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The Editors Cut

Episode 035: Behind the Cut with Susan Shipton

The Editors Cut - Episode 035: Behind the Cut with Susan Shipton

The Editors Cut - Episode 035: Behind the Cut with Susan Shipton

This episode is part 4 of a 4 part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

This episode is sponsored by Annex Pro and Avid.

2020 EditCon Panel 4 no script no problem on stage at TIFF

Multi-award-winning editor Susan Shipton shares her vast knowledge and experience from a long career in film and network television. Susan has over 40 feature films to her credit.

She has cut eight films with director Atom Egoyan (including Oscar-nominated The Sweet Hereafter), as well as many critically-acclaimed television series such as The Book of Negroes, and The Expanse.

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The Editor’s Cut – Episode 035 – Interview with Susan Shipton (EditCon 2020 Series)



Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Annex Pro and Avid. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. We’d like to point out that the lands on which we have created this podcast and that many of you may be listening to us from are part of ancestral territory. It is important for all of us to deeply acknowledge that we are on ancestral territory that has long served as a place where indigenous peoples have lived, met, and interacted. We honour, respect, and recognize these nations that have never relinquished their rights or sovereign authority over the lands and waters on which we stand today. We encourage you to reflect on the history of the land, the rich culture, the many contributions and the concerns that impact indigenous individuals and communities. Land acknowledgements are the start to a deeper action. Today I bring to you part four of our four-part series covering EditCon that took place on Saturday, February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, behind the cut with Susan Shipton. Multi award winning editor, Susan Shipton will share her vast knowledge and experience from her long career in film and network television. Susan has over 40 feature films to her credit. She has cut eight films with director Atom Egoyan, including Oscar nominated The Sweet Hereafter as well as many critically acclaimed television series, such as The Book of Negroes and The Expanse.

 

[show open]

 

Just a warning that some of the clips played in this episode contain coarse language and sexual content

Stephen Philipson:

So, it is my great pleasure to introduce our very esteemed keynote speaker. She’s the multiple DGC award and Genie award winning editor behind many iconic Canadian films working in a range of tones and styles from art house cinema to historical drama, comedy and science fiction. Her films have been widely recognized around the world at film festivals and by little award shows such as the Oscars. Most notably, she’s collaborated with Atom Egoyan on all his films from The Adjuster , to his latest Guest of Honour, including the Oscar nominated and Cannes Jury prize winning, The Sweet Hereafter. She’s also worked with other world renowned directors, such as Robert Lepage on Possible Worlds and István Szabó on Being Julia, winning a Genie award and a DGC award for those films, but it doesn’t stop there. Her work continues on the small screen with Clement Virgo’s, critically acclaimed Book of Negroes, Nurses and Burden of Truth, The Expanse and the new Netflix series, Ginny & Georgia. Of course, I’m talking about Susan Shipton. Our moderator, Sarah Taylor, is the host of The Editor’s Cut. The CCE podcast, now making waves internationally. Yes, we have listeners from around the world. She’s an award-winning editor with 18 years of experience in documentary and narrative films. Most recently, she edited the short documentary Fast Horse, which screened at over 15 festivals and won a Special Jury Award for directing at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Annex Pro and Avid are very excited to welcome-

Pauline Decroix:

Sarah Taylor.

Stephen Philipson:

And Susan Shipton.

Sarah Taylor:

Hello everyone. What a great day. I’ve been taking lots of notes today and I’m going to take them back to my suite. So thank you for that. And thank you for coming and Susan, thank you for joining me on stage. We have a lot to discuss, so I want to start just briefly, you went to Queen’s University and you took film studies and graduated in 1992, which means you’ve been in the industry for over 30 years.

Susan Shipton:

I graduated in 1982.

Sarah Taylor:

  1. I wrote 92, okay 82. Well, you’ve been in the industry for a while. No, no, 1992, but I’m assuming you have a lot of great stories to tell us. And I don’t know the full story, but please tell us about your first job in the film industry.

Susan Shipton:

Well, I did graduate from Queen’s University and by the way, thank you for that beautiful introduction. That was really lovely. Thank you. And I had made a couple of short films at Queen’s as one did and really enjoyed the editing process, but my goal was actually to write and direct. But I really loved editing, and I really loved what I learned about filmmaking from editing. And it was always in the back of my head that you have to be in a cutting room to really learn what it is to be a filmmaker. So I came to Toronto with all my film school experience and landed my first job slinging burgers at Toby’s Bar and Grill on Yonge street. It was a chain at the time, long gone. And in the meantime, I had a friend who went to the same high school as I did, who was a few years ahead of me who was working in the industry.

Susan Shipton:

And when I was back in Belleville, where I was living with my parents, he said, when you come to Toronto, I’m working in the business. So give me a call and I’ll see what I can do. And so I did, and he was working on a show and he said, I don’t know if I have anything, but you know. And I was literally in the middle of an afternoon lunch shift at Toby’s with burgers in both hands. And the phone rang at Toby’s. This was pre-cell phone, somehow he had my work number, I guess that’s what you did. The phone rang at Toby’s. And he said, and I answered it, put my burgers down. And he said, I have a job for you if you want to come and get this job. And I said, Alan, I’m like in the middle of a lunch shift at Toby’s with burgers in my hands.

Susan Shipton:

I’ll drive down after my shift. And he said, the job may or may not be here for you if you do that. So I actually handed my burger plates off to the other aspiring filmmaker waiter who got it. He says, Susan, give those to me. I’ll never forget him. He said, give him to me, I’ll take your shift. So I went down to Lake Shore Studios to pursue my first job in film. And it was as a production assistant on a soft core porn television series. I really want to emphasize that I was a production assistant, even though my first job was in pornography. And it was a for Playboy First Choice. It was called Office Girls and all the clothes had to be made with Velcro in them so that they came off quickly. One of my best friends to this day, I met on that show and I had the contract for ages and maybe I’ll find it someday.

Susan Shipton:

Because it’s wonderful. It’s $225 a week contracted seven day week. It’s wonderful, in black and white, but I would have to, as a runner, I’d have to do everything including drive the bunnies around. But I had to drive the tapes because it was shot on tape down to Mag North, which was this editing facility, which is now a condo, a surprise in Toronto. And I would go, I would deliver them to the editor and I would, and they had jelly beans everywhere. Cause that was in the days when like tape editing was the coolest, and that’s where all the money was. So they had jelly beans and cookies and stuff. And I just thought this was glorious. I would deliver these tapes and I’d sit with him in the dark room as he cut this awful stuff. Anyway, life went on after that, but that was my start.

Sarah Taylor:

So the snacks enticed you to get into the editing room?

Susan Shipton:

Large part of it.

Susan Shipton:

My friends know there’s nothing I love more than free food, but it was also just that, what he was doing was really quite astonishing, even though the show was so awful, cause he, I would sit with him and he would show me what he was up against lots of this stuff that we’ve heard today. And he was a great editor and just the quiet, and that he was working by himself. So, yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

So then after you had that experience, you decided to pursue editing and you became an assistant.

Susan Shipton:

Yes. And that was through another crazy serendipitous Queen’s connection. Woman I knew at Queen’s was syncing rushes or dailies, which was an entry-level job into a cutting room in those days. And she had two jobs, and the shoot fell in such a way that she couldn’t do one of the syncing jobs and phoned me. And I went in and did it. And the editor was Roger Mattiussi, who’s remained a friend of mine to this day, and he kind of put me in touch to quickly just go there. I said to him; I don’t know anything. I can’t get into a cutting room cause I don’t have a skill and he said I’ll hire you. Which was lovely. And he did. He hired me on a CBC for the record where I met Sturla Gunnarsson. And then I got on a documentary as an assistant Jeff Warren and that Sturla Gunnarsson directed about the UAW, CAW, which was called Final Offer, which was an extraordinary experience because the thing about the film days is that you’re actually in the room with the editor.

Susan Shipton:

So like on all of those shows, because you’re just filing trims, you know? And so you’re in the room with the editor sometimes in another room, but often with the editor on Final Offer, we were all at the film board and we would, I’d be standing there filing trims or sitting at the desk with the writer and the director and the editor and very much a part of the conversations if I wanted to be. And they were very generous about that. That was a fantastic experience. And through them I met Patricia Rozema. Roger was friends with Elaine Foreman who was Ron Sanders’ first assistant at the time. And I said to Roger, I really want to cut feature films. And I want to work with the best people, who are those people. And Roger named them. And he said, but there were three men.

Susan Shipton:

And he said, but two of those men don’t hire women.

Sarah Taylor:

Interesting.

Susan Shipton:

I mean, it was amazing, and it was like, Roger just said it like as a statement of fact, right? Like it wasn’t really, and so one of the only one who hired women was Ron. And so I went to probably an introduction through Roger. I went to Ron’s cutting room and Roger had also told me, he said, he’s the only editor who’s doing pictures that are big enough, that’ll have an apprentice on them. And that’s how you’re going to have to start as an apprentice. And then just to say, how I got working with Ron was I went, I met him and that was like so amazing because it’s David Cronenberg’s cutting room and that great picture of Cronenberg strangling himself and he’s all blue.

Susan Shipton:

And it was just amazing. So, I said if you ever are hiring an apprentice, I would love to work with you. And then I get a call from his first assistant, Michael Ray they were between pictures. They said, Ron’s just got a picture called The Park Is Mine, which is with Tommy Lee Jones. Would you like to come on board as a second assistant editor? And I actually freaked out because I didn’t think I could do that. I’d applied to be an apprentice. And I was just sort of, Oh my God, I can’t do that. So I went back home to Belleville, and I said, I’ll think about it, the biggest opportunity. And I said, oh, I’ll have to think about it. So I went home and my parents and my dad said to me, you didn’t lie to get the job.

Susan Shipton:

You didn’t tell them anything that wasn’t true. They know your experienced they’re willing to take you on and do it. And so I did, and I ended up then doing The Fly with Ron as well as an assistant.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow.

Susan Shipton:

And another little movie, little MOW Ron and I did as well.

Sarah Taylor:

Was there anything from your experience working with Ron that you still like look to now and when you’re working?

Susan Shipton:

Yeah, absolutely. I think, I don’t know. In what way, I sort of took these things in, but I even know Ron is one of my heroes as an editor. I think his editing is beautiful. And I can’t even say specifically, but just watching him cut and watching and actually weirdly Ron’s own inarticulateness about what he does, what was taught me a lot, because it was all about feeling, it was like, why are you cutting there Ron? It feels right. You know, and that really is where a lot of it comes from. And he’s just been hugely helpful to me. I have called him a couple of times when I’m cutting things and said, yeah, Ron, would you mind having a look and he’s come in and looked and helped me over the years.

Sarah Taylor:

Wow. What a great connection.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah, it was.

Sarah Taylor:

Now, how did you get into your first opportunity from assisting to cut your first feature film?

Susan Shipton:

That was serendipity. Again, I had met Patricia Rozema at the National Film, but it’s all connected. It’s all these weird kinds of connections, right? I’d met Patricia we’d become friends. And I would go to her house for parties and Atom Egoyan would be there. And that’s how I met Atom. And one night at a party, I wore my coat backwards, and I thought it was hysterical. I thought it was like the funniest thing ever. And everyone started wearing their coats backwards. And I don’t recommend this, but people seem to remember me from that, Atom in particular.

Sarah Taylor:

Backwards coat lady.

Susan Shipton:

The backwards coat lady.

Susan Shipton:

It’s sort of like, I just think it put me in his mind somehow. But what happened with The Adjuster was he was looking for an editor. Oh no. I went up for another movie. I had quite a lot of experience by this time. I’d been an assistant for nine years and I’d assisted in foley and dialogues and effects and picture and I’d cut a short film and I went up for a film and didn’t get it. And the editor who got it, a man, was far less experienced than me. And he had to call me and ask me how to set up a cutting room and recognized when he was talking to me that he’d gotten the job from me. He was offered The Adjuster and he couldn’t do it. And he phoned me and told me Atom’s looking for an editor.

Sarah Taylor:

Nice.

Susan Shipton:

So it was kind of like, he felt bad. He didn’t realize that, that was a dynamic that had happened. And so there’s this weird, like theme of sexism that’s worked for and against me.

Sarah Taylor:

And then did Atom go, “Oh yeah, the lady with the backwards coat.”

Susan Shipton:

Yes, he did.

Sarah Taylor:

So you, you guys must’ve enjoyed your time working together. Cause you’ve cut all of his films.

Susan Shipton:

I was like the third editor, someone else was then offered The Adjuster and he didn’t take it because Atom wanted a co-edit and I was delighted because it was a big step for me. And I thought, “Hey, I get to edit. But I have the protection a bit.” I had no problem with it at all. So then when we started cutting it together, he acknowledged partway through the process we got on great. That what was actually happening was a more traditional director editor relationship. And he said to me, I’m just going to take an additional editing credit in the tails. You’re the editor. And so, yeah, that started a long relationship.

Sarah Taylor:

How has that relationship evolved over the years and maybe what is it about the two of you together that just works?

Susan Shipton:

You know, it’s almost a question for him in a way, but I guess what works for me is like, I’ve always found his films deeply moving and I’m aware that not everyone does with Atom’s films, right? There’s an intellectual kind of distance in some of the ways that he tells stories, but I’ve always been deeply moved by the characters also by the way of storytelling by his use of the camera. Like there are moments in his films that just take my breath away. So I think that I have a natural fit to those rhythms, but I’m also critical as well. So I think it’s comfortable for me. I mean, the relationship has evolved, but I think the big step was his, the very first film when he recognized that I was actually an editor.

Sarah Taylor:

He trusted you.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. And I think that from then on, we’d been on, but his filmmaking and his relationship to storytelling in the edit has really evolved.

Sarah Taylor:

You’ve helped make that happen too.

Susan Shipton:

Well, he does say. The one compliment he does give me is, he says, he shoots coverage because of the way I cut it, because he doesn’t used to shoot coverage. He was just like, string masters together. So I like that he says that.

Sarah Taylor:

So you taught him something, that’s good.

Susan Shipton:

I taught him something. Yes.

Sarah Taylor:

Was there any films, like obviously The Sweet Hereafter is a Canadian classic and it, is there any of his films that hold a special spot for you?

Susan Shipton:

Felicia’s Journey. I mean, is my favourite Atom film. There are those moments in Felicia’s Journey that are to me so beautiful and so perfectly realized. I mean, I also it’s one of the more linear–I did not cut Remember, that was Chris Donaldson and that’s a more linear one, but Felicia’s was oddly more linear. It had its flashbacks were more conventional flashbacks versus the multi narrative, which, I’m not saying that’s why I like it better, but it was different in a way. Right? And I think the discipline of actually staying in a more forward moving narrative was interesting for me. And I just, I love Bob Hoskins performance. It’s an extraordinary film to me. I love it.

Sarah Taylor:

And have you recently watched it?

Susan Shipton:

Yes.

Susan Shipton:

I did, and it totally held up for me. And that doesn’t always happen when I watched, previous.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, for sure.

Susan Shipton:

Older films. Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, I think we should get into the details of your editing process. So we have a few clips that we’re going to show today. Two of them are from feature films and then one television clip. And the first clip is from Burn Your Maps directed by Jordan Roberts. Do you want to set it up for us?

