and then there’s the hardest of hard cuts intended to be the most horrible, sort of badly timed cut ever when she comes to later in the morning, which is also biographical from Michaela’s experience. And then basically, time starts to fracture again, which I was reading a bit about post-traumatic stress and how the brain starts to protect itself by rearranging time, so you forget things.

It’s basically protecting you, and so that’s what we start to do when she goes into the toilet and stuff like this, but I suppose we were never trying to be anti-establishment. We were just free to just try and tell the story.

So I suppose that was a nice thing about working with Michaela and Sam is Sam’s very encouraging. Sam’s the co-director.

He’s done lots of television, all sorts of different styles down the years, and Michaela’s just one of these people who just sees the world fresh. So you were kind of encouraged to just do this sequence as you were interested.

And of course, we had support from HBO and the execs and everyone who were just like, “Yeah, do it. If you have an idea, let’s do it.”

And within the confines of, we had 12 episodes of half an hour, we had to hit those marks. But other than that, we were kind of free to just investigate anything we could do, and there was no style guide.

There was nothing. There was no conversation about that. It sort of evolved from episode one, I guess.

We sort of got that down first with music and everything, but it was an ongoing conversation. And the use of point of view… And that is a good example. Point of view is such a delicate thing, isn’t it?

You stay with a character for 20 frames, and you’re with them in that moment, and then you stay with the next character for another 20 frames, and you’re with them, and you change the shot, et cetera. But yeah, it was interesting because I think when someone says to you, “Hey, I want to do something different and fuck things up,” I always think, “Why?” You have to know to just do it is a teenage thing, just stick two fingers up to establishment figures.

I think you just have to have a reason, and I think for us, I don’t think we ever thought we were doing that. It was never discussed.

If it came out in that way, it was because of the source material, because of what Michaela was writing about. She’s writing about characters and institutions and ideas in flux and change.

And anything we did as editors, playfully or consciously whatever, was just a way of trying to deal with very complex subject matter, stuff that is dramatic ironies; characters where one minute you love, one minute you’re questioning their motivations; all sorts of philosophical counterpoints. Basically, it’s a show where everyone has their own truth, and they just keep clashing, so how do you do that?

You don’t follow a single emotional narrative. So yeah, I guess I’m rabbiting on, but yeah, I guess it’s just interesting that we never talked about [crosstalk 00:20:46].

And I think that’s because Michaela isn’t one of these people who knows every episode of Friends or even cares about television enough to have an argument with it. Television happens to be the medium where she told that story.

And it could well have been a play or a poem. She’s done all sorts of things, and that’s really refreshing because it means you’re not part of this industry.

And suddenly, you are not doing the things you normally do because you’re not having conversations about it. There are a lot of examples where you have this amazing footage where you think, “Oh, great, I’ll just lay down a sad track, and I’ll win her a BAFTA for best actress because she’s doing something amazing.

“I’ll just play the emotion of the scene, and we’ll win every award in town.” But she was saying, “No, no, no. We don’t want to use emotion.”

It’s such a seductive thing to manipulate people in a good way, that we all do it. We love it, but she wanted to make a show that was about ideas and was about argument.

And as soon as you privilege one idea by making it emotional, then we all tend to follow that story, whereas if you just hold back and don’t play for the normal things that we are asked to do in shows and dramas and movies, techniques she probably learned in the theater… And she talks about art cinema, and these distancing techniques to ask us to make the decision ourselves, because she’s not someone who has any answers. She’s someone who’s continually questioning the world.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you, Christian. Can we play this clip from episode five? We’re going to watch something from #blackAF.

 

[clip plays]

 

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

These are good shows, guys. I’m very proud to be on a panel [crosstalk 00:24:34].

Julio C. Perez:

Amen. Amen. I’m dying, man.

Shauna Foster:

[crosstalk 00:24:38]. Yeah. Shannon, can you talk about the challenges of cutting that scene? Because I believe [crosstalk 00:24:44] everything there was filmed separately. Am I correct?

Shannon Baker:

They all-

Shauna Foster:

It was all filmed separately?

Shannon Baker:

… filmed separately-

Shauna Foster:

So yeah, what were-

Shannon Baker:

… six separate-

Shauna Foster:

… what were some of the challenges that you had?

Shannon Baker:

[crosstalk 00:24:55]. It took me three or four days to do that one scene, and on a television schedule, that’s a lot, but they shot everyone separately. Most of the time, Kenya was not there.

Sometimes he was there on the phone talking to them as they shot in their trailers or wherever they were, because they did it iPhone style. And they’re all very, very funny people that do improv.

And they did a lot of improv, and he just wanted to get all of that in, but one person couldn’t have known the improv line that the other person did because they did it separately. So it was about finding reactions and trying to…

There was a script, but the improv is so good that it was about finding reactions and lining them up and lining up Kenya’s reaction to all of that. And yeah, that was one of the scenes that I was like, “Please don’t let anyone try and pull this apart,” because it’s like Jenga.

You pull that one thing, and the whole thing would come tumbling down, and it pretty much stayed the same. There were a couple of jokes that we had to take out because they were, I guess, insulting or whatever.

[crosstalk 00:26:22] too much? Should we say this?

Should we pull back? But for the most part, they went for it.

Kenya went for it, and it’s a tough thing because the whole episode is about critics, and it’s a tough thing when you decide to talk about critics in your medium that is critiqued by critics. So that was an interesting rollercoaster to ride, but yeah, that scene was one of my favorites.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you, Shannon.

Julio C. Perez:

So good.

Shauna Foster:

I love your [crosstalk 00:27:02]-

Julio C. Perez:

So good.

Christine Armstrong:

[crosstalk 00:27:02] Shannon. That’s so funny.

Shauna Foster:

So good. We’re going to continue on-

Christine Armstrong:

[crosstalk 00:27:06] funny as hell.

Shauna Foster:

I feel like if you all have questions, you could pipe in too. I don’t got to ask all the questions because everyone’s [crosstalk 00:27:15], so I feel like-

Shannon Baker:

I love I May Destroy You. I love Euphoria, so I’m just sitting here-

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah, I love them too, big fan.

Shauna Foster:

So tell me-

Julio C. Perez:

Oh yeah. No, I feel like I’m standing right now for everything. It’s amazing to be a part of this as far as excited about the work I do.

But then I mean, watching… Is #blackAF the official way to say it during this panel? But I was just absolutely just laughing out loud with the headphones on late at night where Anna, my spouse, is going to bed.

But I’m laughing in the living room, and I’m like, “Did I wake her?” Because I mean, I was rolling.

And with I May Destroy You, the incredible texture between the lighter comedic moments that could be acerbic and then instantly shifting to something very deep and personal and dealing with some real trauma and hurt, those turn on a dime. I mean, both shows are great, so I’m stoked to be here.

Shauna Foster:

We’re going to continue with #blackAF. We’re going to play a clip from episode number two.

 

[clip plays]

 

Julio C. Perez:

Nice.

Christine Armstrong:

I had so [crosstalk 00:29:50].

Julio C. Perez:

[crosstalk 00:29:50] Butterfly Festival, that’s right.

Shauna Foster:

Christine, Shannon already a little bit touched on this, but I’m curious to know, because the show incorporates a lot of improv, what were some of the challenges in cutting that episode, if there’s any sort of devices that you may have used? Perhaps because when there’s so much improv, you might not have the most seamless footage to work with because of all the improv, and so can you talk to us a little bit about cutting that episode?

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah, for sure. What’s kind of great about this episode or this show is it’s very mockumentary documentary style, and there was a lot of camera movements and everything. So especially in this whole scene at the festival, I used a lot of wipes to cut, if that makes sense, to hide the cut, and adding more jokes and stuff like that.

And that’s kind of what I kind of about comedy too is the challenge of improv and all that kind of stuff, because you kind of can rewrite the jokes in a sense. And I just loved all of that stuff that he was saying about the headdress with her friend, so I was like, “I have to include this, and this has to be in the cut.”

And so it’s so much fun to be able to rewrite the show in that way and put in all the funny jokes, and you have so many options and so many different ways you can cut the scene and so many jokes. And so maybe that’s the challenge is just trying to pick and kind of rewrite the whole scene to make it as funny as possible.

And it’s kind of great because in that scene, they had the iPhone, and then they had the different cameras and all that kind of stuff. And it was just lucky, and I was just happy of how it all kind of came together, and it was really fun.

Shauna Foster:

It looks fun. I wish I was there.

Christine Armstrong:

It was so cool because they created a whole festival for that episode, so it was a fake music festival, of course, after Coachella and all that kind of stuff. And they just did it in a hanger in a lot in California and just made that whole place look like a whole festival, and I thought that was really well done.