Susan Shipton:

Sure. I picked this clip because in, it’s really hard on these panels I think to talk about editing and show clips, because so much of editing is about overall structure that spans whether it’s a half hour of television or a feature film, right. You move stuff around, there’s the flow and the pace and things. And then obviously we’re not going to sit and watch all Burn Your Maps, but we’re watching the first, I guess, three scenes of it. And I love the film, but I picked it because I can talk about a lot of aspects of editing in it. These three scenes were reordered endlessly in the edit, just so that the first scene of the movie as scripted, you’ll see when you see it, was the gymnasium. And then the next scene was the drawing. And then I don’t even actually remember where the therapy session came, but it didn’t come as early as it comes right now. Maybe, maybe third in, but maybe further back. I can’t remember.

 

[Clip plays]

Susan Shipton:

So I should probably give a little backstory on what the film’s about. Obviously they’ve lost a child six months old. I think it was a baby. The family’s in crisis and Wes, the little boy thinks he’s a Mongolian goat herder. So it’s about identity and it’s about a family in crisis and believe it or not, it’s a comedy, dramatic comedy. So the scene that you saw, the last scene where he’s making what you don’t need to know at this point, obviously, but he’s making a suit that he wears. Because he goes to school dressed as a Mongolian goat herder. So that’s what he’s making when he’s tracing and doing all that stuff.

Susan Shipton:

In the first script and the original assembly, the way that it was shot and cut, is that slow move in and the gymnasium, is the opening of the film. And then what actually happens is that a couple of kids who bully him, pardon me, although they’re not hugely important in the film, but they do bully him. They throw that book that he’s making, those sketches, is they throw rolled up paper and he looks up, and he just looks at them and they insult him and leave.

Susan Shipton:

And all that. And he’s looking. That’s his sister in the gym, again, you don’t know them. But he’s looking and he’s isolated, he’s alone. And there’s all that activity around him. So that’s kind of the point of the scene and that he’s also being bullied.

Susan Shipton:

But a couple of things, the bullies weren’t that interesting. They’re not really germane to the story they’re props in terms of understanding Wes’s character. They had the first line of the film. They said something awful to him. And it wasn’t a great performance. So it’s sort of like, “Why are we seeing these bullies”? But then the challenge became well, what’s he doing? And how do we get to it? And all of that, and the director went to Mongolia. The whole film was shot in Alberta, except he went to Mongolia to get some shots.

Susan Shipton:

And that very first shot of the film is a real goat herder in Mongolia. And that kind of sound design that you hear, we came up with in the cutting room with the goats. Obviously we animated it. So you can hear it in that traditional Mongolian music in there.

Susan Shipton:

And so that very first shot of Wes that you come in on, you’re supposed to feel that he’s thinking that. That that’s what he’s thinking about. And that very first shot of Wes is actually the shot from when he looks up at the bullies. I have every single frame possible because of course he just looked back down or whatever he did in the original performance, but because of the performance of the kid, Because he’s a blank palette, so that the editing makes you think about what he’s thinking about.

Susan Shipton:

So in one version we then went directly, and there’s a funny story about that insert of the goats that he’s drawing, I asked for that to be redone because the first time we had the insert, they look like cats or something. And so they did it again and they still look like cats. It’s like one of those moments, like that doesn’t look like goats. But anyway, they couldn’t do it yet again. So we have him scribbling cats, which are supposed to be goats. So then we go off that. And then we went for the longest time, right to him preparing his costume. And that was a really beautiful cut. And I loved that. Because you started the music over the goat/ cat sketch and went right into his room and it was really quite beautiful and quite lyrical.

Susan Shipton:

But then the big thing about that film is that scene in the therapy office, because it is tough. It’s really, really tough because the performances are really good. The subject matter is really real. It’s really raw. And it’s a really tough scene to put at the beginning of a comedy. The beginning of any movie, but I think at the beginning of a comedy. So that scene migrated around the first 30 minutes of the film. It just kept moving and we could never find a place for it. And the director, I can’t really remember where it was scripted for us somewhere around where it actually occurs now, if not there. But as I said, it migrated. And the reason I chose this clip is because I can address lots of things about working as an editor.

Susan Shipton:

And one of them was the fact that people, namely the producers, really had a strong, adverse reaction to having that so early in the film. And we eventually realized that they had a strong or adverse reaction to a woman talking about a blow job.

Sarah Taylor:

Interesting. Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And a woman talking the way she was talking in a therapy session. Because if you really investigated their issues, that’s what it came down to. And I’m not even saying that, then that’s a cultural thing, the scenes tough, but that just put it over the edge for people.

Sarah Taylor:

And it was too real maybe or something-

Susan Shipton:

They just don’t want to hear women talk like that-

Sarah Taylor:

I suppose so.

Susan Shipton:

Because the evolution of the cutting of that scene, it’s like I was saying to you, it’s ended up pretty much uncut, right? The coverage on that scene, there was closeup coverage, there was loose AB coverage. There was lots of coverage. And the first cut of the scene, I used a lot of it, and the performances were gorgeous.

Susan Shipton:

Vera’s performance to me is just like, it was just a treat. For me, editing isn’t just about picking performance, but we’ll come back to that. So when we had it cut on coverage, the reason why we caughtened on to the real issue around where it was, was because the producers kept asking us for the softer takes of Vera when she was saying those lines.

Susan Shipton:

And in general, softer takes of Vera, softer takes of Vera, softer takes of Vera. That was the one, probably the only note we got on that scene. And then we started going, “Mm hmm, I think we know what’s going on here. It’s a problem with the content”.

Susan Shipton:

And the director to his credit said, “Tough”. It’s going early in the film. And we tested it. And I’m trying to remember what the response was. And that was like somebody was talking earlier about, “How did you respond to a test”? And I think people struggled with that scene, but the director that was part of his vision and it was going to go at the beginning and that was what he was going to do.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, I think by watching the whole film, it makes sense for it to be there. It sets it up and I didn’t react like that when I heard it. I didn’t think it was harsh, but I can see how that’s the case. So when they asked you to do softer, softer, was that how you got to not cutting much in it? Or was it just because of some of the performance, you let those takes just-

Susan Shipton:

We recut that scene and recut it and recut it. And to be honest, the director really became, obsessed is too strong a word, with getting that scene right and getting it the way that he wanted it. And I think in a weird way, I think that there was so much good material that I think he had trouble dealing with that, honestly. Because there were just too many options. And then how we ended up at the two shot. That’s one of my favorite compositions is a two shot. And the tension between the two of them is so palpable in the two shot, because you get the body language, you get the awkwardness and then you get the moment of her reaching for him at the end and crossing a bridge over. You get all that. So when you went out of that, you always had good performance, but you lost that geography.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. That chemistry. Because then even at the end, when she recoils, you-

Susan Shipton:

Oh yeah, it’s tough. I mean, she allows him to come. She warms to him. But as soon as she does it, she pushes him away again. And by the way, the end of that scene, he gets up and he goes to the door, and it’s beautifully written, and it was nicely performed, he basically says, “Yeah, what about me? Don’t you think I’m grieving for my child too? Just because I’m capable of going to work every day, and I’m capable of doing these things, doesn’t mean I’m not grieving for my child and you’re not helping”.

Susan Shipton:

It was great, but it was too much. And it was super hard because it’s not his film either, it’s Vera’s and the kid’s.

Sarah Taylor:

And Wes.

Susan Shipton:

And Wes’s.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, speaking of Wes, I watched the film, I thought he was wonderful. But then I was like, that has a lot to do with you too. How was it editing a young actor? I don’t know. Did he have much experience? Like he’s little so-

Susan Shipton:

Well, he had done Room. And I knew some people that worked on Room. It was the same thing. There’s a thing with actors. And I think it’s what makes some actors into movie stars. I think it’s just the thing and he has it. But a lot of times, I think that’s what it is with child actors. They just have a presence, a rootedness, you don’t feel an artifice, they’re just kind of are. And he has that. Having said that, he was tough. The first scene, real scene, where he’s with Suresh in the carwash. And he meets this guy and the guy’s like, “What? You think you’re a Mongolian goat herder”? And he’s a young filmmaker and he wants to film him. Well, Wes, Jacob Tremblay, was falling asleep through the entire scene.

Sarah Taylor:

Really.

Susan Shipton:

And it was the first scene I got. And he was literally, he’d be sitting there and he’d be going. I was cutting around like, “How many frames do I have before he closes his eyes”? It was like that. And then almost every time I’m off him-

Sarah Taylor:

It’s because he’s sleeping.

Susan Shipton:

He’s got the noddies. And the reason for it, the director talked to him because I was like, “Ahh”, the director was kind of panicked, but Jacob being a kid, he’s on set and they’re candies and chocolate and everything. He gorged himself and then had a sugar crash. And so the director had to say to his parents, who are great, they’re great stage parents. They’re hugely supportive. Had to say to his mother, like “He can’t do that. He has to stay away from the craft table. And he has to go bed at a certain point”.

Susan Shipton:

So there were moments when he was a kid. I mean, he’s a kid. And he would get tired. But that thing that you see in his face, when he was doing well, that’s what you got. And he had a big emotional scene, which unfortunately we cut out for other reasons, and he was good when he was delivering that too. So he did have it.

Sarah Taylor:

You mentioned, at one point when we were talking, that when you were cutting David Wellington’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, that you honed a dialogue editing technique. And I wanted to hear what that was.

Susan Shipton:

It’s something that’s kind of haunted me. I cut that film in 1997 and it was, in my career, aside from Adam’s work, probably the most important and influential thing for me on the way that I cut. And I liked to actually think that I don’t cut any particular way because I want to respond to the material and I cut in a way that’s appropriate to the material. I think, like I was saying about Ron, you go in, you just, you respond to the material. It’s a rhythm. It’s almost a physical rhythm. It’s like, “Where do you cut? You cut where it feels right”.

Susan Shipton:

But editing is such a process. So that’s how you arrive at say the first cut, but then when you go through it and things aren’t working, then I become more analytical about why. And I pay a lot of attention, and this is a tool of analyzing more than an approach to editing, I pay a lot of attention to when dialogue scenes to where I’m cutting between characters on dialogue. And who owns the pauses, so to speak. Like, where are the pauses played and there’s power in pauses.

Sarah Taylor:

Totally yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And how you play them. And again, it’s not like I do it a certain way. One thing that I do, and this was, this is a bit the curse that I consciously try to rid myself of, I actually have a lot of problem creating a dialogue rhythm that isn’t already there in the performance. If I have to tighten something up. Tightening something up is not a problem for me as much as loosening it.

Sarah Taylor:

Making it breathe.

Susan Shipton:

Making it breathe, because if the actors didn’t do it, I find it hard to cut outside of their rhythms. Which is not necessarily a good thing. I’m not saying that it is, that’s why it’s kind of a curse.

Sarah Taylor:

Is it because you’ve watched that footage and you feel connected to that footage? Or why do you feel like it’s not right?

Susan Shipton:

I don’t know why really, because I think, I think it comes from Long Days Journey into Night, which was a stage play and the actors had done it in Stratford, and they were well rehearsed in it. And they did dialogue over. They did some overlapping and stuff like that, but I would actually cut the dialogue tracks and fit the picture in.

Sarah Taylor:

Okay.

Susan Shipton:

And I will still do that. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting because, in reality, people were talking about doing a similar thing.

Sarah Taylor:

The radio edit.

Susan Shipton:

And, I will do that, but I do find sometimes it’s hard. That’s the challenge for me. I find it hard to cut out any of the rhythms and the natural things that people do with their faces. And when they’re speaking to one another. But editing is a process, so I can do it much more easily on the second cut.

Susan Shipton:

On the first cut, they have all those moments and those are all in there. And then I can go through. I think because Long Day’s Journey was such a dialogue heavy film. And I really, really had so much opportunity to really look at the effect you have, for instance, when you cut in the middle of a clause versus between clauses. When you lay a word over or where you pre-lap, and there’s no right or wrong thing to do about that, it’s just paying attention to the impact that had on the story, the emotional story you were telling.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. And you mentioned that you pay attention to the pauses. What is it about the pause? What do you look for? Is it a feeling? Or is it the expression? Or just a natural rhythm?

Susan Shipton:

The actors that I find the hardest to cut are the ones that do a whole lot of things before their reaction. Because you’re going to cut it out, it’s just too long. But then I find that there’s an emotional transition missing. This is another thing that I’m really big on when I’m cutting dialogue, is emotional transitions. In other words, if you’re on somebody and they’re angry or they’re about to cry, and you cut away a couple of places and you come back and that person is in tears, it makes it look like it’s bad editing.

Sarah Taylor:

You lose it. Yeah. You lose that emotion.

Susan Shipton:

And that’s one of the huge challenges because maybe it took that person way too long to start to cry.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

So now what do you do? Now you figure out a way when something’s not working for me again, I look at it and I say, “Do I have the emotional transitions”? And frankly, sometimes you can’t. Like in Guest of Honour, in fact, there’s this incredible performance by David Thewlis. And we just went with it. It’s just one shot of him. It’s beautiful. And a lot of it, I think was ad-libbed, but it was too long. It’s already three minutes. We just stay in his face for three minutes and it was six or something before. So we had cut out the beginning of it. And I don’t know if anybody else will feel it. Now you’ll all look for it.

Sarah Taylor:

We’re all going to look for it.

Susan Shipton:

But when we cut away from him, we come back, I feel that loss of a little emotional transition. And I tried to fix it with a breath and some sound effects and stuff, but stuff like that makes me crazy.

Sarah Taylor:

I love it. Let’s talk a little bit about performance. And you say it’s not all about performance always, but it is in the rhythm and that side of editing for you.

Susan Shipton:

Well, it’s funny because I often hear editors say, “It’s all about performance. It’s all about performance”, and yeah, of course, it is. These are great performances, but that’s not the only reason why that’s that scene is played mostly on a two-shot. It’s played mostly on a two shot because we would have lost the physicality between them to do it otherwise. There’s another cut of that scene, that’s good. And arguably, I kind of wish I’d been able to bring it, you could say, “Yeah, it’s better”.

Sarah Taylor:

There’s more dynamics or something.

Susan Shipton:

Whatever. There’s no one perfect way to cut a scene. But editing is a craft as much as an art, or an instinct. And you use what’s given you. And that’s composition, shot composition, sound, pace. In some scenes, actually in the one that we’ll see in the dinner scene, this is another thing that we’ll all often do, not just me, is I will cut to somebody two or three cuts before I really need them. Because that’s going to set up that reaction, right?

Susan Shipton:

If you’re on, somebody, like in this dinner scene we see, he’s just sitting there like this. I’m setting that up for when he talks. Because he’s like a time bomb. So again, if I want to see that emotional transition, then I’ve got to go to that person before I really need to. So well, “Why am I going to him”? Well, there’s craft involved there, right?

Susan Shipton:

And I think the same thing with performance. There are some good performances and great performances in films I’ve cut that are on the cutting room floor. They have to be. I have an hour worth of dailies, not every great performance is in the cut. And I may say, I’m on a wide shot here, even though the performance is in the close, I’m on a wide shot here, because if I go in close, I just don’t have any gas left by the end of the scene.

Susan Shipton:

And I absolutely think as much, maybe I’ll never work again after I say this, but I think as much about shot size and composition as I do about performance. It’s film.

Sarah Taylor:

In a lot of the films you work on, you have really great actors who give you a lot of really great performance too, so that helps right.

Susan Shipton:

Having said that it, I’m not going to use a bad performance. But it’s one of the things that I consider. Because otherwise, I think, yeah-

Sarah Taylor:

Well then all the parts come together. That’s the joy of filmmaking. It’s not just about that great actor or that great cinematographer, and we all collaborate and make it good.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

You touched on the scene, we’re going to see it’s a dinner scene from the film, Barney’s Version directed by Richard J. Lewis. Maybe tell us a little bit about the film.

Susan Shipton:

So this is based on Mordecai Richler’s book, Paul Giamatti plays Barney Panofsky and his father is played by Dustin Hoffman. And his father is a tough cop. And Minnie Driver plays the woman that Paul Giamatti has met and asked her to marry him. And she comes from a very wealthy family. So, Izzy who’s, Dustin Hoffman, is like a ticking time bomb in the scene because you just wonder when he’s going to really embarrass himself.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s so good.

Susan Shipton:

The challenge in cutting this was, for me, aside from the comedy of it, was to keep the relationships alive. Because Barney, Paul Giamatti, loves his father. He loves him to death. They have a really strong relationship. He knows he’s rough around the edges and all of that. And Paul Giamatti is such an extraordinary actor that what he’s able to bring to it is, he’s a little worried how this is going to go. But there’s also a protectiveness about his father. So I wanted to bring that in. And Dustin’s character just is what it is. But I wanted to try and bring in Barney’s response to all this.

Susan Shipton:

But the real reason why I picked this was not because it’s comedy, but I picked it because it’s a dinner table scene. And I just find those so hard to cut. They fall under the category. I’ve actually picked an action sequence for the last thing. And it’s in the same category for me, which is, scenes in which many things happen at once. Ay yai yai. They’re so hard. And I think directors find them hard to shoot those kind of things. And everyone’s isolated, except they’re not isolated completely because there’s continuity issues, especially with Dustin Hoffman on this. And then there’s eye-line issues.

Susan Shipton:

And so I picked it because I find them really hard because you want to get to everybody, but you don’t want it to be cutty. And so I picked it for that reason. And the other two reasons I picked it is, it pauses, it’s playing pauses, setting up jokes as well, setting up moments. And lastly, I picked it because I think it’s about stardom because when I first saw the dailies, this is Dustin Hoffman’s introduction into the movie, and when I first saw the dailies, I thought, “Really”? In a big theater, that’s quite a wide shot.

Susan Shipton:

You can’t even recognize that it’s Dustin. And so I thought, “Really that’s Izzy? Dustin Hoffman’s character introduction”? And then I saw the door open, I thought, “Oh, that’s where I’ll start”. And then I actually went to the door open in one cut and it was way too tight and I was kind of worried about it. Not that I wanted, a drum roll or anything, but I wanted something more than a generic wide shot of a mansion. But we screened the film in L.A. at a test screening, and Dustin Hoffman got two words out of his mouth, and everybody knew who he was. And they laughed before he finished his line. I actually think it’s a perfect way to start the scene anyway now. But I thought that was so interesting to watch that.

Sarah Taylor:

You’re like, “Okay, I don’t have to worry about that anymore”.

Susan Shipton:

That whole audience just rock for an American legend, basically, as an actor.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, let’s, let’s watch this clip. It’s Barney’s Version.

 

[Clip plays]

 

Sarah Taylor:

So great. And I even, I felt awkward watching the moment where you’re like, Ooh, okay, that’s good.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. The thing that I remember most about cutting that scene, it was really, really tough to cut. All the editors in the room will recognize all the continuity potential there to try and build all those moments. Dustin Hoffman did not know his lines, so they were different every time. There were more lines in the scene than… But the scene was just too long, so it had to be cut down. All the usual stuff that we deal with. But the thing that I’m proudest of probably is the opening with him, with his fork. Cause that’s the first thing you have to do as an editor is decide how to start. And I find that the hardest thing. And I saw that in dailies and I thought that’s the beginning of the scene. And it’s before cut, or before action.

Sarah Taylor:

Oh, he’s just playing.

Susan Shipton:

Well, he’s just getting ready. And I just was… And I thought, just keep doing it. It’s so great. So I took every moment of it. And then I had to put a sound effect in, cause people were talking over it, and I amp the sound effect, which ended up being in the case just cause, and then I went back, I thought that’s just, I got to try a few other things. And I started on the wide, because there’s an incredible tension on the wide you come in the room, they’re all sitting there. But I ended up back with the fork. Cause it’s everything.

Sarah Taylor:

It’s really sets up his character.

Susan Shipton:

It totally sets up his character. And that was Dustin. I don’t think he was directed and he didn’t do it every take, but he did it once, so I got it.

Sarah Taylor:

But you saw it and you felt it, and you snatched it up.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s great. Anything else about that that back and forth?

Susan Shipton:

All the editors know it’s really hard to talk about what’s not there, which is the work, right?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

But I think it… I don’t know when I’m looking at, I just, again, it is, the performances really are beautiful. They gave me all that stuff that we were looking for because… I mean probably Dustin Hoffman less so because he’s just being Izzy, he’s just being kind of outrageous. And although, he’s this lovely, lovely moment where he goes back at Minnie Driver’s father, but then he saves it, which is such a great character moment for him. He gets up and he gives the toast. It’s a scene that just kind of goes like this, and I just really like it.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. When you were working on films with people like Dustin Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, do you have, when you’re first looking at dailies, are you the young you who started, PAing in the industry scene? Well, now I’m cutting these big names. Do you have any star struck moments or are you just like, no, we’re going to tell this story and we’re in it and-

Susan Shipton:

Oh totally completely star struck by Dustin Hoffman. Oh my God. One of the films that was my favorite film of my life was a Little Big Man. And, I love Dustin Hoffman. He was… And when I got this, I thought I can’t… I’m cutting a Dustin Hoffman movie? The pinch me moment, for sure. And Paul Giamatti. And there’s another scene in Barney’s Version, which is a dialogue between the two of them. And it’s really beautiful. It’s really, really beautiful. But Paul Giamatti I think affected me more than anybody because he is such a great actor. Yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

When you came on to, maybe we’ll talk about this film specifically or whichever film you want, are you coming in, the scripts already written and done and your… They’re about to shoot? What… Do you get to put input on the script side of things? Where does your creative component start?

Susan Shipton:

Well it depends. I get, when I work with Atom, he has sort of layers of people he gives the script to at different stages, and I’m one of the early ones. So, I read his scripts quite early and give him input and then he will give them out. Cause he recognizes that people at a certain point, you’re not fresh anymore. Right?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, for sure.

Susan Shipton:

So I usually see early drafts of his. With Barney’s I saw… It’s produced by Robert Lantos and I was doing a lot of films with him at the time, so I saw a fairly early draft of that. And just, in terms of what I’m looking for in a script that I know is going to be challenging, and Barney’s Version was a great example of it, is subplots.

Susan Shipton:

And, Barney’s Version is a difficult book to adapt. The script was beautiful. Oh, this was another thing. The script was beautiful, beautiful script. It was 130 pages long. Right away, it should have been 110, 100. And they wanted to film around 110 minutes. And I said, Robert, you know, and he said, we’ll cut it down in the edit, Susan. And I should never have let him get away with that because that’s like you create a three legged table. Right? And the heartbreaking thing for me and Barney’s Version that I talked about killing children, I killed some children. It was awful. And it also left some of the kids that were alive, maimed,

Sarah Taylor:

Oh no. Those poor kids.

Susan Shipton:

And that, and I hate that. And I said that to the director and he said, well, Susan, I’m so glad to hear you say that. I really didn’t think it bothered you. I’m like, of course it bothered me. Here’s an example, there’s this whole… There are three marriages in the film. Right? And there’s… The first one was the one that suffered the most. And just because we… Test audiences all said it was too long. And they were right. So it had to be cut down. So, the first marriage, she’s frightened of storms, and there’s a big storm and he’s comforting her when they’re first married, he’s comforting her cause she’s scared. And he says, here have a banana, eat a banana, you’ll feel better, you haven’t eaten. And so she eats it and she peels it from the wrong end. And he says, why you peel it that way, and she said, I don’t know, I read somewhere that monkeys do it. And so that’s, I figured, they’d know. And it’s kind of funny and it’s lovely, right? It had to go.

Susan Shipton:

But in the end of the movie, Dustin Hoffman is handed a… Or Paul Giamatti, who has Alzheimer’s, is handed a banana. And he turns it around to be the way that she told him. And it’s so, and I love it when stuff is planted in a script that then pays off. Right? So it broke my heart that that set up for that. Now it plays. Cause you just think he doesn’t know… He has Alzheimer’s, and he’s struggling-

Sarah Taylor:

He forgot about bananas.

Susan Shipton:

With how to eat a banana. But it had so much more resonance. And there are a lot of moments in Barney’s that suffered that fate from my evil editing hands.

Sarah Taylor:

How dare you.

Susan Shipton:

How dare I.

Sarah Taylor:

When you’re in that situation where you’re looking at this script and you’re seeing all these subplots and can you, do you say, yeah you got to ditch it?

Susan Shipton:

Yes. People need to tell the stories they need to tell. I think that the method of storytelling through limited series is much more liberating. I mean, I love feature films and I love the big screen, but the subplots, for instance, in Barney’s Version would not have been a problem in even a four-part mini series. Right? So, I mean I think that’s a good thing. I mean, Robert Lantos made a film years ago, a Hungarian film, I can’t remember the name of it now. It was so long. And I remember, I didn’t cut it, I remember seeing the hour and a half version that they cut it down to. And one of the sound editors on it told me the three hour version was way better. And, but they couldn’t go. Right? And, so that’s a film as well that would have benefited by a longer format. So.

Sarah Taylor:

We’re going to kind of shift gears a bit. Over your career, you’ve worked on many different types of editing systems. Steenbeck, Moviola. Did you say K-E-M or KEM? I don’t remember that one.

Susan Shipton:

KEM.

Sarah Taylor:

Pic Sync, Avid, Lightworks. I’m sure there’s many others. And I feel like even now, and the technology we’re in now, the systems are changing at a fast pace, and we’re almost chasing the technology. So, how do you approach this? Or what are your thoughts on how we are always having to do the next thing and or adding more to what the editor’s role is in the edit suite.

Susan Shipton:

It’s changed so much in the last 10 years that, when I was, I cut on a Moviola, I cut KEM, we cut The Adjuster on a Cinemata, which is an old Italian editing machine that they were using 40 years before me. Right? You’re lucky if you’re cutting on the same software four weeks from now. Right? I mean, imagine that I was actually, when I started, cutting on the same… In the same way that editors started cutting on. Right? And it was, I’m not that old, it was like a while later. So the changes that have occurred in the last 10 years, and certainly we’re not the only people in the world experiencing this. And I say 10 years, because it’s really 20, but the incredible fast paced change to me has happened in the last 10 years.

Susan Shipton:

And as I said, we’re not the only ones. This is the world that we’re… The great promise of technology was it was going to give us more tools and a better life. And it’s definitely given us more tools, but it’s also made… Increased the workload hugely. And it’s my concern about editors is I feel like we have a lot of skills, but I also, and it’s great, it’s a matter of balance really, because my concern is that we’re being turned into generalists. That we are having to acquire so many skills at such a high level, because a skill with music, a skill with sound, a skill with writing, those are all talents that we’ve all always had to have because it’s part of storytelling. But I think the level at which we’re required to execute and perform all of those roles, I think it’s worthy of a lot of thought and a lot of reflection and a lot of discussion.

Susan Shipton:

I don’t know how you initiate that. And I don’t know how you approach it because as I said, we are not the only ones experiencing this in the world, but in the film industry, I think we experience it at a higher level than other departments. I think probably the department next to us who experiences these changes as profoundly as us would be the art department. But, how do you find a balance saying I can put some music on this, to I’m doing 40 to 50% of the composer’s work.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. I’m doing all of the sound designing, I’m yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And listen, it’s not going to become less because the technology is only going to allow us to do more. And I guess I think the other thing that concerns me is yes, we do music, yes we do sound, yes we do color timing.

Susan Shipton:

But we’re not composers, we’re not sound editors, we’re not colors, and we’re not seen to be. Right? So, when we do those roles, I don’t think they get the same acknowledgement financially, monetarily they don’t, as they do when the real people come and do them.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And, I’m not… I don’t want to be seen as resistant because technology does allow you to play with those things. It’s just going forward, it’s just your use of words is really apt I think, is, are we making the technology work for us or are we running behind it trying to keep up all the time?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And I think there’s a bit too much of the latter and less of the former.

Sarah Taylor:

And then do we lose some of what our skill is, which is telling the story and helping shape the story. Because now we have to make sure, okay, we got to fit an extra, however many hours today to make sure the color is all good so that whoever looks at our cut is not upset or… So yeah, it’s a discussion, when do we stop? And then also I feel like sound design and color grading and composing, those are all elements that make the film better, that enhance our performance, and enhance what’s there. And if some of that’s being taken away, then we’re losing some of that art.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. I mean, I really think, as I said, a supervising editor, had a lot of control and a lot of input over all of those elements, and as in the beginnings of the technology, when we first started working on Avid, there seemed to be a little bit more of a balance. It was like, ah, great, we can put some music on here, great. We can smooth these soundtracks. And now it’s like, you could broadcast this stuff out of an Avid, or there’s that expectation, you can’t… There’s that expectation. And I… The picture editors that I know, when we get together and talk, we either talk about the latest technology, or mostly they talk about storytelling.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

Picture editors see themselves as storytellers. That’s what gets them going. That’s what interests them, us. And I think to diversify so greatly is a disservice to that talent.

Sarah Taylor:

I agree.

Susan Shipton:

You know?

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

I don’t know what the hell you do with that, but.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Next year. We’ll talk about it next year.

Susan Shipton:

I mean, I do have some ideas.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, you can share.

Susan Shipton:

Well, I mean, I think that using the technology to more efficiently and in a more sophisticated manner bring the departments together.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

That’s what I would say. I totally get why a composer doesn’t want to do a temp track. Listen, I wouldn’t either. It’s a different part of the brain, right, if I were them. But I do think that, why is the music department-

Sarah Taylor:

They’re not there.

Susan Shipton:

Not more involved? Why has that become us so exclusively? When did that happen? I missed that part. Right? And I know why, because they’re not on generally – on most things I work on – they’re not paid to be on till later. Well is there a way to bring them on sooner? And yeah, we’ll have that conversation, we’ll put it on. But involve people earlier.

Sarah Taylor:

Bring it back to that collaboration.

Susan Shipton:

I’m really afraid that people don’t know how to look at cuts anymore without them sounding like they’re ready for a TV and that’s that ain’t going to change either.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. Well, speaking of TV.

Susan Shipton:

Yep.

Sarah Taylor:

Yep. You’ve worked a lot in the television realm, and the process is different. You got your time constraints with the actual time that is being broadcast, the time constraints with the schedule, keeping the arc of your series. So let’s touch a little bit about the process that you take going into a television cut, and then we’ll show our TV clip after that.

Susan Shipton:

The process is the same for me. Well, no, it’s different. On a feature, I have more time. My process on a feature is to look at the dailies and make notes and find those bits that I like. But, given, as I said, that I also cut with composition and rhythm in mind just as much, I do still make notes, obviously of that’s a great moment, that’s a great moment. But television is different primarily because there’s a lot more footage, right? Or I should say, if there is a lot more, then I have a different approach, whether it’s a feature or television. I don’t have the time or the attention span, frankly, to look at three hours of dailies and make detailed notes.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

I think that’s great if people do, honestly, I do, I’m not being flip, I do, but I don’t. So what I feel I’m obliged to do is make sure that by the time I’ve got that scene in the first assembly, I’ve looked at all the dailies.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

So what I’ll do is I’ll take… I’ll kind of scroll through them. I’ll look carefully at the selected takes, the last two, and drop them in and get a structure. Cause also and every editor is different for me, psychologically looking at dailies and a completely uncut scene is really difficult. I need to… I’m much better and much happier when I have something.