Shannon Baker:

[inaudible 00:32:08] big scenes like that [crosstalk 00:32:11].

Christine Armstrong:

I know.

Shannon Baker:

Crowd replacement and stuff now is the [crosstalk 00:32:16].

Christine Armstrong:

The effect [crosstalk 00:32:17] is going to have a lot of work to do in the future.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Can I ask you three a question? Just watching those clips, and Julio, from what I know about Euphoria and Sam, both of your bosses… this is true of Michaela as well… they’re sort of really flailing themselves, aren’t they, on screen? They’re using very super personal stuff or their personas.

I don’t [inaudible 00:32:45] Michaela, but sometimes you’re sitting there thinking, “Wow, you are brave to do this and put this out into the world.” Did you find you had to encourage them?

I mean, what was that like? Because they’re seriously personal things, both the creators, all three of them, are putting out there. How was that [crosstalk 00:33:06]?

Christine Armstrong:

Especially them acting in it as well.

Shannon Baker:

[crosstalk 00:33:08] acting-

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah, exactly.

Shannon Baker:

… first time acting in it, yeah. Ours was heavily leaning on race and race in the industry that he’s still trying to make product in.

And granted, he’s he’s a super producer, and he can do what he wants most places, but he still talked about certain things and still has to go into meetings with people that may have committed some of these race aggressions. So there was a lot of, he would ask me, “Should we talk about this?”

And for the most part, I was like, “Yes, because people are talking about it.” So it’s the same with kind of I May Destroy You.

It happens. It happens to people, so it resonates.

And they it’s definitely had to be brave or brazen. I don’t know what the word for it is.

It’s weird to call it bravery because they’re just being who they are, and there’s no magical thing to it, and it shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t be like, “Oh, you’re so brave to talk about issues that everybody’s dealing with on a daily basis,” that kind of thing.

Christine Armstrong:

I feel like all our creators or all our showrunners are being very vulnerable to their audience, which is kind of nice because you kind of feel connected in that sense. It’s like, “Oh, I’m not the only one who feels this way or anything.” And especially them putting themselves in the forefront too and putting themselves in it, I think, is also vulnerable and brave, as you say, for them.

Shauna Foster:

Being your authentic self in the world.

Julio C. Perez:

You hear it in ways that become a little bit cliche about an artist needing courage to the point where you don’t really know what courage is. You don’t know what that means because, oh, this show becomes popular or this or that.

What do you mean? How courageous is it?

But when you blend this autobiographical material, and you blend it with this incredible, fantastical realms, and it’s really hard to tell where imagination and reality begin and end; they sort of blend into each other; I think there’s a courage in the writing stage and then a courage to present it and an obsessiveness linked with that courage to actually have it fully realized through the editorial process. And I find it a really rare quality in directors and showrunners.

But I’m amazed by Levinson and courage, just tons of courage, to the point of sometimes recklessness, because he just believes in what the show needs to be and what he wants to say. And he has to do it.

It’s a compulsion, and it’s amazing to be a part of it. I’m inspired by it daily, and actually, in a bit of a contrast, actually, sometimes as editor, I’m like, “Whoa, should we be saying this? Is this okay?”

Or I actually will bring up some caveats and concerns, and we’ll talk it out and figure it out and see and decide whether it stays or goes. And then that discussion extends to the producers when their concerns come up in notes, and then the HBO execs and drama, HBO, they’ll air their concerns as well.

And then Sam and I will have those long discussions, like, “Okay, do we agree with this? How does this enhance the narrative that we’re telling? How does it shift characterization?”

You get in these long discussions. I feel really blessed to be working with someone with as much courage and audacity as Sam Levinson. It’s pretty awesome.

Shauna Foster:

Nice. Thank you.

Shannon Baker:

I feel like it’s your job as an editor to come at it from all angles, and if somebody says something on Twitter when it comes out, and you didn’t think of that, you’re like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” [crosstalk 00:37:47] may think about it, and I just want to present all those ifs.

Julio C. Perez:

Yeah, that’s why I’m not on Twitter.

Shannon Baker:

Hashtag get off. [crosstalk 00:38:02].

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah, it’s interesting because as the editor, we’re the first audience, because we’re the only people who weren’t on set, even though sometimes you visit, but weren’t on set. And we’re the first test audience in a weird way because we’re kind of cutting it for other people, but I’ve been cutting it for myself too and being like, “This is how see it,” so it’s a gift that we get to do that.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

If I can also add, when we were cutting it, I had no idea that I May Destroy You would be what it… I mean, I know that when a show gets big or popular or has a cultural impact, you can never predict these things.

I was more worried, I was like, “God, are people going to stay with it on episode three?” I had these stupid, pretty minor worries.

I had no idea, and then I remember I had to help out getting some clips for a thing and seeing episode two, and bear in mind, we’ve been seeing each other’s episodes. Normally on a show, you’re bored.

You’ve seen it a million times, right? And you’ve pretty numb to it, but it’s one of the first times I’ve ever been on a show where I was like, “Wow, that is something.”

I didn’t think it would be popular, and I definitely didn’t think it would blow up in the way it’s done and that it’d end up me talking to you guys. But what Shannon said, I think, is really true, that these three creators are just being themselves and that we’ve come on that train ride, and they don’t think twice.

And so yeah, like you guys in the edit, I personally just didn’t think twice about any of the things we put in it and let the execs or the networks worry, if they were going to worry. Most of the times, we had amazing support from HBO and BBC. They didn’t really get in the way.

Shauna Foster:

Let’s watch a clip from Euphoria-

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

We’ve been in lockdown for a year. I need to speak.

Julio C. Perez:

Get it out. Get it out.

Christine Armstrong:

[crosstalk 00:40:02] Christian.

 

[clip plays]

Christine Armstrong:

I must say, that’s one of my favorite Euphoria episodes. It’s so great.

Shauna Foster:

Yes, yes. It’s so fun.

Julio C. Perez:

Thank you so much.

Shauna Foster:

It’s so fun. I mean, Julio, so-

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

[crosstalk 00:40:35] I’m telling you.

Shauna Foster:

In our discussion, you talked about knowing tradition in order to subvert it, and how did that play into cutting the carnival scene? Which I believe you cut on site.

Julio C. Perez:

I did. Yeah.

Shauna Foster:

Actually, let’s go with that, and then I’ll ask the other question after. Let’s start with that.

Julio C. Perez:

All right, great. So yes, much like the Lunar Butterfly Festival in #blackAF, or should I say Black As Fuck or #blackAF?

Shauna Foster:

Whatever you want.

Julio C. Perez:

All right, great. I’ll keep it family friendly since it’s a panel.

Shauna Foster:

No judgment either way.

Julio C. Perez:

#blackAF, much like that Coachella-esque festival atmosphere, they actually put a real carnival down right there somewhere in Pomona, and yeah, they brought Sam. And Marcell Rév, the cinematographer, spent a lot of time planning it out and also storyboarding very, very intricately.

And Sam wanted to make sure, especially with the stitches at the top, wanted to make sure that they got it right, so that was the primary motivator. But then it ended up being just go ahead and cut alongside camera as much as I can right there where they’d pop into the room and get excited or be very, very distraught.

No, I think they usually ended up being okay with it. But so, yeah, that was an adventure, and then as far as with tradition and subverting it, I think part of me that’s locked inside me is still a teenage boy.

And so the way I can channel that into this show, I think, is very joyous, and I feel very fulfilled by that. But I think as a teenager, I had a bit of the iconoclast in me, always wanting to find a different answer than what the generalized establishment had for us or what society at large might say.

And I’d be like, “But what about this?” As I’ve gotten older and moved along in my career and watched more and more film more deeply as well as some series, I feel like you see the traditions that you played in, even if you didn’t know it, early in your career.

And for the carnival in particular, I think you can look at, for instance, these interlocking narratives with a plural protagonist, so to speak, where you have these different characters, and they’re intertwining, and their ideas and lives, little snatches of it you catch here and there.

I feel like it’s hard to not think about Robert Altman as a filmmaker and his influence in telling those kind of tales. He took it to certain heights with 3 Women and Nashville and Short Cuts, things like that, and then so he might cast a long shadow from the new American cinema of the late sixties and into the seventies.

And then you have how that might have been interpreted by American filmmakers in the nineties, American independent filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson and the way he employed very similar storytelling techniques in Magnolia. So you start to look at, let’s say, the traditions that are very deeply entrenched in American filmmaking from classical Hollywood, and you adapt some of those techniques or techniques of using establishing shots.