Sarah Taylor:

Something it’s daunting if it’s–

Susan Shipton:

Exactly. And I know some editors are really meticulous and that’s the way they work, but I need something. So I’ll get that together as quickly as possible. In fact, I have a word for it. I call them slappers.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah.

Susan Shipton:

And I’ll slap it together as quickly as possible, cause I know that at, on every cut, every choice I’ve made, I’m going to go back in and look at the dailies and recut.

Sarah Taylor:

You make me feel really good right now. Cause I used to feel guilty that I didn’t sit there for five hours and watch all the footage, cause I’m the same way, I want to put it down. You’re still going to watch it all, but you need to do something.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. I got over the guilt a long time ago.

Sarah Taylor:

I’m going to take… I’m going to throw that away now. Thank you very much.

Susan Shipton:

I’m not sure that this way of working is more efficient, however.

Sarah Taylor:

Well maybe I won’t then.

Susan Shipton:

I’m not sure, I’m not promoting it as a way of working. It’s just for me mentally, I have to have something to work from.

Sarah Taylor:

Typically when you’re on a series, how many episodes are you cutting? Are you coming in at the beginning? Are you getting your scripts ahead of time? How does that kind of work for you?

Susan Shipton:

Unless I’m cutting the very first one, I don’t necessarily get scripts cause they’re still writing them on TV. Right?

Sarah Taylor:

Okay.

Susan Shipton:

The Book of Negroes was different cause that was a limited series and it was a passion piece by Clement. And I did get episodes one and two, I think early on, with time to give input. Too long. Killed us. But generally, no, I don’t get a script until a couple of days before or whatever. And I would do, on a 10 part series, do two or three episodes. I usually do about two or three, depending on the length of the series.

Sarah Taylor:

Okay. Well we have a clip from The Expanse. Do you want to set it up?

Susan Shipton:

Yeah, this is like the dinner scene weirdly. It’s an action scene totally, and couldn’t be more unlike the dinner scene, but like it because it’s lots of things happening at once scene. I found this so challenging to cut the scene. Oddly, it’s directed by an editor, because literally everything happened at once. There’s… I don’t really remember what’s happening except that our heroes are in the outfits, and in the uniforms, you know them from The Expanse, if you know the show, and the bad guys are coming in the back. So the hotel desk is here, the bad guys are coming in the back. They’re also coming in behind them. And that all happens at once. And gun things happen.

Sarah Taylor:

And the biggest challenge I had was the geography, right? In order for there to be any real stakes that our heroes are going to get shot, you have to know who’s going to shoot at them and create that tension. And there’s lots of eyes going around like this, right? But because it all happened at once and they were in one another’s shots, it was super hard to find the air in there, to put it together because it was… I mean, all the editors know what I’m talking about. What I find, and it’s funny, I watched it again for this clip and what I’ll tell you what bothers me about it, but.

Sarah Taylor:

Let’s watch it, the last one.

 

[Clip plays]

Sarah Taylor:

There’s a lot happening.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot happening. I mean, the thing that bothers me about the scene but it doesn’t bother me a lot, because I know I tried to fix it, is I need a master out there more often than I had, because to set the geography. I think, and I just didn’t have it, because literally everything … There was a master shooting that way and a master shooting back that way. I had them, but I’ve used it every single place I can to help with the geography. But that was my frustration about that scene. And it’s funny, because there was a fair amount of footage, but somebody was talking about it earlier, and my expression is, there’s less here than meets the eye. Once you get into it and you realize, oh, there really is only so many shots of Amos doing this, or so many shots of the couch, whatever, it starts to get smaller than it first appears. Which is also why, psychologically, I think I like to get a cut, because then in doing that, I’m also getting to know the dailies as well. But what I love about this scene is the music.

Sarah Taylor:

That was my favourite part.

Susan Shipton:

And that was… We had a music supervisor on that. So, that’s an old hotel lobby, right? And it’s got all these Caribbean kind of things, so I asked the music supervisor, “So can you give me some cheesy lobby music that would be in a Caribbean kind of thing?” And so, she sent like five or six choices and I picked that one. And then everyone said, “Oh, you have to put music on, you have to put music on when the gunfight starts.”

Sarah Taylor:

No.

Susan Shipton:

Well, they made me put music on, because I was like, why? There are guns going. That just is like, I heard this expression the other day, a hat on a hat. Why would I do that? And it was hard. So, I went and I tried. I got it from a John Carpenter soundtrack, and I put this music on it. And then the showrunner, who’s a brilliant showrunner, he’s like, get the music off it. It’s just going to be so funny when that gunfight goes and then dee de dee at the end. So, I liked that those decisions were made the way that they were made. And the zip and stuff. I would have put that in the first cut, Amos’s zip sound. And there were a couple of other sound effects, not many.

Susan Shipton:

And “The Expanse” was a fun show, because we had comp artists. So, those visual effects that you see of the tablet and stuff, I would have had those not right away to work with, but fairly early to work with as comps, or as temps before they were actually done by the vis effects people.

Sarah Taylor:

How long would a scene like that take to do your assembly?

Susan Shipton:

I don’t even know how long it would have taken me to do that, because I nibbled at it.

Sarah Taylor:

Right. Yeah. It’s a big one.

Susan Shipton:

I nibbled that one. Yeah. I would’ve slappered and nibbled it.

Sarah Taylor:

That’s good. When you’re in the throes of an edit, whether it’s a feature or a series that has a tight schedule, what do you do to make sure that you stay sane or healthy?

Susan Shipton:

Assuming I’m sane. That’s a huge leap. I think I actually like writing, and I work on short film ideas and stuff like that. But except for that, I do things that are as unrelated as possible to being in an editing room. I get outside as much as I possibly can. That’s just what I like to do. Play with my dog, gardening. Anybody who’s on Facebook with me sees endless pictures of my dog. But that’s just a totally separate thing. So, I think it’s whatever a person enjoys in life, you just try and do as much of that as possible. I don’t know.

Sarah Taylor:

Make sure that you still have a life out of the edit suite.

Susan Shipton:

But by the way, I think these hours that this panel was talking about in reality is just…

Sarah Taylor:

It’s long.

Susan Shipton:

It’s horrible. I just think that’s horrific.

Sarah Taylor:

Let’s make that stop.

Susan Shipton:

I have such a problem with that. And I think it is symptomatic of what happens when you’re expected to do far too many things. Because if you’re going to be expected to do all those things, you need more time. People are making a lot of money out of those shows. Anyway. Get off the soap box, Susan.

Susan Shipton:

No, I find that deeply upsetting. I do not work those hours. I don’t. First of all, I don’t. I mean, I’m working a show right now where the hours are tougher than I’ve ever experienced. I’m out the door by seven at the latest, usually. I’m happy to work later if it’s required, but a lot of times I’ll leave at six. Now, “Barney’s Version”, we worked pretty late. But generally, I don’t think that long hours are necessary in editing, and I don’t think they’re beneficial. My brain is fried.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah, I agree.

Susan Shipton:

We’re working on computers.

Sarah Taylor:

Eventually you’re just sitting there wasting time. You’re not doing anything.

Susan Shipton:

Well, I compare it to writing. And I know there are writers that work long hours, but not very many of them. Because on set, it’s a lot of… And I don’t think they should be working the hours they’re working either. But it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. Whereas in editing, if you’re sitting in front of an Avid, you’re editing, right? Unless you go to the bathroom, you’re editing. So, you know, yeah.

Sarah Taylor:

Yeah. This is our last question before the Q and A. What do you hate to hear from directors, showrunners and other editors?

Susan Shipton:

The thing that is bugging me right now is when people say “don’t cut, line cut.” Don’t… I don’t want to be in this edit on everybody when they’re speaking. It falls in the category to me of, that’s not a direction to an editor. What do you want to see? You know, and it’s about saying I’m not a certain kind of editor, whatever that is. It’s about saying I’m not a bad editor. So, as soon as somebody says that to me, it’s like saying, please don’t be a bad editor. Okay. You know, I just, I don’t like directions that aren’t useful, that aren’t really about storytelling, Right? And don’t, I mean, I’ll cut every single line on a character when they’re talking if it works. Or not, it doesn’t usually work, but you know, or not, right? Another favourite, unfavourite direction is “just fuck it up a bit”.

Sarah Taylor:

What does that even mean?

Susan Shipton:

I know, a showrunner says that, I want to say, “How much do you get paid a year to tell me, to come up with that direction?” So, I don’t like that. I’m not particularly fond of “just have fun” either, because these are all things that I’ve heard, and they aren’t directions. Now, having said that, sometimes you get a problematic scene and no one quite knows what to do with it. And they say, you know what? I worked years ago on a really bad children’s MOW and the director was a sweetheart and a very good director. And he was stuck with bad performances and his schedule and dah, dah, dah, dah. And he said to me, he said, “Susan, don’t ever say I said this, but just cut a lot, okay? It’s going to help.” And he was right. We just went in and when in trouble go fast, we cut a lot and I let him get away with that, because he was super smart when we were in trouble. But as a general kind of direction to editors of, you know, “just fuck it up”, not so much.

Sarah Taylor:

Or insert funky montage.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah. Oh, that’s another thing that bugs me, is no one shoots montages anymore, but they ask you to cut them all the time. What’s up with that?

Sarah Taylor:

You got all the footage. What are you talking about?

Susan Shipton:

Just make it a montage. Okay. Just because the director didn’t make it a montage.

Sarah Taylor:

On that note, let’s open it up to the audience for any questions.

Audience Question:

Hi. I was having an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine last week, about how filmmakers that don’t have lives make films about making films. And I think that you kind of touched on that when you were saying like, you should get outside and walk your dog or whatever. How does who you are colour your work, and how do you put your own little signature on things? What would you say your signature is?

Susan Shipton:

I really hope I don’t put a signature on my work, actually. Yeah. I feel pretty strongly about not putting my signature on my work. What I want my work to be is good, you know? And I think good editing serves the drama. I want, and I’m not saying I am, but I would want to be a person who can cut different genres, different types of films and adapt my so-called style to that. And that’s hard. It’s challenging, right? To do that. And I’m not saying I’m successful at it, but I think that would be a goal, I’d like to…

Susan Shipton:

This sounds terribly arrogant, and I don’t mean it about me, but I think the goal would be to be a good editor and have people say the style is good editing versus… And it kind of connects with what we were just talking about, is like laying a style or an approach over a project. I think when you go into something and you want people to feel you, that’s what happens. I want the story to be served. And sometimes the editing can be quite self-conscious to serve that, for sure. But it needs to serve the story.

Audience Question:

You were talking earlier about the amount of work that editors have to do and if other people were coming in earlier, and it reminded me of something I heard about “Joker”, where the composer wrote something, shared it with the director, the director shared it with Joaquin Phoenix, and that’s how he came up with that dance that he does in the bathroom, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, which is extraordinary. And so, it made me wonder about all of this technological change that we’re going through, and we’re still dealing with an industry that’s based on 20th century workflows. Do you see anything when you look into the future about how we might work better or different?

Susan Shipton:

I think that that’s possible and desirable, for sure. I don’t have, I’m not a technological innovator, so I don’t have that vision, but I sure hope there are people working and thinking about that, because you’re talking about “Joker”. It’s budget, because on bigger films like that, for sure they’ve got the composer involved earlier, for sure, right? And on some television series, even lower budget Canadian television series, I know producers do that. I think that what’s happened, and I wouldn’t say it’s our fault, but we’ve allowed it for it’s just happened, is that we have taken all of that on and it becomes increasingly difficult to divest yourself of those increased responsibilities as we go along. And I don’t know. And again, I’m not resistant to working with being able to take advantage of the tools we have and work with music and sound and all of that. It’s just a balance.

Susan Shipton:

And the other thing, I think it’s a terrible disservice to composers, because they bring something quite unique. And I’ve been around long enough, I remember when they hated temp tracks and they didn’t want to see stuff with temp tracks on it. Now, they’re kind of addicted to them, I think, for the most part. That was another one of my things I hate. I hate it when composers complain about temp tracks in a demeaning manner, because they’re a hell of a lot of work. And I think picture editors are taking a lot of the bullets. We’re trying this stuff. It used to be the composer that would have to try that stuff. And no, no, no, that doesn’t work.

Susan Shipton:

So, it’s just, it’s the balance. So, I think it’s a good question, and I think it’s where a lot of discussions should be going, because it can, the technology is not working as well. It’s not just a matter of lifestyle, but though, I think that’s hugely important. It’s also are we pulling all the best creative energy into a project through our use of technology? And I don’t think so yet. And I think the wrong people are probably controlling it, right? Wrong in that they don’t have that as their modus operandi when they’re developing technology and selling it. Be great if that’s what’s their biggest concern is, amalgamating stuff and workflow and quality of life, but that’s not.

Audience Question:

Have you done any directing?

Susan Shipton:

Yes. I directed a short film many years ago, and that was, it’s something that I would like to do, so hopefully I’ll be able to do it again. I came second in the DGC short film funding contest. Second was nothing. I know.

Sarah Taylor:

Try again, that’s what they say.

Susan Shipton:

I will try again.

Audience Question:

Hi, first off, thank you very much for the panel. It’s been great. I just, curious question, but is there any kind of uncharted territory in terms of editing that you’re looking to explore maybe? Just out of curiosity.

Susan Shipton:

Oh, that’s a good question. I hadn’t really thought about it, actually. There’s always… “The Expense” was a big one for me, because I’d never done that kind of work before. You know what I would really like to do? I would really, and it’s probably never going to happen for me, but I would love to work with a team of editors on something. I love, and it’s one of the things I really love about television, is I really love working with other editors, and depending on those people and the project, I love walking down the hall and going, “Can you look at this?” And I just think that would be so exciting to do that, to work on a big show, a big movie with other editors. Yeah,

Susan Shipton:

I did it once on a film called “Mr. Nobody”, and we had two editors. I was the second editor. The first editor was a Belgian, because it was a co-pro and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, he was the lead editor, but the director and the lead editor taught at the Belgian film school. And they were always, they were inviting their film students all the time to come and cut. It was a riot. I was sitting cutting away, and this young woman comes to my door and says, “I’ve got a cut of that scene, if you’d like it.” But it was so fun to have them around and to, I don’t know, so that I’d like to do, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.

Audience Question:

Thank you for the talk and sharing information. I have a question about Atom Egoyan’s approach to filmmaking, and you mentioned this earlier, there’s an intellectual distance, and yet you wanted to bring out the emotional impact of this story. And so, how do you find balancing the two? Or do you… I guess I’ll leave it at that. How do you find balancing the intellectual distance of his approach with getting the emotional pull, if that makes sense?

Susan Shipton:

Yeah, it does make sense. Hm. That’s a good question. I think I just keep responding to the material the way I respond, and it probably is on a more emotional level. And as I said, I do find a lot of his, a lot of the performances, a lot of the characters deeply moving, right? And I think he does too. It’s just that Atom… Atom… As an intellectual construct on his work, he’s always felt uncomfortable manipulating people. I remember that from the very first job interview I had when I did “The Adjuster”. We’re sitting at the Amsterdam having beer, I’ll never forget it. And I read the script, and every time the scene got to the emotional part or got to a build, he cut away, right?

Susan Shipton:

And I asked him about that. I said, “I just kind of feel like you can squeeze a couple of those together, because we go here and then we go somewhere else and we come back to that scene, but we’d been somewhere else, so by the time we came back”. And he, and I still remember he said to me, “I just, I’m so uncomfortable manipulating people’s emotions, right?” And that’s where he comes from as an artist. So, on some level, but he’s also like, I know he comes from an emotional place too, because it’s there and I connect to it, right? So, I think it’s… I don’t know if that answers it. He has a whole crazy way of working we could talk about too.

Sarah Taylor:

Maybe a whole other panel.

Susan Shipton:

Yeah.

Audience Question:

I was just wondering how you deal with theme and subtext in a film, second layer stuff, second level stuff. If the film is, the plot is about one thing, but the theme and the subtext that the director is trying to get across is something else. Or it’s… I don’t know if I’m articulating this properly, but do you feel there’s a tension between the two when you’re editing and you have to balance the two?

Susan Shipton:

I don’t think, no, I don’t, because theme and subtext is not my wheelhouse. I’m all about what’s in front of me on the screen. And I’m all about how the drama is playing out emotionally, and the overall structure, how we can tell the story, right? And whatever kind of thematic construct someone places on it, or a critical interpretation of it later, is for them. Because, and it kind of speaks a bit to the question the other gentleman had too, about the theory versus the emotion. You’re always, always telling a story, always. And the story may be a person getting up and walking across the room. That’s a three part story. They got up, they walked across the room and they left. So, the broader… It always fascinates me when I hear people talk about the writing of a piece, right? And they talk about all those kinds of things you were saying. I’m like, “Oh, really?” I just thought she should be crying then, because he said something that upset her. So, you know…

Sarah Taylor:

That’s great.

Audience Question:

I’m just wondering, what do you like those director and how did director communicate with you? I mean, in the positive way. We know what we don’t like about what kind of director, but what do you like about, and…

Sarah Taylor:

That’s a good one.

Susan Shipton:

That’s such a great question. Thank you for answering that, otherwise we’d be on the record with my gripes.

Sarah Taylor:

Like, oh, she’s cranky again.

Susan Shipton:

I only had three little ones.

Sarah Taylor:

I’m just teasing.

Susan Shipton:

But for public consumption. Trust is everything. And it has to go both ways. And I think it’s very easy for people to imagine that a director has to trust an editor. An editor has to trust a director, because we are creative people and we do put ourselves out on the line. When you take somebody’s work and cut it together, the first assembly can be a gut-wrenching experience, right? And the great thing about having repeat offenders like Atom in my life is that there’s a trust there. And I know that, it’s not even that I can experiment or not, because I know I can, it’s that if he laughs, it’s not going to be horrible.

Susan Shipton:

I mean, I trust that he takes me seriously. I trust that I have that relationship with him, no matter what happens. And he comes from a place of respect with his creative collaborators, and trust and respect is huge. And so, what people say, other than please don’t say fuck it up, but what people actually say to me in terms of directing is less important than if, or editing is less important than where they come from. If they come from a place of respect, their direction is going to be better too.

Sarah Taylor:

Well, thank you so much, Susan, for sharing all.

Susan Shipton:

Thank you. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks for joining us today, and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Maureen Grant, and the CCE board for helping create EditCon 2020. 

 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. 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 a way 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.

 

[Outtro]

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

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Credits

A special thanks goes to the following people for helping to create EditCon 2020

Jane MacRae

Maureen Grant

the CCE board

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

Chad Blain

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The Editors Cut

Episode 034: Timing is (Almost) Everything

The Editors Cut - Episode 034: Timing is (Almost) Everything

Episode 034: Timing is (Almost) Everything

This episode is part 3 or a 4 part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

This episode is sponsored by the Canadian Film Centre.

2020 EditCon Panel 3 no script no problem on stage at TIFF

This panel explores the mechanics of making us laugh–how do you take what’s on the page and make it land? From sketch comedy to sitcoms, James Bredin, CCE from Schitt’s Creek, Marianna Khoury from Letterkenny and BaronessVon Sketch Show and Jonathan Eagan from WorkinMoms and Carter will explore what makes cutting comedy unique and particularly challenging.

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The Editor’s Cut – Episode 034 – “Timing is (Almost) Everything” (EditCon 2020 Series)

 

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by the Canadian Film Centre. 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 that all of us 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 those 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 deeper action.

 

Today I bring to you part three of our four part series covering EditCon 2020. It took place on Saturday, February 1st at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

 

Timing is almost everything. This panel will explore the mechanics of making us laugh. How do you take what’s on the page and make it land from sketch comedy to sitcoms, editors from Schitt’s Creek, Letterkenny, Baroness Von Sketch Show and more. We’ll explore what makes cutting comedy unique and particularly challenging.

 

[show open]

Maureen Grant:

So timing is almost everything. Are there golden rules to comedy? How much is technique and how much is pure magic? Our panelists have been in the trenches on all manner of comedic shows from sketch comedy to sitcoms, and we’ll find out what makes their job easy or hard. What it takes to make it land and what it takes to make people laugh. Our moderator is not only a multiple award winning standup comic and second city veteran, but a gay icon and freaking national treasure Elvira Kurt. With credits as star, host, guest, writer, story editor, and or talent director on too many shows to mention, we’re lucky to have her today. The Canadian Film Centre is pleased to welcome Elvira Kurt, James Bredin, Jonathan Eagan, and Marianna Khoury.

Elvira Kurt:

Hello, welcome this panel of rockstars here. I am here today as a comedian. That’s my tie in to be the moderator of this panel. But I’m actually here as a fan of editors in general, but a super fan of comedy editors. So I’m going to do very little talking, because they have so much knowledge to share. So before we begin, I just want to set an intention for this panel, that we are able to access all of the important skill and knowledge and craft that these people who’ve worked in the industry for so long have, that it’s received in the way that you need it to. And that you’re moved to ask questions that will satisfy your curiosity if this is something you want to pursue, or if it’s just something like me that you admire, but could never imagine yourself doing.

Elvira Kurt:

So lots of, like I said, cumulatively an incredible range of experience is sitting here in different genres of television. And I know the goal in this industry is to work. And then it would be amazing to do film, because it’s a good long period of time or some sort of a series. But I would say the epitome is to do comedy because it is something that connects with everyone. And one of the things that I noticed in the descriptions that all of you gave in these clips is what a challenge it was. I’m going to start down the line. Just briefly say your name and then we can get right to the challenge. What makes comedy so challenging? Every one of your descriptions for the clips you submitted today, we’re like, “Well, this was a particular challenge.” So I noticed that comedy while it is super easy, editing comedy must be really fucking hard.

James Bredin:

I’m James Bredin. I’ve been doing this a while and did a bunch of Schitt’s Creek and a bunch of Little Mosque on the Prairie and stuff, but that’s Schitt’s Creek we’ll be looking at today. And that was a real treat because I had no actors that I had to work around. Everybody on that show was really solid. And the challenges were in the way the scenes were shot, where the directors were trying to push the limits a bit and it worked, but you’ll see that it’s not sort of just part camera and which makes it a little trickier to put together.

Marianna Khoury:

I’m Marianna, I work on Baroness von Sketch Show, TallBoyz, which is also a sketch show. And most recently Workin’ Moms.

Elvira Kurt:

Now, James had alluded to just the challenging nature of the shows that he’s working on. What makes comedy challenging for you?

Marianna Khoury:

Working on shows like Baroness, it’s just filled with so much talent, and usually the most difficult part is deciding what to cut out because there’s so much good material. And eventually has to be a three minute sketch and that can be really difficult.

Jonathan Eagan:

My name is Jonathan Eagan. I’ve worked on three seasons of Workin’ Moms. I’ve done a couple of seasons of Letterkenny. I did a great series of short lived called What Would Sal Do? Which was my first sort of TV gig in comedy. Right now I’m working in one hour shows, which are sort of the last two shows I’ve done this year are one hour series that are really a blend of comedy and drama. And one of them has a procedural element. I think I have clips from that one as today as well. So there’s a show called Carter, starring Jerry O’Connell season two of that. And I’m working on a Netflix series right now called Ginny and Georgia, which will be, I guess, hitting Netflix in maybe April or May. I’m not entirely sure, but it’s sort of a blend of comedy and drama. I can speak to all of those.

Elvira Kurt:

And so what makes cutting comedy, editing comedy for you so challenging?

Jonathan Eagan:

I feel like what Marianna just said is probably the most challenging aspect of it is, I mean, it really depends ultimately on the nature of the show, like when you’re working in broadcast and you’re working in a broadcast half hour and you have to deliver a show that’s 21 minutes and 49 seconds long, and your scripts are 34 pages long always. And you’ve got to find the balance between this… What’s really important ultimately, there’s sometimes in a scene or a series or an episode, there’s a bit of a push and pull between the gag, the joke, the punchline, the objectively funny thing, and the season story arc, what’s happening to the characters funny or otherwise. And you have to learn to balance those what’s really priority.

Jonathan Eagan:

Oftentimes it’s not the gag per se. You can make it work, make it funny, make it emotionally resonant if… Emphasis isn’t necessarily on the gag. And I just think sometimes it’s a scene by scene thing. It’s an episodic thing. One episode is smooth sailing. The other episode might be a real pain in the ass, but might ultimately be like a better piece of television. It really, it depends on a lot of factors.

Elvira Kurt:

Well, it’s occurring to me that talking about comedy editing really sucks the comedy out of… Do you know what I mean? Like it’s so technical and yeah, what comes across is so visceral, it’s something and really is. Let’s take the things that you’re talking about so dryly, because you know what you’re saying, it’s true, but you have to actually go through it. And that is part of the skill that you build. But when you watch it, you think of none of that. It’s just like, “Oh my God, that hit me in such a way that my reaction at home by myself was to laugh out loud.” That is amazing. So let’s start, James, you talked about the first night. Why don’t we go to this show that has taken the world by storm, Schitt’s Creek and go to the… This is the first episode?

James Bredin:

Second.

Elvira Kurt:

Second. All right. So by then, you’d already understood how it works.

James Bredin:

There’s two editors. I was… My first episode.

Elvira Kurt:

Your first episode, all right. So this is season one. Is it rare that you would include this clip? Because it takes some time to get on its feet, but you say that this shot in a verite style was, had its own challenges and you ended up being pleased enough with it that you want this to be the first thing that we…

James Bredin:

I don’t think it took time to get on its feet, I think it took time for the world to catch up to it. It was the way it was rolled out, because I think it was funny right off the bat. And it was a situation we’re actually looking forward to dailies every day to say, “Well, Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy.” Catherine was not only incredibly funny, but she’s incredibly professional in terms of repeating everything each take and every now and then there’s an outburst of Catherine O’Hara that.. The very little improv in the show, but some of those we have to keep because they’re way too brilliant not to.

Elvira Kurt:

For sure. I want to get to… Improv is something that I’m going to touch on later, but let’s start with this clip. So this clip is Rude Awakening. It’s Episode Two of Season One of a Schitt’s Creek.

 

[Clip plays]

Elvira Kurt:

All right, so you’re given all of that raw footage and then how’d you turn it into that goal?

James Bredin:

Well, you just got to go through it as you can see that when they’re getting out of bed, it’s very dynamic. Camera’s waving all over the place. And it’s tricky to find just… That’s all there was of though of the stain on the ceiling. And it’s just trying to make it in the right place and get it on there there long enough you can tell what it is. And of course they’re talking over each other the whole time. So it’s a matter of fitting in pieces of dialogue. And there’s actually only one piece of improv in there. One line is when Catherine says… When he says, “The bed soaking wet.” And she says, “Is it blood?” That’s that’s her. That’s totally improv, not in the script, but we kept that obviously. And then it sort of calms down when it gets into the next room, but that’s sort of like a verite doc where you’re trying to find your way through the waving camera in the wherever, and just hold on long enough that you can register and the story and drama and comedy, are there.

Elvira Kurt:

Do you take the material in its raw form, you watch it and then you’re already starting to figure out why I need the ceiling, then we got to go back to the ceiling? When does the timing of it come in so that it actually helps the comedy, because it’s soaking wet, is it blood? It wouldn’t pay off if we didn’t see certain things in a certain order at a certain pace.

James Bredin:

That’s kind of hard to answer. You go through it once-

Elvira Kurt:

You’re an editor. What is your process? Don’t bogart all your knowledge.

James Bredin:

… well, you start at the beginning of the scene and you have two or three different takes to start with. Some start on her some start on him.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay, interesting. So then the choice is like, I got to start with the wet guy. Do you know what I mean? Like what… Do you put it in an order that works for you or do you stick to the script? When do you override something for your own instinct?

James Bredin:

Well, I think you go with your first steps. You have to start somewhere and that can be anything. So then you look at that and you go, “Oh, okay. That doesn’t belong there. It belongs later.” Or, “That’s not really working.” Your first pass, just sort of get the dialogue in the right place. And then trying to sort of go back and enhance it, enhance the comedy and the drama. I noticed that there was little tidbit, because they’re doing promo for the show obviously. And they were on Jimmy Fallon a couple of weeks ago. And they were asking, “What was the scene that in the whole six seasons where Eugene was most uncomfortable?” And they all agreed it was this one because he had to get his hair wet and he’s really touchy about his hair. So this is the most upsetting scene in the entire six seasons for him.

Elvira Kurt:

Amazing and nice humble brag there James. They were on Fallon and…

James Bredin:

It’s nice having your work discussed on Jimmy Fallon.

Elvira Kurt:

Of course it is. Very cool. So this one is a train from Carter and… Yeah. Oh, smile already. Okay.

James Bredin:

I gave you a bunch of clips. I didn’t know how many we’d see. So yeah, I like this one.

Elvira Kurt:

I want to get them all in [crosstalk 00:13:10] yeah, you set it up, go.

James Bredin:

Okay. Well, they asked us to choose different clips for different reasons and sort of explain why, and so it’s challenging. I chose this one because it’s a strange combination of comedy and action. This sequence was directed really beautifully by Kelly Macon. And as most of you guys know, or many of you know, television schedules can be really tight sometimes. And to do something extra is challenging. So Kelly had a couple cameras, he had a GoPro and this is effectively a sequence. It’s the cold open of an episode of Season Two of Carter where Harley… It’s a little bit of my secret identity reunion, which is cool.

James Bredin:

I can tell you about that after. Harley discovered that someone is starting to kill themselves and he has to sort of chase down a train on the tracks and sort of a high speed pursuit and board a train, very dangerously and rescue this person, get the train to stop, except it’s not at all what it sounds like.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay, cool. That’s exciting. That was much better than what I would’ve done. All right. Let’s have a look at.

 

[Clip Plays]

Elvira Kurt:

All right. So obviously an excellent premise. But really brought home with the editing there. Right? Because there was absolutely no danger. And he could have easily hopped on that train. Tell me how you made this-

Jonathan Eagan:

[crosstalk 00:16:18].

Elvira Kurt:

… yeah, how you made this so good?

Jonathan Eagan:

The truth is like, it’s funny this sequence… So this is part of an eight minute scene. After he stops the train there’s a whole 200 between the two of them and it continues forever and ever until he gets them to step off the train and then there’s a sniper trained on him and then the opening credits start. And that scene was like 10 minutes on the page. Ultimately I think this whole sequence now in the cut is like five minutes, but we had to… The original cut of it, a lot of the train stuff didn’t change to too much. But then the whole thing as a whole was just really, really big. So I wanted to choose this clip because A, sometimes the premise alone does all of the heavy lifting.