And how do you subvert that? How do you do something a little different yet get the information across?

Sometimes you want to pay homage to something that you consider exceptional, but then never wanting to lean on convention for its own sake, that when you start to sniff something out as being overly conventional, you start wanting to find angles around it, over it, under it, away from it, whatever you need. And then once in a while, you might use the on-the-nose conventional technique or device in order to have clarity for the audience.

So then you can kind of go on a wild ride of unconventional storytelling, and you still have them because you gave the audience a grounding. So then you can go on these flights of fancy.

I acknowledge and admire those that went before us as filmmakers, and we have to forge our own path with today’s ideas, what’s going on in our society right now, in this moment. And to me, there’s always going to be resistance to something that isn’t conventional.

Even if it becomes popular, you’re going to have factions that want to, let’s say, knock it down a little bit, take you down a peg or whatever. That’s fine.

That’s part of the game, but I’d say it’s just the way that I’m built, and the collaborators and the brilliant directors and writer directors and showrunners that I’ve ended up with, we have a kindred spirit. It’s like, here’s what we call normal or conventional.

Well, how do we mess it up? How do we forge a new path?

How do we innovate? And it’s an exciting thing to just dream on it.

And then to actually get a chance to execute it on certain types of shows or films, it feels indulgent and just so, so beautifully decadent. I get a chance to engage in that kind of cultural dialogue. I feel it’s just the best, just exciting and beautiful.

Christine Armstrong:

That’s so great. [crosstalk 00:46:46].

Speaker 7:

That is good.

Julio C. Perez:

Well, thank you. [crosstalk 00:46:51].

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

You can see the joy and the love of cinema, especially. Even just that clip, I’m going, “Yeah, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, 400 Blows. Oh my God.”

You can see [crosstalk 00:47:05] love. You can see it.

It’s in that lineage, and it’s so lovely that also, cinema is in such a state that it’s so lovely that you guys are doing that with the camera, with style. Yeah, I’m of that. I love the people you’re talking about, and to me-

Julio C. Perez:

Amen.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

… I’m not going to dump on Marvel or anything, but I want independent filmmakers to be given $70 million to make a film as well as Marvel.

Julio C. Perez:

Absolutely. We need those mid to large budgets back. We need to fight for it because, well, what it is, and it’s wonderful, what’s occurred with series work, is that television series and streaming has sort of, let’s say, substituted and sort of drawn some energy for better and… I don’t know if worse is the word for it, but I think there are effects that do maybe harm the state of cinema, but then we do have a bit of a fluorescence of somewhat or very cinematic series I’d say at a fairly high level compared to what it was in the past.

But I am deep in my heart a spiritual warrior for filmmaking and for cinema. That-

Christine Armstrong:

That was perfectly timed.

Julio C. Perez:

I feel it so deeply, so I’m with you. I feel like if we can get enough people that feel similarly, and let’s continue to not only fly the flag of cinema but also celebrate in series work where the cinematic and the bold…

And what we’re talking about here, there’s that mold; I want to break it. Let’s break the hell out of that mold.

Christine Armstrong:

That’s what I like about the streaming services, because working for Netflix and Amazon, I feel like they’re giving the creators this freedom because there’s no time limit to where you can make that space, and I feel the difference in that kind of energy.

Shauna Foster:

I feel it too, Christine. [crosstalk 00:49:27].

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

I mean, I don’t know about American networks, but in England, shows like I May Destroy You, you can’t imagine them happening before all of the streaming services and HBO all upped the ante and upped the quality of work. And we’ve all had dumb exec notes, but they were great on this, I think because they recognized that shows like Black as Fuck and Euphoria are out there.

So you can’t pull your punches, not that Michaela’s ever going to do that. But I think for the general level of dramatic and comedic quality, it’s great, because you can go, “Hey, look at these great shows.

“They’re huge. They’re successful on these huge platforms, and look at what they do.”

Because I know we’ve talked about how our creators are just being themselves, but for execs and commissioners, they look on those as massive risks. They look on, “You want to do it in one shot? No. Sorry, mate.”

“You want to say that? You want to get Ava DuVernay to say that?”

I think it’s so exciting, like you say, that these shows are coming out and being watched by millions, and I think you’re right, Julio. In the nineties when I was younger, both of these shows might have been independent movies developed at Sundance and taken to can and stuff.

But we are lucky that they’re out there somewhere, and not just somewhere; they’re huge. They’re all over billboards and on these massive streaming services.

So yeah, we’re lucky, and yeah, amazing [crosstalk 00:51:13]. Yeah, exactly.

Shannon Baker:

Well, there’s also more opportunity for ideas. Because there are so many shows, I feel like the shows that are trying to push the needle, they have so many more episodes to do that.

When you had just independent features was the only outlet, how often did one of those come along where, on a series, you have four or five different directors; you have four editors; everyone is getting involved, and there’s more ideas in the pot, and that makes everything better?

Christine Armstrong:

So true, Shannon.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah. I mean, look at these three shows. They’re amazingly different shows that all pursue the truth in their different ways.

And there’s so many different pleasures just in these three shows. What an amazing watch viewers have if they watch these three shows.

Completely different views of the world, completely different styles, genres. In terms of TV, we’re very lucky to be working now, aren’t we?

Shauna Foster:

All right, we are winding down a little bit, so I want to get to this last bit of stuff we have. Can we show episode one, a clip from Euphoria?

 

[clip plays]

 

Shauna Foster:

Wow. This is from episode “The Pilot.” This is the pilot.

And before I ask this next question, I want to share this with you. So in a discussion with Julio, he said, “The moment you define art, you miss it.

“The most important thing about art and its function is building empathy to change the idea of being an addict with a capital A to being a human being who just needs the world means something. The moment someone feels less alone because of something I did, I’ve done my job.”

I’m getting emotional. [crosstalk 00:55:26]. The question is, is there a specific moment, episode, scene, a time when you’re in a cutting room where this became especially clear for each of you, where you felt like, “I did my job”? Let’s start with Christine on this one.

Christine Armstrong:

Man, there’s just so many moments that are magic that happens in the edit suite. Sometimes I think for me, when I’m working with a showrunner or a creator on a film or a TV show, and they’re watching it, and they’ve created it; they’ve wrote it; they’ve watched it; they’ve watched all the footage; and they’re still evoking emotion, I feel that’s a great thing for me, because I think in the sense, sometimes when you watch the medium over and over again, you kind of get lost in it.

And to be able to bring back that person who knows it’s coming, who knows that the laughter’s going to be there or there’s a sad moment, and they are still emotionally involved and invested, I feel I’ve done a good job in terms of that, I think, because if they, who’ve seen it many times, and people who are going to see it many times are going to still have that feeling. So that’s kind of my mark, I guess, what comes off my head.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you, Christine.

Julio C. Perez:

Awesome.

Shauna Foster:

Shannon.

Shannon Baker:

I don’t know. I think I’m the opposite. I think I never know. You never feel like you know. I suffer from imposter complex, so-

Shauna Foster:

Me too.

Shannon Baker:

You too. You too. You feel like you do a good cut, but then they always have to take it away from me, always have to take it away from me, because there could be one more frame that could do something, or you just try so many different things.

And I always have to try to remember how I felt about it when I first watched the dailies, and I take very extensive notes. Did this one make me cry?

Because we watch people’s faces so intently, and the good actors are doing something different every single time. It’s very, very subtle.

So you just have to try and remember how you felt about it the first time you watched it and trust that that is still there, but I just never know. I never know.

Christine Armstrong:

That trusting in this whole thing, that’s all you have.

Shannon Baker:

[crosstalk 00:57:54] trusting that it didn’t get lost in all of the notes and all of the iterations that the cut goes through. You kind of have to trust and be like, “Okay, I know I felt this way. Hopefully it’s still there.”

Christine Armstrong:

And sometimes it’s trusting your past self too who was watching it. [crosstalk 00:58:14].

Shannon Baker:

[crosstalk 00:58:15] reading your notes, like, “Why did I say this was good?”

Julio C. Perez:

Yeah. Exactly. That’s so hard to do, to maintain that objectivity.

That’s the single greatest challenge, I think, is to be just as engaged with the ideas and the form and the technique and the emotional sort of oscillations. To stay engaged with that as you’re approaching the final mix, that’s the biggest challenge for me ever as an editor is to keep that the sensitivity open and not sort of shut down and become sclerotic, I guess you could say.

Christine Armstrong:

Christian, what about you?

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah, I mean, kind of echoing everyone else’s thoughts, I suppose you just have to believe the thing you’ve made. You don’t know, do you?