Jonathan Eagan:

That’s a terrific premise. And Kelly had the great idea to include the GoPro, which gave it like, you don’t approach a scene like that like a typical… You’re not looking at it at the same way you look at your average comedy scene, you get to… I was lucky that I got to play with that as though I was cutting an action film as well and sort of use that shorthand as a means to cut it. And then by taking that somewhat seriously it can enhance the comedy of it because it amplifies how ridiculous it is. So it was really a lot of fun. Ultimately it just came down to making it shorter and tighter and so on and so forth.

Elvira Kurt:

So was the intent clear from the go that it was meant to be a light take on this genre right?

Jonathan Eagan:

To an extent, yeah. On the page I think it was like that, but I did… It wasn’t until I got the footage that I realized exactly Kelly’s approach. And then he and I had a quick conversation after that and it was very clear. But one thing I would say about this, this sort of added layers of complexity that train conductor that was really his day to day job. That was what he did. He wasn’t an actor. He was that guy doing that every day in that place. And that’s how he dressed. And so we had to… He couldn’t like… They shot the shit out of him to try and get him to deliver his lines. He never quite did. So all of his lines are ADR’ed.

Elvira Kurt:

Oh my God, he looks amazing. That guy looks like a star.

Jonathan Eagan:

Sometimes you have just a little thread that you need to pull on to make it work. And so the last shot of that sequence, he’s smiling, is just him looking at the director. We were able to manufacture it, such that he was trying to extort more money out of Harley. He had more agency. Whereas that wasn’t something that was a part of how it was shot. So like that was a little happy accident. Things like that really help. You never know you’re going to get those things, but when you do you try to use them as much as you can.

Elvira Kurt:

All right, man, you guys really downplay what you do. I get that you have to work with the, whoever’s sitting in the room with you, but there is still something about-

Jonathan Eagan:

You’re absolutely right.

Elvira Kurt:

… like your experience.

Jonathan Eagan:

The hell with it.

Elvira Kurt:

You know what I mean?

Jonathan Eagan:

It was all me.

Elvira Kurt:

Like let’s be real. You’ve got to be, “You know what, no, I know that we need another shot. We need another of the GoPro. We need another of the coupling thing.” Because there’s no tension in the scenes. Literally a child could stop this thing, do you know what I mean?

Jonathan Eagan:

I’m telling you this though, if you’d seen my first edit of that scene, you’d probably have been like, “Dude, that is five minutes too long.”

Elvira Kurt:

Sure. But that’s the whole point of us not seeing the first thing, right? That’s your starting point. And then you just start-

Jonathan Eagan:

[crosstalk 00:19:25].

Elvira Kurt:

… culling, to just tighten, to hone the comedy. And that’s where… The reason this panel is sold out, I’m sure is because this… It’s that intangible. And I think you were the one who mentioned it in the green room, that thing that like, how do you know the exact pacing that is going to put this over the top from just great premise, solid lines into this tight sequence that is genuinely hilarious. And then that beautiful found object of dudes smile because he obviously wouldn’t be able to do that on his own. Like you made it seem he was part in on it. Yeah. Anyway, that was great. Okay. Marianna is going to talk to us about the Baroness. I definitely let you set it up, but I will… Full disclosure, I’ve worked on the show. So I’ve seen a lot of the sketches in all these clips.

Elvira Kurt:

I was there for some of them at the idea stage and then to see what the finished product looks like. I mean, that’s always the fun of watching Baroness is where it ended up in a script, what it looks like. And especially this one, which is a Meredith clip because you can’t actually write down all the things Meredith is going to do once she’s allowed to… The free reign with her physicality. And because they’re all equally in their own way, each of the Baronesses is also really adept at physicality. The fact that they’re all in the scene and commenting on someone that it must on some level bring up some insecurities or jealousy that someone is getting a moment to shine when you know that your version of that would be just as good, not the same, but just as good.

Elvira Kurt:

But you have to sort of play either the straight man or the second banana to this person, who’s getting to cut loose. And the fact that they’re there and then all the little lines that they’re doing, I don’t know how much of that was ad-lib, but that is… All of those ad-lib lines are coming from that place of, “There goes Meredith.” You know what I mean? Like it’s a mixture of generous and admiration and also a little bit of, I wish that was me. Like it can’t not be as a performer. All right. What else can you tell us about this clip?

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah. Also it’s a commitment to being a background character in a sketch that someone is the lead in and they’ll go as far as like creating crazy backstories for a background character that might not even be getting a closeup in the scene and they’re committing so much. And it’s so hard to cut that stuff out because ultimately it doesn’t always pay to the storytelling and you have to lose some of it, but it’s so amazing what they all give.

Elvira Kurt:

It’s true. And a lot of that has to do with the hair and then the wardrobe, right? You put someone in something and a character comes out that they may not have even had in mind until they are getting to be in that character. So it’s different than these other two shows where you have these set characters and that you get to work and grow, and stretch them out and make them flex different muscles. In your work it’s particularly challenging because there are always different. And then as you say, because they’re each of them so into their craft, they’re adding these weird backstories that you don’t make… That nobody would even notice or care about. All right. So this is an excellent clip. She Did It. It is really good. I can’t wait to hear how you’ve made this come to life. All right. Let’s have a look.

 

[Clip Plays]

Elvira Kurt:

Where do you begin?

Marianna Khoury:

Well, Meredith is a nut and she goes crazy. And there’s so many options in the edit. And usually on these kinds of physical sketches, we’re editing them for a long time. It’s really just grading a selects timeline and picking out all of your favourite stuff and going from there. A lot of it’s just instinct and feeling and watching absolutely everything they do, and just choosing what makes you laugh and hoping that that’s the right choice.

Elvira Kurt:

So there’s one shot of the whole scene so that you have everyone in it. And then do they actually shoot it enough times to get an isolated shot on everybody?

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah. Alicia Young directed this one and it was amazing. So it’s a lot of like roaming cameras to pick up that stuff. So once they go through it in a wide, they kind of can feel the pacing and know… It’s like a call and response kind of thing.

Elvira Kurt:

Besides the literal call and response.

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay. All right. So it’s so frenetic and the fact that the show, unlike with the more structured half hour or hour length, you have a time, the entire episode is 21, 22 minutes?

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah, 21:15.

Elvira Kurt:

So the running order for each show, how do you know that this scene or skit or sketch is going to be three minutes long? Like, because you said that it’s so much longer, what was the original?

Marianna Khoury:

Probably the assembly I sent her it would have been like seven minutes or something.

Elvira Kurt:

And typically there, because I know they shoot things and write things specifically for blackouts less than a minute. So this is obviously a longer scene, but nothing is beyond three, four? It depends.

Marianna Khoury:

Four and a half.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah.

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah. And the sketches they never exist in within an episode until picture lock. So when we start editing, you can just pick a sketch. There’s like three to four editors and we just get to pick whatever we’re in the mood for, and whatever’s been shot and just start cutting. And those sketches exist as solo sketches up until picture lock. So during the picture lock process is when the Baronesses and CBC will decide on the running order and what sketch goes into what episode.

Elvira Kurt:

And then who are you sitting with? It’s not the whole cast? I mean, because they have an interest in making sure, right? Like this is something, this is true of performers. And so when you have performers who are showrunners, I imagine it’s worse. Because you know you can trust your sense of comedy, right? Like when I’m doing standup and I’m on my own, I am in charge of the whole thing. It’s very difficult to then hand it over even to the best editor and think that they can do it the way that you saw it in your mind. And no matter how well it’s shot, it’s still never going to be exactly how you thought it would look. So you’re already compromising from the get go when you have to sit with one of the people who’s in it. So is it everybody or is it just… Is this Meredith scene, so Meredith sits in on it?

Marianna Khoury:

Yes, exactly. So they divide it. They may be have about 30 to 40 sketches per season that they’re kind of in charge of and see-through from the writing process to the editing process. And then we have this cool thing we do on the show called All-ins where it’s all the Baronesses, the whole editing team and producers. And it’s like a show and tell day. So we’ve worked up to a certain point. We haven’t sent anything to CBC yet. And then we just get to sit down and be in a room with people, which is quite exciting because we’re just in a cave, and we just sit down and enjoy it. We watch TV and enjoy what we’re working on. And that’s one of the most important parts of the process on that show.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah. I agree. Like getting to make your immediate circle of your editing family laugh is immensely gratifying. So yeah, that’s a great part of it. We will talk more about all the things. We are jumping genres and styles, but I do want to move through it all. James, we’re going to go back to you. The next clip that we’re going to see is is also a Schitt’s Creek. And it will try to make sure that what we discuss in this pass is about shots. And that’s something that you singled this scene out for. This is Makeup. So tell me what was your feelings about this one or why you pick this one?

James Bredin:

well, again, it’s unusual coverage. It takes place in a trailer. If you follow the show, Moira used to be a soap star and a hasn’t been in the business for a long time and a local vintner wants to use her in his wine commercial. And she’s very excited, but she’s also tremendously nervous. And this is what’s takes place in the makeup trailer, which is very confined space. So the actual shots that the director did are quite unusual.

Elvira Kurt:

I know you can’t answer this. Why go into a cramped trailer when you could just recreate this set? I mean, I know that this is a Canadian show business. Probably someone was living in the trailer. So was on hand, but do you know what I mean? Like why put yourself… Why make it harder?

James Bredin:

That’s interesting because on this show and Little Mosque, Colin Brunton, the line producer, he likes to do all the interiors and then go on location. So the shows are big holes in your show episodes and the location for the shooting, the wine commercial was all location and they have a Winnebago and some of it takes place outside the Winnebago where she’s in there weeping later on. So I guess they decided that they were going to do it as opposed to building a little set thing they decided to do it in there at the trailer.

Elvira Kurt:

So they could get all the different shots, make your life easier, but nobody thinks about the editor. Do they? Nobody. You’re on your own.

James Bredin:

Do not think that was one of their concerns.

Elvira Kurt:

Shame. All right. Anything else you want to say about it or let’s [crosstalk 00:31:15]?

James Bredin:

Yeah. Well, it’s a real challenge and it’s different kind of humor of, again, she’s really nervous and Johnny is trying to control everything and it’s not going well, and well, you’ll see what happens.

Elvira Kurt:

All right. Let’s have a look.

 

[Clip plays]

Elvira Kurt:

So understated the performances there. When they do that, because it is so confining, them making themselves smaller that way, does it make it harder to find the comedy in the scene?

James Bredin:

I don’t think so. Their model was Andy Griffith Show where it’s all about the characters and-

Elvira Kurt:

Sorry, Andy Griffith was a show. James and I are clearly the same demographic, but I have the audience they don’t know what you’re talking about grandpa.

James Bredin:

Ron Howard was very young at one time.

Elvira Kurt:

Sorry. So it was like Andy Griffith, which was a good oldie timie?

James Bredin:

Yeah. And it wasn’t jokes so much as comedy coming out of the the characters and what they were doing. And they sort of wanted to keep it small like that. And it had to come out of the characters. And when she tells him to leave, go home, like just the way he’s, he plays it so well.

Elvira Kurt:

He does. Now, did you… And your choice of it, it was perfect. So was there another option and you…

James Bredin:

There might’ve been. There was multiple takes and it was tricky to play which shots are going to work best in the mirror shot and which were best going to work straight on. And then later on there’s singles on both of them for their intimate conversation. Again, the two little improvs from Catherine there the, “I know John, you’re very good at trying.” That’s not in the script. And at the very end where she says, “No, but please keep working.” That’s just her. And yeah. I just leave those in and everyone agrees that there’s no discussion. It’s like, obviously those are going to stay.

Jonathan Eagan:

It’s funny how sometimes those are the best things about the scene. Those lines are the funniest part of the scene.

James Bredin:

Yeah. Well, that’s her. She’s the tent pole of the whole thing.

Elvira Kurt:

For sure. And it’s often when the scene is meant to end, if you just leave the camera, there is that you’re in that place, you’re in a zone, and sometimes gold will come out and sometimes mostly not, but it’s great when it happens. Now, I also notice that when in the moment of the cheese tray, we don’t see Cubby at all. So you really just focusing on the cheese again, was this because you wanted to tighten the scene of… I found it interesting, person enters. We’ve never really get a sense of who they are because the joke is about something else. And it was all to just keep us focused on the two of them on their dynamic. Even Crystal, when she she comes in to be in between them. You know what I mean? Like all of it is a physicality that is in addition to what’s written. And that is something that you consciously chose to put together in that way.

James Bredin:

Yeah. I think that’s largely to the director too, because Jerry Ciccoritti did both those clips we’ve seen. There isn’t a shot of the PA. He’s a PA, so nobody cares about him.

Elvira Kurt:

Right.

James Bredin:

And that’s all… All you see of him is coming in the door, and the cheese. I didn’t leave anything out there. I didn’t have a choice of making more of his character and we don’t need to see him. You’re right. It’s not important.

Elvira Kurt:

But he even calls him Cubby. You know what I mean? Like to me, it’s sort of it emphasized, it was calling attention to the negative space in a way, right? Like this I’ll name you, but I don’t even want to see you because really it’s about the cheese, about the melon, it’s about trying to make my wife feel as insecure as possible. So it is interesting. I’m glad you included this clip because it is really small. And yet the comedy is never lost. It doesn’t ever go away anywhere.

Elvira Kurt:

Mentioning the choices between which shots to use of the mirror shots, and this is a question to all of you to keep in mind when it comes to it, is it your amount of experience that will dictate which call to make? Like how long does it take you to put something like this together and is it your extensive experience that right away, you’re like, “Nope, I want to see them from this angle.” Like looking into the mirror as opposed to looking through the mirror? Do you know what I mean? Because that will make it stronger.

James Bredin:

That’s sometimes it’s done for you in that they blow the next line. You [crosstalk 00:37:25].

Elvira Kurt:

You make the best of what you’ve got.

James Bredin:

Not that there’s a lot of that, but it happens. Sometimes you just stay a little too long on something, the energy in comedy dissipates. So then you want to cut around. Yeah.

Elvira Kurt:

This is the intangible. How do you know that it dissipates? Is it you watching it? You’re like, “Nah, I’m not as connected to it.” Is that what it is? Like, what is it about… What about your own sense of humor affects the choices that you make?

James Bredin:

I think, yeah, it is experience and that it is that… Yeah, I feel it’s deflating, so I want to move. Could have done that as well 15 years ago, would not have done as a good job.

Elvira Kurt:

Practice. So it’s practice?

James Bredin:

Yeah.

Elvira Kurt:

And making mistakes would you say, or trying it a different way?

James Bredin:

Yeah. And the director gets a bash at it and says, “That stinks.” And you go, “Oh, well, maybe you’re right.” And then Eugene and Dan are all over it. And if no one bumps on what you’ve done, then you’ve done it right. And yeah, it’s a feel. It’s a feeling thing.

Elvira Kurt:

Right.

Jonathan Eagan:

I think if you approach it the very same way you would approach watching something at home and deciding whether or not you want to watch the next episode again, or whether or not you think it’s working. If there’s a show that you think is really, really funny, it might… Oftentimes it’s pretty easy to explain why, but there’s an intangible there as well. And I feel like I’ve always sort of felt like it is hard to explain. I think that we all have a sense of humor. They all differ. Comedy’s very subjective. And the only thing I can rely on all the time is my own instinct. You have to trust your own instinct, whether something is working. If it’s working for you, it’s probably going to change 25 times anyway. But yeah, you just sort of trust that if it’s working for you, it is going to work for somebody else.