You and your director, you try and get it right. You can tell if someone is working with people in the room who aren’t you because you can feel if they’re in.

You can feel if they’re locked in because you’re so sensitive to body language of other people when they come and watch it. You can feel when they’re locked in.

You know when they’re when the shift of a bum means, “Oh, God. Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll cut that scene. Yeah, yeah. I get it. I get it.”

But equally, when it goes out into the world, you just don’t know, do you? I mean, my partner was kind of like, “Right, we’re going to watch episodes one and two when they go out.”

And I was like, “Really? Okay.” And I watch again, and then after episode one cut to black, she was so proud.

It kind of made me go, “Oh, right. Oh, okay,” because I really respect her, but like everyone, you try to do your best. You don’t know.

You just hope. We sort of try and be surgeons of emotion and ideas, but ultimately, just then we’ve all been lucky that other people have felt the same things that we felt on viewing 808 rather than viewing 7,000 or whatever it is when we just can’t see the width of the trees. But yeah, same thing, I suppose.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you. Julio, do you want to add to that?

Julio C. Perez:

I completely understand where Shannon’s coming from too because I think when you get absorbed in this sort of wash of deadlines and pressures and everything that you have to do, and to just remain sensitive and open to the sort of magnetic presentation of certain performances, to sort of make sure that you’re receiving the performances accurately and the little nuances of micro expressions and joy and pain and whatever flashes across a human face, while people are like, “Hey, we got to do this, and by the way, do that. And don’t forget, oh, this is a new rule, and everything’s going on.”

So you can have a low-grade chaos outside your edit bay door, and to maintain that focus is a primary task. That’s a foundational task and can be very tricky.

But as far as any one moment, I’m not necessarily a big person for epiphanies. I feel like if I have revelation, it’s over time and over experience and from hard knocks and from dealing with this and sort of picking yourself back up and keeping on going, less than that one vision on the mount or anything like that.

But so for me, I’d say specific to season one with Rue and saying like, “I’ve done my job,” I’d say it’s after the blur of getting it done, and I barely remember. It was a blur.

I just can’t believe we actually got through it and that it was intelligible, and I’m so excited about it. I knew it was a good script, so it’s even more pressure, like, “Oh, man, I can’t fuck this up.”

And you see that people are loving Rue and that are invested in her journey, accepting of her frailties and foibles and wanting to keep going, and then you’re desperate and afraid that she’s going to relapse. And you want her to do what’s right, but you also want her to be herself. When you see someone else talk about her as if she were a real person and a character that seems fully realized those little moments, I think you can be like, “I didn’t fuck it up.”

Shauna Foster:

Thank you, Julio.

Shannon Baker:

Yeah, just going off of that, tons of people thought that #blackAF was a documentary [crosstalk 01:03:18] they thought that those were his real kids.

When I was cutting it at first, I thought the baby was his real baby. I was like, “Oh, is that your baby?”

He was like, “No, that’s an actor too.” So something [crosstalk 01:03:32]-

Christine Armstrong:

So cute.

Shannon Baker:

… were like, “Oh my God, I hate him so much. He’s such an asshole.” And it’s like, that’s not a real personality.

Christine Armstrong:

Rashida Jones is not his wife.

Shannon Baker:

Yeah. It’s not his real wife. [crosstalk 01:03:50] Twitter [crosstalk 01:03:53], people, but they do. They think that that was a real documentary of his life.

Shauna Foster:

Wow.

Christine Armstrong:

Well, it’s just funny how I was just thinking that the other day, Shannon.

Shannon Baker:

They were very upset. They were very upset.

And especially in the clip that you showed where the daughter calls him a dick, people are like, “Oh my God, how could he let his daughter call him that?” It’s like, it’s a television show. They wrote it.

Shauna Foster:

It taps into where we started because I believe I read that Kenya gets his own kids to read the scripts, and there’s an article where he talks about getting his older kids to read, and they have to kind of be on board with it. And again, all that whole notion of, this is personal.

And we see it. We love it. It’s so there that we think what we’re watching is his real family.

Christine Armstrong:

Yeah. Write what you know.

Shauna Foster:

Write what you know. Exactly.

Julio C. Perez:

That’s right.

Shauna Foster:

Let’s play this clip from episode 10.

 

[clip plays]

Shauna Foster:

I’m going to read a quote, and let’s start there. So Michaela gave an interview to GQ last year, and I’m going to read.

I wish Michaela was reading this quote, and this is what Michaela said. “I need to big up my editors. They’re brilliant, particularly Christian Sandino-Taylor, who did episode 10.

“He’s the controller of that episode. He got my script, chopped it up, threw parts of it in the bin, dragged some stuff, fucked the whole thing, and created something far better than I could have ever made.” Christian, how? How?

And [crosstalk 01:07:44] dig into this next question, but we’ll start with you, Christian. How did you find points where the audience can just absorb the content, and can you talk to a little bit about leading the audience versus just giving us the answers here?

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

I suppose in general, on that show, that actually is probably not a great example of this because that, we do use. We do play on the emotions very strongly.

But I suppose in general on the show, it was about trying to balance truths. So it’s difficult to explain what I did on that episode because I basically was given it and recut it, changed the shape of it, and, as Michaela said, fucked it up.

But I suppose that ending, that last scene, which was earlier on in the episode before, what I try to do is initially, it was an episode just about Arabella and her journey, and the lessons she learned at home, she applied to her life. And then it wasn’t really working, so I realized you could make it about the family.

And what happens in that episode is the brother knows that the dad’s a philanderer, and the mother’s kept it secret, and Arabella is in awe of her father and ultimately finds out that that’s not true.

So basically, I was able to build it so you shifted perspectives. And then at the end, I suppose, yeah, what you’re saying, Shauna, is you allow that scene to play out largely in silence.

You’re basically watching these people have a meal, but by now, you should know the full context of that scene is that Arabella has learned the truth of her father and can forgive him. The brother knows everything about the mother and how long she’s suffered with her dad’s philandering over the years.

So he’s watching the mother, and then the mother is trying to keep the whole thing together and has just been told that her daughter was raped. So placed earlier on, that scene, it had the context but not the power, whereas by placing that scene there and playing it in that way, you allow all the emotions to reach this crescendo and all the ideas, which are conflicting, to become this sort of coherent whole.

But again, across the series, what you’re trying to do is you’re not just trying to build the story of Arabella and make you empathize with her. Michaela wants you to also question her and then also understand the effects her actions have on other people.

So I guess I can’t remember the original question, but I suppose that’s what you do. You just build in those conflicting ideas, and then you let the audience deal with it.

You make the decisions. Here’s all the information you need.

She’s feeling this. She’s feeling this.

And it’s not necessarily going to be a comfortable ending for you. There’s lots of different questions going on here, and there’s no closure often.

So here you go. I suppose in that way, we use emotion to give you an emotional closure, but it still should be complex and should incite a kind of level of debate about-

Shannon Baker:

I remember watching so many of the episodes and being like, “Oh, this could be the end,” because you set up that we were not going to get the answers from the very top, from the very beginning. And I remember being so afraid that we would not find out, Michaela would not find out, who had done what he had done to her.

And I just remember because you just kept setting that up. There are no answers.

You’re not going to get the answers in the show, and I just was so afraid, like, “Is this the last episode? Oh, okay. Okay. We have one more. Maybe I’ll get… “

But it was very satisfying. It was satisfying in that the journey, you were just watching her go through this process.

And it was very real and very guttural, what was happening. So I was okay with that somehow.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah, I mean, lots of people weren’t. Lots of people weren’t.

Julio, God forbid you ever do go on Twitter, but if you do, you’ll see lots of people loved it. But lots of people were like-

Shannon Baker:

But it was so set up. It was so set up. You set up the kind of show we were going to get from the beginning, from the very beginning.

Christine Armstrong:

And sometimes in life, we don’t get those answers. That’s [crosstalk 01:12:23], right? So that’s why I kind of like it. Yeah.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah, [crosstalk 01:12:24] Michaela and Sam, all of our creators have done amazing work, haven’t they? We’ve been lucky to work with them.

Julio C. Perez:

Absolutely.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Snuck it in.

Julio C. Perez:

Absolutely.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

[crosstalk 01:12:38].

Julio C. Perez:

Yes. [crosstalk 01:12:38].

Shauna Foster:

Unfortunately, we have run out of time, but we want to wrap with one last question for each of you to answer in one short sentence, and we’ll end with this, okay? Why do you do this work as an editor? Let’s start with Julio.

Julio C. Perez:

Damn, you had to start with me with that question.

Shauna Foster:

[inaudible 01:13:09].

Julio C. Perez:

To discover and explore. I’ll keep it simple.

Shauna Foster:

Christine.

Christine Armstrong:

I think to be a storyteller and help others tell stories and to get their voices heard.

Julio C. Perez:

Yeah, that’s great.

Shauna Foster:

Shannon.

Christine Armstrong:

Because people are complex, and I like pulling out those intricacies.

Julio C. Perez:

Yeah.

Shannon Baker:

Nice.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you. Christian.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

A combination of all three. Honestly, I can’t add anything.

And because it’s really fun to do. Not always, but ultimately, it’s quite fun [crosstalk 01:13:48].

Christine Armstrong:

There are un-fun parts, yes.

Julio C. Perez:

Oh, yeah.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

Yeah.

Julio C. Perez:

Oh, yeah.

Shauna Foster:

That’s another panel, the un-fun parts. Thank you all.

Thank you all. This has been an honor.

Christine Armstrong:

Thank you.

Shauna Foster:

Thank you to the CCE. I hope our audience enjoyed the conversation today.

Sending love and light. Everybody keep safe, and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye, everyone.

Christine Armstrong:

Great work, everybody.

Christian Sandino-Taylor:

You take care.

Julio C. Perez:

Honor and a privilege. [crosstalk 01:14:13].

Christine Armstrong:

Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks so much for listening today, and a special thanks goes out to Jane MacRae and Alison Dowler. This episode was edited by Jana Spinola.

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 has been supporting Indspire, an organization that provides funding and scholarships for indigenous post-secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca, or you can donate directly to Indspire.ca, I-N-D-S-P-I-R-E dot C-A.

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. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell your friends to tune in. Until next time, I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.

[Outro]

Speaker 32:

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.

Abonnez-vous là où vous écoutez vos balados

Que voulez-vous entendre sur L'art du montage?

Veuillez nous envoyer un courriel en mentionnant les sujets que vous aimeriez que nous abordions, ou les monteurs.euses dont vous aimeriez entendre parler, à :

Crédits

Un grand Merci à

Jane MacRae

Mandy Germain

Hosted and Produced by

Sarah Taylor

Monté par

Jana Spinola

Design sonore du générique d'ouverture

Jane Tattersall

ADR Recording by

Andrea Rusch

Mixé et masterisé par

Tony Bao

Musique originale par

Chad Blain

Soundstripe

Sponsor Narration by

Paul Winestock

Catégories
The Editors Cut

Episode 062: EditCon 2021: In Conversation with Jinmo Yang, ACE

The Editors Cut - Episode 062 - In Conversation with Jinmo Yang, ACE

Episode 062 - EditCon 2021: In Conversation with Jinmo Yang, ACE

This episode is part four of a six part series covering EditCon 2021.

Action, comedy, drama, romance, horror and thriller ? Jinmo Yang?s outstanding body of work covers almost every genre in filmmaking. His mastery of pacing and tone is often on display as he rides the line between genres, from the action/comedy of LUCK-KEY to the thriller/comedy PARASITE. Whether working on or off set Mr. Yang is truly a master of his artform. Multitalented moderator Sook-Yin Lee sits with Oscar-nominated editor Jinmo Yang for an in-depth conversation about the craft of Picture Editing.

Jinmo Yang, ACE
Photo by Irina Logras.

Jinmo Yang, ACE

Jinmo Yang est un monteur de cinéma sud-coréen primé qui a monté plus d’une douzaine de longs métrages, incluant les succès planétaires PARASITE, OKJA, and TRAIN TO BUSAN. 

With PARASITE, directed by Bong Joonho, Mr. Yang gained international acclaim and recognition including an Academy Award nomination for Best Editing, and an American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic), the first non-English-language film to win this top prize.

Sook-Yin Lee
Photo by Yuula Benivolski

Sook-Yin Lee

Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian filmmaker, musician, actor, and multimedia artist. The award-winning radio and TV broadcaster starred in John Cameron Mitchell?s groundbreaking LGBTQ movie, SHORTBUS, which premiered at Cannes. Year of the Carnivore, Lee’s feature film debut as writer-director, premiered at TIFF. Sook-Yin won the 2014 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by a Lead Dramatic Actress for her role as ?Olivia Chow? in JACK. Her movie, OCTAVIO IS DEAD! won Best Director and Best Picture awards at the Downtown LA Film Festival 2018. Her feature movie DEATH AND SICKNESSDeath streams on CBC Gem in Canada.

This episode was generously sponsored Boris FX

Jinmo Yang’s short film BANG.

Écoutez maintenant

The Editor?s Cut – Episode 062 – EditCon 2021: In Conversation with Jinmo Yang, ACE

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Boris FX.

Jinmo Yang:

[foreign language 00:00:10].

Jason Yu (Translator):

His style is having no style. He believes that editors having a signature editing style is not good for the movie itself. So he adapts his style to each film and the director’s intention for each film. So he naturally melts himself into what the film requires of him.

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 a six part series covering EditCon 2021 that took place virtually in February 2021 in conversation with Jinmo Yang, ACE. Action, comedy, drama, romance, horror and thriller. Jinmo Yang’s outstanding body of work covers almost every genre in filmmaking. His mastery of pacing and tone is often on display as he rides the line between genres. From the action-comedy of Luck Key to the thriller-comedy Parasite, whether working on or offset. Mr. Yang is truly a master of his art form. Multi-talented moderator Sook-Yin Lee sits with Oscar nominated Editor, Jinmo Yang, ACE for an in-depth conversation about the craft of picture editing. Enjoy.

Speaker 4:

And action.

Speaker 5:

This is The Editor’s Cut.

Speaker 6:

A CCE podcast.

Speaker 7:

Exploring, exploring, exploring the art.

Speaker 8:

Of picture editing.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Welcome to EditCon 2021. I’m Sook-Yin Lee here to interview and speak with Jinmo Yang, editor extraordinaire of Parasite, the Academy award-winning movie that took home a truckload of awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best International Film. Jinmo has edited Director Bong Joon-ho’s last three pictures, Snowpiercer, Okja and Parasite. He began as an onset editor, assembling footage from video feed and providing VFX. Now he is the head editor who works in the studio with Director Bong. And together they weave a seamless, captivating and punchy style that is also very spare. His movies lean toward genre filmmaking, they’re action-thrillers with zombies and giant genetically modified pigs and speeding trains with a very unpredictable and artful twist. I could choose to play clips from any of Jinmo’s 21 movies but today I’m going to be focusing mostly on Parasite, a movie that sees Jinmo’s editing powers come together in an incredible sort of, I guess it’s like editing awesomeness, absolute editing awesomeness. Jinmo Yang and his translator Jason Yu join me now from Seoul, Korea. Hello fellas.

Jinmo Yang:

Hi. My name is Jinmo Yang, editor of Parasite. And this is Jason Yu, my translator.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, thank you for having us today.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Great to see you. You are 15 hours ahead of me. I understand it’s midnight tomorrow where you are. How are things in Seoul,Korea?

Jason Yu (Translator):

It’s late into the night in Korea and regarding the pandemic, things have gotten a little bit worse than our previous situation.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Is that what’s on your mind mostly, the pandemic?

Jason Yu (Translator):

In the back of his mind, the pandemic is always very concerning but his first concern, his major, his core concern is the Netflix miniseries he is currently editing.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yes, I imagine so. Okay, so where you are right now, are you in the studio, your studio where you’re editing for the Netflix series?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, he is currently in his edit suite. In Korea, it’s usually the norm that each editor owns their own edit suite and this is where he does most of his editing work.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow, that’s the brain central. So Jinmo, of all the things you could have done in your life, you chose filmmaking. Why?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Oh, to be completely honest my first dream was to draw and I also had a lot of other dreams, none filmmaking related. But throughout my life, I always had a love for films.

Sook-Yin Lee:

You began as a visual artist.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, that’s correct. Whether that be drawing or animation, he was always interested in visual media. And out of all visual media, he was always more interested and had more fun with filmmaking, with films.

Sook-Yin Lee:

How did you end up in the editing arena?

Jason Yu (Translator):

To be completely honest, as an undergrad I decided to become a filmmaker as an undergrad. So I majored in filmmaking. And at that time, my main aspiration, my main goal was to become a director. Never in my life have I ever aspired to be a famous editor but my goal shifted to becoming a famous editor in order to become a director of my own film. And of course, that film I would edit and then life happened and this is where he’s at now.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yeah, you really excelled at the editing. So how would you describe your editing style?

Jason Yu (Translator):

His style is having no style. He believes that editors having a signature editing style is not always good for the movie itself. So that’s his style to each film and the director’s intention for each film. So he naturally melts himself into what the film requires of him.