Jonathan Eagan:

And there is more than one way. This joke may change a little bit. This beat may change a little bit. You might try five different things and arrived back at what you had in the first place as part of the process. But if you can’t trust your own guts… Especially when you’re working in television, because the schedule is really tight. Somebody explained it to me years ago before I was anywhere near working in TV, he was cutting a one hour series and he explained to me at the time it seemed impossible.

Jonathan Eagan:

Much the way working in unscripted television seems impossible to me today. But you’ve got so little time sometimes that you just have to go into the bed and you have to say, “All right, well, I’ve watched the master of this scene. I’ve seen the coverage. This is what I’m going to do here. And I want a close up here. I’m going to go to this character here.” You’re just basically your first pass is really just the way you’d write the first draft on a blank page. You just get it down and you get it down in some structural way, because you have an instinctual idea of what you want to see. So I want this here. Do we have it? Yes, we do. Well, let’s try it. And then you’ve got your blueprint.

Elvira Kurt:

I hear you. But I will also say that after you’ve watched it 20 times, at some point, do you lose? Like, “Is this funny? I can’t tell.”

Jonathan Eagan:

You don’t laugh. I mean, you go through a period of time where you don’t laugh at all and your brain turns to jelly. And then as you’re like exiting the tunnel and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you start to laugh again. I mean, at some point that’s when it really helps for other people to see it. You know, at the end of the day, you want someone else to laugh. So you rely on your producers and other people. And if you’re making your show runners laugh and they’re really happy, then you start to better understand what it is they like to, because that’s back to that subjective thing. I might think something is hilarious and they might come in and say, “Great job. Let’s change it.” Actually that’s every day.

Elvira Kurt:

Right. It’s nice that they start with criticism sandwich.

Jonathan Eagan:

[crosstalk 00:41:09] criticism sandwich. Very important nutrition.

Elvira Kurt:

For sure. All right, Marianna, you’re nodding through this whole thing. Tell me about how your sense of humor helps you? Because it is the thing that’s entitled… We all think everyone in this room is smart. And if you believe that you’re intelligent, then your sense of humor is there, right? To me, the least interesting people are the ones that have no sense of humor. And I think they’re idiots. So given that we’re all starting from the same page, right? But then it is this subjective thing, how do you approach your work with your sense of humor?

Marianna Khoury:

I think watching live comedy is really helpful. I spent a long time just going to the comedy bar every weekend, and that was such a smooth transition to going to Baroness, because I feel like that show is really representative of the comedy community here. There’s this comedian, Mark Andrada who also runs lights and sound at comedy bar and watching his live timing of live editing comedy and improv, I feel like taught me everything I know.

Elvira Kurt:

Wow. Okay. All right. Well let’s let’s keep moving. Every one of you deserves a panel just of your own, just FYI. I’m among legends. So let’s move on to Nudists and this is also from Carter and it is a good segue from this idea of your own instinct guiding your editing process. And I wish this was something that we could just lay hands and all sort of plug in to the flow of how this unknowable thing happens, but you singled this out.

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah. I picked this one because editorially it’s very… I mean, there’s a rhythm to it obviously, but it’s really basic. It’s a two hander. It’s two people who happen to be naked, standing in a kitchen at a nudist colony, having a conversation. Carter is a bit of a metal show like Harley is a private investigator, but he used to be a television detective. So he believes like he comes back to his small town, was shot at North Bay, comes back to this town called Bishop for those who don’t know the show. And he just basically becomes a private investigator and believes that all of his experience on television shows will inform how he can solve crimes and stuff. And because of the magic of television, he is terrific at it. But there’s a meta aspect to a Hollywood aspect to a lot of the shows sometimes like an added layer on top of it, which is really cool.

Jonathan Eagan:

And so in this one, that was a bit of a film noir, femme fatale aspect to it as it began because this mysterious woman comes to meet him at a diner and tells him that her fiance… She believes her fiance murdered in spite of the fact that seemed like natural causes. So then he goes to meet her and she’s naked and she lives in a nudist colony and she didn’t tell him. So now they’re there. And so he gets his psychic Dave to get nude. He remains clothed throughout the episode, but Dave has to bite the bullet and be naked to ingratiate himself to other people in that community. So they’re like trying to find the killer and to get the information and they are at the wake, there’s people everywhere. They’re all naked, but Harley. And Dave is being hit on by this woman who he believes to be this man’s possible suspect’s wife.

Jonathan Eagan:

When an actual fact, that guy is an accountant for the mob who just happens to be in witness protection. And she’s his handler. So she has no business. She’s a single and she’s like really into Dave. And so the scene is just the two of them. Dave’s kind of like deflecting her, but what’s interesting about the scene is they did this little ad-lib that completely made the scene in my opinion. And we loved it and we kept it. Editorially it’s very simple, but it’s just a great example of how an improv can do wonders for a scene, elevate it.

 

[Clip plays]

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah, thank you. So the line that was the big improv was, he says she died in a fire and then she says, “Whoa.” And he says, “It’s okay. She was a horrible person.” And then she says, “Serves her right.”

Elvira Kurt:

As the biggest throw away ever. I mean, it was on an exhale and everything. Do you know what I mean? Like you could have easily have missed it, but it’s perfect.

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah. But that line to me was like the funniest thing I heard all summer. And I’m a weird sense of humor, I guess I don’t know. But I was like, “We have to use that line.” And they were like, “Sure, whatever you want, man.”

Elvira Kurt:

No, it was a great call. It’s just delicious. And especially because she’s moving in like physically, right? Like, do you know what I mean? Like there, “Yes. Oh so…”

Jonathan Eagan:

One episode.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah, it felt very claustrophobic just… And you didn’t have the luxury obviously of a wide shot? Like this was all…

Jonathan Eagan:

That’s true. There wasn’t, it was just the two of us. Well, there was the wide and the tighter one. So there’s four shots. Each of them has like a medium close and a medium. And that’s it. The reason they did that sort of time crunch schedule wise-

Elvira Kurt:

[crosstalk 00:47:18] nakedness.

Jonathan Eagan:

… well, yes, that of course. But there’s not even a two shot because this… Tight quarters and everything that scene as part of like, there’s like three or four or five scenes within different parts of the wake. So they go elsewhere, they come back, et cetera. So it wasn’t like, I guess they didn’t deem the necessity of a two shot… Well, no, but the nudity, of course yes, two shot. Well, throughout the episode, people are blurred. So just in that case, it wasn’t required but anyway.

Elvira Kurt:

And again, this follows from James clip. Again, it’s very tight and it’s just a back and forth.

Jonathan Eagan:

It’s an interesting thing to be both nude and claustrophobic at the same time. You feel very exposed and you know.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah. But the choices of going back and forth like that again, there’s that the rhythm, the pacing.

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah. I guess that’s a good example of when it’s really largely about rhythm and you’re just trying to figure out… It’s like a tennis match, you know? So you don’t want it to be too cutty. You’ve got to get the rhythm right. You kind of got to tune the instrument, so it’s in tune and then it works for you. I mean, it might not work for everyone. You know, some people might feel like it’s too cutty, but with comedy you can really get away with that.

Elvira Kurt:

Yes you can. But then you’ve also got that jaunty music to [crosstalk 00:48:29], does it distract you or does… Do you know from the cuttiness, say?

Jonathan Eagan:

Maybe I would imagine that it helps.

Elvira Kurt:

Or that it helps, right?

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah. Sometimes a scene can be just so much funnier when it’s played completely dry, but in this case, this a whole sequence that, that music sort of carried us. Because it was a bit of a roller coaster. We’re ping-ponging there, but we’re also ping-ponging elsewhere in the party and like Harley… The very next shot Harley and Dave come together, they speak. Kevin McDonald from kids in the hall was there as well. And then they’d bounce off to another part of the party. So it was all just a bit of a carnival. So that was a… We used a lot of actually Ocean’s Eleven music as temp through this series because of Harley’s sort of Hollywood background. And then the composers didn’t mimic it, but that was a huge inspiration. So it has that quality to it.

Elvira Kurt:

Cool, this idea that Jonathan wanted to include this clip because of that one great improv. You talked about your editing being informed by live comedy. But one of the great things that comedy TV editor gets to do, or an editor of a comedy of any sort is play with the genre. And that’s what this clip… Please tell us a little bit more about that and why this was a pick for you.

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah, that’s the exciting part of sketch because it’s like full ADD brain. You just work on something and then you’re onto the next thing. And you’re you have new characters and you’re in new worlds. And this one in particular is really fun. It’s like a scifi genre. So you get to play with music and sound design and yeah.

 

[Clip plays]

Speaker 16:

You got to sign off on the speech from the UN. Yes ma’am. Are you sure about the translation software? Sure as wherever we’re going to be. This better work. Madam chancellor, Dr. Jones, we’ve made contact. [inaudible 00:50:18]. Let’s make [inaudible 00:50:30]. Greeting new friends. We, the people of earth are honored to be making contact with beings from beyond our own planet for the very first time. The most important message humanity can express to you at this time is, could you come back a little later? It’s just not a great time right now. We’re just not totally feeling ready to meet. We still trying to work some stuff out of the species, or humanity is in a bit of an awkward phase right now, embarrassing really. embarrassing. That’s the word. Thank you. Yeah, it’s embarrassing.

Speaker 16:

So maybe, I don’t know, we’re going to come back in about 500 years. Something like that. Actually, according to my projections, we’re going to need at least 1000 years. Okay. You know what? Let’s make it 1000. Let’s call it a cool thao. Okay. Then we’ll see you then. [inaudible 00:52:02]. Yeah. Hey, listen. You know, there’s just no point in getting in a new relationship if you still got your own stuff to work on. 100%. Anyway. Who wants to go for drinks, Nico? All right [inaudible 00:52:11]. Yeah. What a relief. I wasn’t into it either, but you always think you’re the one that’s messed up. Just self improvement takes time. That was so impressive. I really appreciated that honesty. Well, I don’t know what you would like to get home and just put my technicals up. I’m really hungry. At least we got our steps in. I feel really good.

Elvira Kurt:

So I do also know with these girls that they are allowed per season or per episode very few of these high concept, right? Because it starts to spin out of control, like all of the different aspects that are brought into it. So it is, that’s clear that this was this bigger, higher concept, but a very simple idea of the joke I can see it being pitched in the room. It’s like, “Yeah, so we meet aliens. It’s a bad time. And it’s a relationship thing.” Like it’s all those things together, but then you get the stuff that doesn’t have any of that in it. How do you turn it into this?

Marianna Khoury:

This one was exciting because normally a lot of those sketches are really fast paced and this had like a slow tension build. And I think I’ve found the soundtrack and the sound design before even fully doing the assembly. So yeah, a lot of the pacing is based off of that. I don’t normally do that.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay. Tell me more about that. And watching it, did you think, “Oh, I don’t know what to do. Let’s start with the music.” Do you know what I mean? Or immediately you watched it and you were like, “I need the music first.”

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah. I think just to feel the space, we didn’t have the VFX of that glowing orb thing in the back yet. So the sound helped just feel like we were in that world and believe that we were there and it really helps it’s the slow long walk up so we can break the tension and reveal the joke.

Elvira Kurt:

Right. And do you… In the way that Jonathan said, like you have the movie reference already that music, was this like, “It’s going to be like Stranger Things or Arrival, do you know? And you start thinking of that.

Marianna Khoury:

Arrival soundtrack-wise I was looking for music that sounded “wahhhhh”

Elvira Kurt:

And so you lay that down first and then does it suddenly help? Oh, with this tension means this is where I’ve got to use a shot where there’s zooming in a little bit.

Marianna Khoury:

Yeah.

Elvira Kurt:

I don’t want to tell you.

Marianna Khoury:

I don’t know if this is a pretty simple one. It was really [crosstalk 00:54:34]-

Elvira Kurt:

Oh, is it? Anybody can do it. Why are we even here??

Marianna Khoury:

The sound and music were the biggest part of this one for me.

Elvira Kurt:

All right. Okay. So with that, the sound and music, I mean, what I love about this clip that we’re going back to you, James, it’s another Schitt’s Creek. It’s the town sign. It’s sweet. Like the visuals are all there. So then you have… Again with the sound is that it’s consistent you have a library just of Schitt’s Creek music. Do you know what I mean? When does that enter for you?

James Bredin:

There’s very little score. Yeah, they’ve very little music in that show at all.

Elvira Kurt:

So you can’t hide in a way, right? Like, and then it’s all the comedy out there?

James Bredin:

Yeah. And it’s a deliberate choice obviously.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah, for sure.

James Bredin:

And it’s just little sweetening here and there because they want everything else to be strong. And it’s just a matter of like little-

Elvira Kurt:

Well-placed.

James Bredin:

… yeah.

Elvira Kurt:

And again, this is something that your many years has taught you when it needs something?

James Bredin:

Well, I’d like to say that, but it’s generally there’s no music, unless there’s some source thing in a cafe or a dance or something, there’s a party it’s cut without any music at all. And they may add like very little ever.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay. So town sign then… Again, it’s very shot heavy. I feel like it as when we see it or if people know [crosstalk 00:56:06].

James Bredin:

Yeah. it’s sort of more conventional directing. Cut it like you would cut any dramatic scene. It’s a-

Elvira Kurt:

Tell me more about that. Where’s the overlap between comedy and drama?

James Bredin:

… it’s the difference in the writing. This could be a completely straight scene of them wanting to repaint the sign and okay, “We’ll just repaint it.” Not funny at all. And so there’s nothing really in the directing that is specifically comedic. The timing is when you want to go from the two guys to over the shoulder of the sign. And that was sort of the challenge of this scene is when to most effectively use the actual picture.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay, excellent. So then let’s watch the clip and then come back to this because that is… Again, I’m trying to… What is it about comedy that makes it so specialized? And again, that not everyone can do where that it takes a lot longer to learn how to do well, then say film editing, which has you say it could be the script or whatever. And then it’s not just the fact that Schitt’s Creek is called a comedy show that that suddenly the editing is going to be done in a certain way that elicits comedy, it’s more than that. And so let’s see if we can understand more about what you mean after we’ve seen the clip.

 

[Clip plays]

James Bredin:

Lots of music in that.

Elvira Kurt:

Well, that was meant to get us through there. Thanks for bringing that back. But I can see that the well-placed shot of going back, that is everything that tips into comedy constantly.

James Bredin:

Yeah. That’s sort of the comedy. The biggest technical challenge of that scene was for Walt the colorist at Red Lab, because that sky was changing by the second and the lighting in TV shot is different and you would not know by doing that, but that put a lot of work into that. And there was a lot of-

Jonathan Eagan:

how did he change the sign? What happens to the sign?

James Bredin:

He sticks up another sign on top that says, “Don’t worry. It’s his sister.”

Elvira Kurt:

Roland fixed it for you. Jonathan quickly set us up.

Jonathan Eagan:

Okay. I chose this clip just because it was actually a kind of a challenge, also another really long scene that we had to make tighter and make choices. There’s actually a whole bunch of stuff going on. There’s some VFX of stitching together, three different wide shots to make one wide shot work for continuity. There’s great ad-libs from Katherine, who is unbelievable in that respect, especially when she’s writing, directing, showrunning, acting all at the same time. It’s pretty remarkable. And we can speak to it after the fact.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay. Cool. All right. Let’s get to it.