Sook-Yin Lee:

That’s so nice. We’re going to take a look at a clip from Parasite. Now Parasite is a movie about the impoverished Kim family who infiltrate the home of the wealthy Park family, who unwittingly hire the entire Kim family to work for them. So it’s kind of like postmodern Goldilocks and the three bears with greed and class struggle. When another family hiding in the basement enter the picture, things really go off the rails. We’re going to look at a bit of the opening where a young man, Ki-woo gets his sister to forge a fake college diploma so that he can land an interview to tutor the wealthy Park family’s daughter. Let’s take a look.

[clip plays]

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow, so the scene is set from one world to another. I love what you were talking about, Jinmo, in terms of your having no style, that you adapt every movie looking at the intention of the director. Here, we just saw a sequence of images, a very graceful entrance from his world, the cramped underground world of his family to the spacious luxury world of the Park family. Wondering when you were speaking with Director Bong about his intention, what was the intention that helped to guide this editing style of Parasite?

Jason Yu (Translator):

As you know, Parasite mixes a lot of genres. So one of the main goals was to make the transition of each genre seamless and not to be jarring. So that was one of the main goals. Another one is, towards the climax of Parasite it’s very turbulent, it’s very dynamic. And what he wanted to do was to exemplify this feeling of turbulence.

Sook-Yin Lee:

I understand that the movie was based upon, inspired by an event in Director Bong’s life. Is that true?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, that is correct. Some of the screenplay, the stories of Parasite is based on Director Bong’s experience as a private tutor for rich pupils during his undergraduate years.

Sook-Yin Lee:

What’s your relationship like with Director Bong?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Director Bong to him is a coworker, a collaborator. And he feels Director Bong is his friendly older brother in some sense. And yes, Director Bong is incredibly rich but he never really shows it. He is never really extravagant in any sense and he just feels like a friendly older brother.

Sook-Yin Lee:

I saw a photograph of you winning an award for editing and there was Director Bong with his arm around you looking so happy. Do you guys hang out outside of work as well? Are you friends?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Director Bong is a person you cannot really meet frequently but when they are in collaboration together, for example when it’s editing season of a certain project, they also have a drink or two outside of editing as well. And Director Bong is also very famous for caring for the people around him.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Director Bong is known for meticulously tight storyboards that he maps out ahead of the movie production. He is able to see the movie from beginning to end, from shot to shot. And then by the time the two of you are working in the studio together, what is it that you focus on?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So during production, Director Bong relies and focuses on the storyboards. But during editing and inside the editing booth, everything is new. The goal is to perfect each scene and by perfecting each scene, what they focus on mainly is capturing the perfect rhythm of each scene.

Sook-Yin Lee:

What determines that rhythm?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So what we usually do is we have a rough assembly of the film, the whole film and we watch it and re-watch it constantly. And as we do this, there’s always this visceral, intuitive timing that we feel. And what we do is, we omit certain scenes or tweak certain scenes to discover new rhythms and perfect it each time we do this process. But, there is no set answer. There is no rule set that they adhere to, it’s very intuitive and visceral.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Very interesting. So it’s almost like the two of you have a mind-meld in the studio where you’re almost feeling like an internal musicality tied to the visuals that you’re sort of dramatizing through the edit and the sequence of images. You refer to dropping things, getting rid of things in order to serve that inner sense of rhythm. The remarkable thing about your work with Director Bong is how incredibly minimal it is. I mean, I was astounded to find out there are only 960 shots in total in this whole movie, which is incredible, because it doesn’t look minimal. It feels like I’m just going, you’re taking me, like expert filmmakers, you have me in the palm of your hand and you’re taking me on a roller coaster ride. And it’s almost as if it just sort of unfolds in this seamless and beautiful way. And I cannot believe that it’s done with so few shots. I understand that Director Bong does not include any coverage, he never includes a master. No master, no coverage. Why not?

Jason Yu (Translator):

He doesn’t rely on that traditional method of getting coverage, getting masters and whatnot because before production he always has a detailed plan of the camera work, which is tailoralized, which manifests in the storyboard. And also an important reason why he doesn’t need coverage per se is because there’s an onset editor on board who determines whether shot is enough or whether he needs more coverage, et cetera.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yeah. So there’s key decisions being made on set. Is he just kind of like throwing away that master shot because it’s kind of old fashioned to actually have a shot of like a exterior space? Is he just more interested in getting into the action?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So that’s not really the case. In Korea and especially for Director Bong, it’s all about efficiency. So when shooting a certain scene, he believes that there’s no need to shoot the scene over and over again with different setups. There’s only one sort of setup that he needs for each part of the scene. For example, for this moment we need a close up and for this moment we need some other setup and that way he doesn’t need to be inefficient and have excess coverage. Nevertheless, there are overlapping shots. For example, when he does shoot a wide shot, he does make it a bit more lengthy compared to other shots and whatnot.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Okay. So efficiency effectiveness is very key to this process. We’re going to take a look at a key montage in the movie. It covers a lot of ground in very few shots. This segment in which the Kim family is plotting to overthrow the Parks? longtime housemaid so that Mrs. Kim can take her place. Jinmo, what were some of the challenges of this montage, this sequence for you?

Jason Yu (Translator):

This sequence was one of the most important sequences within the film. Director Bong stressed multiple times that it was one of the most important sequences. But nevertheless, it wasn’t necessarily challenging in the sense that it was difficult, but it was still a challenge in itself. And he’s very thankful for this sequence for having to have the opportunity to edit this sequence. And he’s very proud of it, of the finished product. For an editor, the hardest things to edit are not necessarily the most extravagant montage sequences, but rather the mundane eating by the dining table sort of scenes that are the hardest.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Why is that?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Because those sort of scenes are incredibly familiar, you’ve seen them a million times. So the goal is to express them in an interesting and a fresh way.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Let’s take a look first here it is.

[clip plays]

Sook-Yin Lee:

You were saying that’s the big showy montage. One of the key things that really impresses viewers, editors when they see the movie. And yet you’re saying it’s a small little minutia of like eating that are challenging to make interesting. But particularly with that montage, how is that different from what we just saw than what was originally planned?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So it’s pretty similar to what was initially planned but a lot of the details were tweaked. One of the main goals while editing this sequence was to only leave the essence of the sequence. So in order to achieve this, we have to perform a lot of tricks. For example, combine two takes of the same shot and make it look like one single shot. For example, if you see the father talking to the lady while traveling down the escalator, the background of that shot is a different take completely but we had to combine it to make it look… I’m sorry, let me correct what I said. So during the acting sequence, when the son teaches the father how to act. When we pan, that’s actually two shots sticked together to make it look like one single shot. And examples like this show that what we wanted to do was capture the essence of each shot. So editorially we tweak each frames, we combine shots like this, to capture the essence, to keep it as short as possible, but essential.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow, okay. So efficiency and essence and rhythm, these are all qualities of your editing. Essence, what is essence? Is that as a kind of internal or intuitive as rhythm?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, that’s absolutely correct. And to him the essence of each shot is, the correct timing of each shot and each scene. And when we connect these shots and scenes together, you get the rhythm that he strives towards, the perfect rhythm. So for example, in the montage just saw, we can see a shot where the son is shedding peach fuzz, collecting the peach fuzz to later use on the housekeeper. And when he sifted through all the takes, the timing of shedding the peach fuzz was off ever so slightly for every shot. So his job was to find the appropriate shot with the best timing that had the shedding of the peach fuzz. And that was one of the examples of capturing the essence of a shot.

And another example would be when the daughter fiddles with the peach, holding it up in the sky. His job was to figure out which of the shots had the best angle of the peach and so on. Those kind of minute details were him trying to find the essence of the shot. So those little details accumulate and in his opinion, it’s those details that make it more perfect.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow. It sounds like a magnifying lens. You have a magnifying lens in your head when you’re watching all of these moments. It seems to me, hearing about your process, that there is a kind of relationship between control and chaos. On the one hand, your work with Director Bong, the camera, and the editing are a very tightly controlled dance. And yet when it comes to acting, I understand that Director Bong does not rehearse with the actors. Why is that? Why does he not rehearse with the actors?

Jason Yu (Translator):

That’s Director Bong’s MO and he is not really an authority as to say why he does that. But he overheard that doing so captures the freshness of the acting, he believes that constant rehearsals and practice of acting kind of fade away this freshness, the rawness of the performance. And that’s why for the first assembly what we usually do is, we assemble the first assembly using the cut, the takes that Director Bong okays, so the good takes. But when we sift through them later on, shot by shot, we realize the first couple of takes, although maybe technically faulty regarding camera moves and whatnot, but the performances, the best performances are usually in those first couple of takes. Oftentimes we switch the takes with the first couple of the takes where the performances were better.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow. So when you’re watching all of the takes in the editing studio, the best takes have… What are the qualities of those first few takes that are much better than the later ones?

Jason Yu (Translator):

It’s usually as I mentioned before, the freshness in the performance, the rawness of the performance, that’s what makes it the best take. Adding to that, later on as the takes progress and the takes pile up, the rawness, the freshness of the performance fades.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Do you ever encounter surprises where an actor bumps into something accidentally or something’s thrown into a shot that gives it energy?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes. And surprisingly, there’s a lot of that in Director Bong’s films, maybe because he casts the actor Song Kang-ho who plays the father. For example, an example he can think of right now is during the rain, when the whole family is traveling down to their own neighborhood, Song Kang-ho twists his ankle unintentionally and that kind of gave the shot a more pitiful and a more appropriate feel than what was intended because twisting and spraining his ankle was never intended in the script. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow, and thankfully it was captured. Well done. Your forte is VFX work. You discovered that when you were studying at Bard College, art college in New York State as a young person. And that is really one of your strengths, much of what you’re talking about in terms of marrying different takes together is based upon your VFX abilities. I’m going to be talking further about your VFX work, but we’re first of all going to take a look at a scene in which the tensions are mounting with the discovery that the former housekeeper’s husband has been hiding in the Parks? basement for four years, 3 months and 17 days. There is a struggle for power when suddenly the Park, the wealthy family returns home early from camping and the Kims have to shove the housekeeper and her husband into the basement. Let’s take a look at that. Viewers, please keep an eye in this scene, looking for potential areas where VFX is being done.

 

[clip plays]

 

Sook-Yin Lee:

So where was VFX there?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So there are a lot of VFX stitching work done in this sequence. For example, the overhead shot of the stove top, you see the hands entering the frame and whatnot, doing certain tasks. And these are all different movements from different takes that were stitched into one shot, because to perfect the timing. And another shot was, you see in the background the blurry figure of the father dragging the husband while the son is dragging the housekeeper, they’re following suit. These two figures are also two very different shots from two different takes which were combined into one to perfect the timing.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow. So do your VFX work involve a lot of little digital tweaking or? Could you explain what that is? What is that VFX?

Jason Yu (Translator):

During editing Parasite, he used Final Cut Pro. And what he usually did, for example, for the overhead stove top shot, he just comped, used comp and comped two shots together. And sometimes for more intricate scenes or intricate shots, he would resort to After Effects and use pre-comp and then do the stitching there.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wow. We have an audience question from an editor. His name is Craig and he asks, and I’m going to just read what he said. “As an editor with a VFX background, I have a huge interest in your career and how you have used VFX as a tool in the edit room. In Canada at least I have observed a lot of pushback from VFX supervisors when high quality temp is created by editorial whereas the sound department really appreciates receiving a lush temp soundtrack to work from. This seems to be new territory here for VFX. I often receive requests from VFX supervisors to be in the edit room while they are creating our temps which is tricky to navigate when the director hasn’t had a chance to give feedback. Have you encountered this in South Korea? What advice might you have for navigating the collaboration between the editorial and the VFX supervisors.”

Jason Yu (Translator):

So this is really a case by case thing. Some, like he mentioned, some VFX supervisors don’t quite like it when editors use their own VFX work, but some do. But what’s important is, what is the best for the film and what’s best for the director, that’s what everybody should consider. Because directors in the editing booth prefer to see what it would look, the final product of the shot instead of green screens and blue screens and whatnot. So although the VFX supervisor and the VFX vendors perfect the CG, he thinks it’s good to have what it might look like, to have a general idea of what it would look like before it moves on to the vendors, the VFX vendors.

Sook-Yin Lee:

It’s interesting because you cover both avenues. You have abilities within both domains so you’re able to bridge those together. But what I really appreciate in what you’re saying is take a cue from the director, keep the director’s intention and priorities at the fore. So the idea of doing something without the editor or without the director knowing is not really that cool, you always sort of are guided by what the director wants, which is a good rule of thumb. Parasite is a movie that, as you were saying, part of your job, part of the intention was to seamlessly bring together many different kind of moods. There are many moods in this movie, very many tonal shifts. It goes from scary and funny and sad, dramatic. It’s very much a hybrid movie with very big unpredictable tonal shifts.

I’m wondering what is about the Korean outlook that is open to this kind of hybrid storytelling because in America there tends to be much more of a focus on single genre, kind of one kind of feeling, one mood. If suddenly you’re moving from funny to sad in a heartbeat, they’re like, ?What? I don’t get it.? But what is it about the Korean mindset? And I’ve noticed that the same similar quality in other pictures as well, that allows for this kind of mercurial shift of emotions.

Jason Yu (Translator):

It is a characteristic of Korean films that certain directors who are able to express their own individual colors more expressfully, for example, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook. It’s a trait that they have mixing certain tones, mixing certain moods. But overall he does find it’s more prevalent in Korean films for some reason.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yeah, it’s really great. It’s really, really great. And what I love about it is that your movies are such huge, big blockbusters. I mean, it’s not just Korean audiences but internationally. Parasite alone has made 246 million dollars at the box office worldwide. So even though it’s a very specifically kind of Korean aesthetic, I love that you’ve been able to demonstrate that you can have this hybrid movie and still have people resonate and love it. Why do you think audiences around the world are so endeared to this movie? They love this movie so much?

Jason Yu (Translator):

He believes that the audience worldwide are now getting a bit too familiar with the formulaic Hollywood films that are prevalent today. And they are more, relatively more open to watching new films, whether they’re mixed genres or not, and new experiences. And he believes that Parasite was one of those films that fit the bill.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Very good. I’m going to fast forward to talking about tech. What is interesting is that you use the Final Cut Pro 7, which is a very, very old editing software. Why is it that you… Why do you love Final Cut Pro 7?

Jason Yu (Translator):

There isn’t a deep answer to this, a reason to this. It is just that he used Final Cut Pro 7 since college and he says it’s the most familiar software for him. Ever since he was young and he believes that Final Cut Pro 7 has the least errors and it’s just the most familiar software for him. FYI he changed, he switched over to Avid now.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Oh, good, good. Because I was thinking that’s Yosemite operating system, that might become obsolete. So you have to figure out a new system. So do you like the Avid now?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, he’s very happy with it. He met a couple of Avid’s department people while he was in the States and they asked whether he would like to make a switch and he was very happy to do it. Avid supported him a great deal in making the switch. And he’s very happy for the upgrade.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Excellent, you’re now in the future. How much does temp music influence the rhythm and pace of your edit?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So he believes that temp music for editing is incredibly important, especially for rhythm sensitive scenes such as the montages that you saw. Although he’s aware that the temp music is not the final score or the final music, but it does give him a guideline as to fathom the length of each shot. And this is an FYI to the editors who are listening to this talk, like the VFX supervisor previously, some composers hate the assembly having temp music in it. This is also a very case by case thing so VOA.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yes. I understand that with Director Bong’s movies, you use the score from his previous movie as temp tracks when you’re editing. But then when you remove the temp tracks, does the new composer for the film have to write music to the same time signature and mood that you’ve been cutting to? And how much of communication do you have with the composer?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So Director Bong usually communicates with the composer, he doesn’t communicate with the composer directly himself. And the composer while composing the music, tries to fit the rhythm of the score to the rhythm of the edit. And there are times of course where the new score has certain rhythms that are not in sync with the initial rhythm of the edit. And those parts of the shots are always tweaked to better service to score.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Very good tip as well because I know sometimes editors talking to composers, there can be a clash. But with you, you just get Director Bong to talk to them.

Jason Yu (Translator):

This is just a small tip as an editor, always keep in mind that a film is a collaboration with various different professionals from the various different fields. So always, he feels that it’s important to be always respectful of other professionals’ fields and try to be a collaborator instead of being too precious about your own field.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Yes. So not only are you committed to making good work, but you’re committed to having a good process and good teamwork. I want to play our final clip, but it’s not from Parasite. We’re going to go back to the beginning, to your very first film credit on IMDb. It’s from 2010. You edited a short film that was part of an iPhone 4 film festival. It was called Bang directed by Kyung-pyo Hong. Here’s a clip of that very, very early editing job.

 

[clip plays]

Sook-Yin Lee:

Oh yeah. Yeah, rock on. Guns, babes and architecture. Jinmo, how much of you is that same editor as you were, so many years ago?

Jason Yu (Translator):

That was more of a student project than a legitimate editing project. And so what you can get out of this project is not really an editing parable but more about, you never know what you’d become, what you’d become in life. So that’s probably the message of that embarrassing film. An interesting trivia of that short film is that the DP of the short film, it was the same DP of Parasite. And at that time he wasn’t a legitimate editor, more of an errand boy who would fix computers of Hong Kyung-pyo, of the DP.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Oh my God, that is so great. You’ve come a long way baby. It’s interesting, you did study in America, you moved as a young guy, your family moved to the States and then you went to school, university, learned your chops there, a little bit of stuff there, but then you moved back to Korea and where you’re based now. And can you describe a little bit of your filmmaking community in Seoul, Korea.

Jason Yu (Translator):

In the States he usually worked on indie film projects. But then a famous Korean director, he met a famous Korean director in the States who persuaded him, or that’s the reason why he returned to Korea, because he had a gig working as an onset editor for his films. And during that time he met numerous filmmakers, not really famous at that time and made short films like the ones you just saw, and just kind of learning the chops, keep making things and collaborating. And as time passed, the same people begin to work on bigger projects and they have Jinmo on for these bigger projects. And one of those bigger projects was Snowpiercer and that’s how he met Director Bong who then connected him to other projects of Director Bong. So it’s kind of a link of people that he met that helped him get to where he is today.

Sook-Yin Lee:

And today is it quite a vibrant community where you all are kind of mix and sort of influence one another?

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes and no, because now everybody’s too much busy doing their own thing in their own field, so its it’s hard to meet up.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Can you tell me a little bit about where you currently are, what you’re working on and what’s next.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Currently he’s editing the Netflix mini series titled The Silent Sea. And he will also in the near future edit a couple of feature films, which are currently in production. And in the distant future he plans to edit the next project of Director Bong, but he doesn’t know the exact date or when exactly that would be, but that’s the plan.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Great. And in terms of being a filmmaker, an artist, an editor while we’re living in a pandemic, how is that affecting your work?

Jason Yu (Translator):

To be honest, yes because of the pandemic, the film industry in Korea has worsened. Nonetheless, the special circumstances do create new special opportunities. And one of those is OTT streaming services such as Netflix. And there are extra gigs that Netflix provides him. And previously, previous to the pandemic he was never really concerned about these projects by streaming services. But because of the pandemic, they have given him a lot more projects. And currently half of his editing work is the streaming services such as Netflix and half is the traditional feature films that are currently under production.

Sook-Yin Lee:

So are the streaming, Netflix, are those American films that you’re working on? Are you doing more English language movies?

Jason Yu (Translator):

No they’re all Korean, original Korean content.

Sook-Yin Lee:

You originally said that you started off in film wanting to be a director. Jinmo, do you ever see yourself as making that step towards directing a film?

Jason Yu (Translator):

There’s no plan for it right now as an editor. He witnessed how hard directing is, just by observing other directors. So currently the plan is just sticking to editing.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Well, I mean, I think a lot of the story has to do with the edit because you could give raw footage to 10 different editors and you’ll have 10 different stories, because everybody kind of picks something different. And so you really can affect and influence the outcome of a story through the sequence of images. And so it seems to me when I’m talking to you that you are kind of using a director’s mind in the editing. You had said so many times here that you served Director Bong in the case of Parasite. But at the same time, you’re moving to find essence and spirit and get to the heart of the film. And that is to me, a lot of the qualities that a director has as well. How important do you think that this editing discipline is to the final outcome of the movie?

Jason Yu (Translator):

So he can’t quantify a figure or a percentage of his influence as an editor on a film, but he does believe that the influence is significant. And regardless of how big the influence is, he feels it. And when he watches the film with an audience, that’s when he feels the most proud of his work, his influence on the film.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Seeing how audiences engage with the work. And I also really love the idea that it seems like you have almost like a sense of rational mathematics also within that attempt to capture the essence. You’re talking about rhythm and kind of like almost like there’s specific logical qualities that are part of your storytelling as well.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Yes, you’re correct. And just to add onto that, he believes that whatever field you’re in, experience provides the best outcome. So for example, in film, if you watch a lot of films, make a lot of films, you just get a better sense, a better handle on things and provide the best outcome for it.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Wonderful. Well, I’m looking forward to more stories in the future, more films. And it’s been such a pleasure to speak with you Jinmo and also thank you so much Jason for translating. Have a great day. Good luck with all of your projects and have a good night’s sleep.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Thank you, thank you so much.

Jinmo Yang:

Thank you. Thanks again.

Jason Yu (Translator):

Thank you so much for having us.

Sook-Yin Lee:

Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Sarah Taylor:

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thank you goes to Alison Dowler and Jane MacRae. This episode was edited by Danny Santa Anna. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rush. Original music created by Chad Blaine and Soundstripe. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao.

The CCE has been supporting Indspire – an organization that provides funding and scholarships to Indigenous post secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca or you can donate directly at indspire.ca. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in anyway they can.

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.

[Outro]

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.

Abonnez-vous là où vous écoutez vos balados

Que voulez-vous entendre sur L'art du montage?

Veuillez nous envoyer un courriel en mentionnant les sujets que vous aimeriez que nous abordions, ou les monteurs.euses dont vous aimeriez entendre parler, à :

Crédits

Un grand Merci à

Jane MacRae

Alison Dowler

Chen Sing Yap

Hosted and Produced by

Sarah Taylor

Editied by

Danny Santa Ana

Design sonore du générique d'ouverture

Jane Tattersall

ADR Recording by

Andrea Rusch

Mixé et masterisé par

Tony Bao

Musique originale par

Chad Blain

Soundstripe

Sponsor Narration by

Paul Winestock

Commandité par

Boris FX

Catégories
Articles Membres Communiqué de presse

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 5e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2022

Les Monteurs et Monteuses de cinéma canadien présentent leur 5e conférence annuelle, l’EditCon 2022

Les Monteurs et monteuses de cinéma canadien (CCE) sont heureux et heureuses de présenter l' EDITCON 2022, la cinquième conférence annuelle sur l’art du montage, un événement virtuel de deux jours qui se tiendra les samedi et dimanche 5-6 mars 2022

Le Meilleur des mondes, c’est la thématique que nous avons choisie pour l’EditCon 2022.

Alors que la pandémie semble s’essouffler, nous nous trouvons devant un avenir incertain. Une quantité sans précédent de contenu est produit pour toute une panoplie de nouvelles plateformes, et l’art de raconter des histoires évolue rapidement pour subvenir aux besoins d’une société en pleine mutation. L’EditCon 2022 offrira aux monteur·euse·s d’ici et d’ailleurs un espace unique où discuter des défis qu’ils et elles affrontent tandis qu’émerge une nouvelle conversation culturelle. Ce sera aussi l’occasion d’échanger à propos des nouveaux outils et flux de travail qui aident à répondre à cette demande inouïe pour de nouvelles histoires.  

L’événement proposera une expérience virtuelle unique de conférences interactives. En plus de tables rondes passionnantes présentant des invité·e·s de partout, il y aura des échanges en salles de discussion, qui sont des lieux à capacité limitée où de plus petits groupes pourront interagir lors de conversations plus intimes. Au-delà des zooms, nous voulons tirer le meilleur parti des nouvelles technologies pour créer des expériences de réseautage en ligne hors du commun. Nous aurons des jeux, des tirages et plus encore afin de faire de cet événement autre chose qu’un simple webinaire. 

Parmi les invité·e·s, nous recevrons :

  • Ricardo Acosta, CCE, BETRAYAL
  • Orlee Buium, ALL MY PUNY SORROWS
  • Jim Flynn, ACE, BRIDGERTON
  • Michèle Hozer, CCE, A CURE FOR A COMMON CLASSROOM
  • Jordan Kawai, BETRAYAL
  • Omar Majeed, SORT OF
  • Melissa McCoy, ACE, TED LASSO
  • Nathan Orloff, GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE
  • Brina Romanek, A CURE FOR A COMMON CLASSROOM
  • Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, ACE, SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
  • Nat Sanders, ACE, SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
  • Michelle Szemberg, CCE, ALL MY PUNY SORROWS
  • Arthur Tarnowski, ACE, DRUNKEN BIRDS
  • Sam Thomson, SORT OF
  • Dylan Tichenor, ACE, ETERNALS
  • Harry Yoon, ACE, SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
  • Jorge Weisz, CCE, NIGHT RAIDERS
  • Rich Williamson, SCARBOROUGH

Les billets seront en vente à partir du 4 janvier 2022. 

fr_CAFR

stay connected

Subscribe to our mailing list to
receive updates, news and offers

Aller au contenu