 

[Clip plays]

Jonathan Eagan:

So, yeah, that’s the first scene of season three. At the end of season two, she catches her husband cheating on her with her best friend’s nanny. He doesn’t know that she’s seen it. And then she goes home and discovered she’s pregnant. And then she decides to have the baby that’s the reveal of that. So it was really interesting scene, because like the way it was initially set up, it was a lot longer. Val who’s tremendous, the class leader, she had a whole bit about how those photos behind her were like, “These babies are from my vagina.” And like all this really great stuff that was so good, but it was just too long a scene and we had to make choices. And so ultimately it came down to story choices and there was also a means of getting into the scene initially the plan so that we reveal Katherine is pregnant.

Jonathan Eagan:

Whereas now you sort of see it right away and there’s a lot going on that scene. Yeah, so one of those wides were bowels there and the two of them are in the foreground, but we had all kinds of continuity issues. We got into this situation on Workin’ Moms where I kind of got away with murder because Adam at Red Lab, the online editor was right next door to me. And he was really fantastic at like stitching together shots in the online and saving us, having to do it in via fax. It still costs money, but a lot less money. And like when I found out that that was the case, they let me do it like 45 times. So it was like a David Fincher movie a lot of the time. We were combining takes. And if the continuity wasn’t right, I would just dupe the same shot and combine the takes.

Jonathan Eagan:

And then Adam would take care of it. And then eventually they were like, “John, you have to stop doing that. It’s costing too much money.” But that was an example of it. We really needed it to make the scene work. We had like the women on the left were one shot. Val was another, they were third. And we really couldn’t make that pivotal moment work without. And then the whole Canary bit. I’m pretty sure that was an ad-lib if I remember correctly, but it just brings up… So what Katherine does often, and a lot of comedies do this is, Katherine will be… She’s head writer and the showrunner. She’s always on set. She directs many episodes. She directed this one. So she’s in the scene, on camera directing the scene and also the showrunner. So at times there’s no qualms on that show about her saying, “Let me do that again.”

Jonathan Eagan:

And she’ll start if it’s her coverage or she’ll say to someone, if it’s their coverage or she’ll say, “Give me that again,” or, “Just do that again.” She’ll just stop the scene… Rather than stop and cut and reset, she’ll stop the scene and she’ll say, “Give me it this way.” She’ll run off four or five different options right there and then, and then they’ll move on in the take. And it’s terrific. You just know exactly where it is and you can find it. So she did a bunch of different versions of the canary stuff and like the poop stuff. And we just had a host of really great options and they just had fun with it. They riffed for two minutes and then moved on and then we had a plethora of really great stuff to use, and we landed with that on that.

Elvira Kurt:

So you cheat and she made you look good. That’s the takeaway?

Jonathan Eagan:

That’s right.

Elvira Kurt:

Okay. That’s good to know for the future, so you can always have the guy next door, cost you money. And then somebody who takes care of all the shots, but what a luxury for you. Yeah, that’s great, lots to play with.

Jonathan Eagan:

Because they come to trust you. They let you get away with that stuff.

Elvira Kurt:

You’re right.

Jonathan Eagan:

There’s a moral to that story.

Elvira Kurt:

There’s a moral. Thank you for pointing it out. Did you want to say something Marianna?

Marianna Khoury:

They love doing that. I started working on Workin’ Moms this year and-

Jonathan Eagan:

Cool.

Marianna Khoury:

… it’s their favorite thing to do now [crosstalk 01:04:48] there’s this cool thing, Jonathan taught me.

Elvira Kurt:

Amazing. You’re a legend. Amazing. Now what I love on any kind of comedy when it gets authentic. So this storyline as you said you deferred a lot of the editing to serve the story, even though there was this other great extraneous stuff. and that you have to… What makes the funny funnier is when you have the contrast of the hardness of the truth. I cheated.

Jonathan Eagan:

Yeah, sure.

Elvira Kurt:

There’s pregnancy that she’s got to deal with. I’m using this as a segue to the final clip, which is the Unfounded, easily the most difficult, right? And I would say that having been in the writer’s room, there was a lot on Baroness that you would want to sort of tap into the zeitgeist, and then realize we actually were not smart enough to do this in a way that it serves the comedy and makes the point. And I think this is an exception. This had to have a warning before the actual scene. Is there anything else you want to say before we set it up?

Marianna Khoury:

No, let’s play it.

 

[Clip plays]

Elvira Kurt:

That was amazing, well done.

Marianna Khoury:

That’s a hard sketch to edit and it’s constantly balancing that line of being very angry and emotional and Aurora playing that character so grounded and keeping on us on that side of this, the hurt and anger and frustration. And then having the side with Meredith and Jen that keeps the comedy going and is getting out all of the information. And we found we would be holding on Aurora for a while and it would get too sad and it was too difficult to watch it. It didn’t feel like it was comedy anymore. So it was a while of working on that one and figuring out what the right balance was so that it felt right at the end.

Elvira Kurt:

Yeah. There was all of everything that you have been saying, all three of you have been saying all along, all coming into play in that one scene. And I think, unfortunately that is a good place to stop so that we can actually have some questions. so let’s get to it. Thank you guys. You’re so wise.

Jonathan Eagan:

Thank you very much.

Elvira Kurt:

From the house who has something to ask anybody? Yes, go ahead.

Audience:

So I have a question for Mariana about TallBoyz. So TallBoyz was originally stage based sketch comedy. So I was wondering having that context of like being originally based on stage work, how has that impacted your editing and what are the original kind of TallBoyz members were involved in kind of the timing or the editing and stuff?

Marianna Khoury:

Oh yeah. They were definitely involved. Yeah. It was pretty similar to Baroness in that you’re able… And Workin’ Moms, actually all the jobs I’ve had, usually the stars of the show are quite involved the whole way through which can be a good thing, but also sometimes they’re willing to cut things that they’re in and I’m like, “No, you can’t cut it. I love this part so much.” And it’s kind of your job as the editor to be that cheerleader for them a little bit. Yeah. TallBoyz was great. The big difference with that show is that the sketches did exist within an episode already. So, and they had a bit of a throughline in each act. So it was a bit more contained than how we work on Baroness.

Elvira Kurt:

So the one question was about a show we didn’t talk about. I cannot thank you enough. I literally could sit here for another three hours and just shoot the shit about this stuff. So deep is the bench of knowledge here. Let’s give it up for James and Marianna and Jonathan, thank you all so much and have an excellent keynote this afternoon. Take care.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks for joining us today and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Maureen Grant, and the CCE Board for helping create EditCon 2020.

 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. 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 a way 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.

 

[Outtro]

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

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Credits

A special thanks goes to the following people for helping to create EditCon 2020

Jane MacRae

Maureen Grant

The Canadian Film Centre

the CCE board

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

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The Editors Cut

Episode 033: This Year in Dramatic Film

Episode 033: This Year in Dramatic Film

Episode 033: This Year in Dramatic Film

This episode is part 2 or a 4 part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

This episode is sponsored by IATSE 891.

2020 EditCon Panelist 2 group

There’s no formula to a festival hit, but the three editors behind the recent critically-lauded feature films Freaks, Mouthpiece, and Genesis will share how they did it. In this panel discussion Mathieu Bouchard-Malo, Lara Johnston and Sabrina Pitre talk about their process, career trajectories and what lies ahead.

This panel was moderated by Justin Lachance, CCE.

Listen Here

The Editor’s Cut – Episode 033 – “This Year in Dramatic Film” (EditCon 2020 Series)

 

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by IATSE 891. Hello and welcome to the Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. Today I bring to you part two of our four part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday, February 1st at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. There’s no formula to a festival hit, but the three editors behind the recent critically-lauded feature films Freaks, Mouthpiece, and Genesis, will share how they did it. This panel discussion will focus on the process, their career trajectories, and what lies ahead.

 

[show open]

Jane MacRae:

These films have made waves on the festival circuit in Canada and internationally. As a group, they’re a fantastic demonstration of the film industry’s regional successes representing Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. Each powerful engaging film was brought into existence through very different creative circumstances. An adaptation of a play, with two actors playing conflicting sides of a young woman’s inner dialogue. A uniquely structured drama, contrasting the lives of two teenage half-siblings. A science-fiction hybrid grounded in compelling dramatic performances. As editors, each film presents a unique experience and opportunity to find the performances, tone, and the arc. In 2018, all three of these films landed on TIFF Canada’s top 10 list. Their international festival journeys have been vast and all have received critical praise and award recognition. We’re here to celebrate the editors behind these films whose work is sometimes imperceptible, but always present.

Jane MacRae:

Our moderator Justin Lachance is well acquainted with the festival world, having had his work screened at fests including Sundance, Berlinale, South by Southwest, and TIFF. He’s also known for his work on a couple of little shows you might have heard of, Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects. IATSE 891 are pleased to welcome Lara Johnston, Mathieu Bouchard-Malo, Sabrina Pitre, and moderator Justin Lachance.

Justin Lachance:

So, I just want to say to start this off that this is amazing to see you guys all here. I mean, I’ve been to EditFest in the states and I know that ACE is amazing, but this just gives a great platform as Canadians. It talks about our reality and I’m just very proud and happy with what the CCE is doing in Canada. So, let’s get this started.

Justin Lachance:

Who here understands French? Okay, not bad. So, Mathieu is from Quebec, the editor of Genesis. And because it’s a little hard to explain the intricacies of editing in your second tongue, Mathieu will be answering in French. So, I’ll be here to direct translate. So, please, have a little more patience. Now, Jean Luc Goddard said, “Stories should have a beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order.” And that’s what we do as editors, we agonize over the absolute best way to tell the story and in scripted fiction, we have a blueprint that sometimes needs to be shuffled to find the soul of the story. So, right here we have three incredibly talented editors who have done exactly that and with the three of the most interesting films that the Great White North has produced this year. So, first I’d love to get you guys to introduce yourselves, small explanation of your career path, and introduce your film also, talk about what it’s about.

Lara Johnston:

Hi, Lara Johnston. I worked on Mouthpiece. I started many years ago as an assistant editor. I did not go to film school formally, I went to U of T for Film Studies. I mean I fell into film studies when I was there, I took a film course and just loved it. I thought I would be a writer or journalist or something. But, I started working on little Super 8 films and stuff just because I really liked making them. As soon as I left U of T, I worked on a couple small films made by artists and there was a granting system where they would get a person as a grant to sort of help them.

Lara Johnston:

So, I kind of worked on every aspect of it and kind of was production secretary and assistant to the director. And then they liked me, so, they kept me around for the editing and that’s where I sort of found my happy place. And then back then it was really easy to get into the DGC, you just paid $500 and went in to work the next day. So, that’s what happened to me. I met Susan Shipton on my first movie, It Was All Caught On Film. And then just worked my way very slowly up as an assistant editor. I worked in LA, I got into the union there. Kind of went back and forth between Toronto and a few other places and met Patricia on the way and yeah, here I am.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, because you have a relationship with Patricia on different projects. Is that right?

Lara Johnston:

Yes, yeah.

Justin Lachance:

So, tell us about Mouthpiece and how you got onto that one.

Lara Johnston:

So, I had worked with Patricia many years ago on this weird little … thanks to Harvey Weinstein, good old Harvey. Patricia was doing this TV movie, I don’t even really know how … she came on after somebody else. And Harvey Weinstein decided it could be … it was Wrinkle in Time, it was a TV movie, Wrinkle in Time. And Harvey decided in all of Harvey’s wisdom, that it could be Harry Potter for girls. So, brought Patricia in to try to do that while someone else was making the TV movie. So, we just for six weeks we took all the TV movie footage and tried to make a feature out of it. I was the assistant editor. We had an audience preview in New Jersey. Everybody hated it, we’re like, “Okay, bye, see you later.” And then Harvey called the next day and was like “Let’s keep trying.” And then eventually after another preview where everyone hated it, it sort of formally died. But, that’s how I met Patricia and she really liked me.

Lara Johnston:

Our paths crossed a couple of times over the years. I worked as an assistant on Grey Gardens and she was the writer on that. And then an editor that I worked with she brought in … No, actually I didn’t even work with him. He came onto Grey Gardens after it went back to LA and I was by then living here. And that editor, she really liked the work that he did on Grey Gardens and so, she brought him to reedit, to do additional editing on one of her films and then I happened to work with him later. And he invited us both to a screening at TIFF a few years ago, and I bumped into her. And she asked me what I was doing and I was teaching, so, I sort of left the film business and started teaching. And she said, “Oh, you should come out of retirement and edit this film of mine.” And I was like, “Hahaha.” And then, it sort of echoed in my head, hahaha, for a couple of months.

Justin Lachance:

Sound effect.

Lara Johnston:

But, I didn’t do anything about it because I knew she was joking. And then, I think a friend of mine interviewed for the job and he called me and I really have no idea why he called me because I don’t think he could do the job but, he kind of wanted … I don’t think he even knew that I worked with her, but he just called me to talk about it randomly. And I was like, “Oh, she joked that I should do that movie.” And he said, “You got to do that. It’s totally you, it’s your style. Call her.” And so then, I called her and she’s like, “Yeah, well, that sounds interesting.” And I’m like, “What?” Because I haven’t worked on anything for six or seven years and I never had a solo editing credit, I always had second editor credits and stuff. But, she seemed to really consider it and I went through the script like crazy, a lot. And then I met her and we had a nice meeting and I gave her a lot of my ideas. And then I didn’t hear from her for a month and I was sort of not surprised by that, but I was also really depressed. And then-

Justin Lachance:

That happens all the time.

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, “Aw, what did I say, what did I do, why did I say that?” All those things you do. And then randomly, and I don’t really, I’ve never asked what happened in the interim and who they talked to and who they couldn’t get and stuff, but three days before they went into production, she emailed me let’s do this. We do it and it worked great. We just got along, we’d always had fun conversations and stuff. I think the whole making of the movie was just one long fun conversation.

Justin Lachance:

That sounds amazing. How about you Sabrina?

Sabrina Pitre:

I’m originally from Toronto, but I went out to Vancouver to attend UBC and do the film production program there, which was fun. We got to shoot on actual film which was an experience and that was about as much film experience as I have actual tactile film. But, from there, I just got a job essentially loading tapes at night for The Shopping Bags show. Kind of just went from there. There was a studio in town that sort of pumped out B movies, that was what they did and they were hiring people as employees and so, I got a chance to join that team as an assistant editor, again, at nights. But, what was nice about that is you get to work with so many different editors, directors, producers who coming in out of that place that your list of credits grows quickly in the span of one year. So, as an assistant, I was able to get so much experience in the few years that I worked there. And then they eventually went bankrupt in 2009. And so, I continued to assist, but I got my first break as an editor in 2011 on a feature film called Sisters & Brothers, directed by Carl Bessai. And the only reason I got that was the editor that I often assisted for threw out his back in a skiing incident so, it was sort of just-

Justin Lachance:

Vancouver accident.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, right. So it was really just one of those lucky chances, one of those lucky breaks that you get. And he recommended me to the director and so I had an interview with him, and I did not sell myself at all because I was really just intimidated and I didn’t know what I was doing and I wasn’t sure I could pull this off. A feature was so overwhelming at the time because all I had done were short films on my own. But, they didn’t have a big budget so, I think they needed me for the cheapness. And I needed them for the experience, so that was a perfect marriage. And it ended up working out really well. I got along so well with the director and he pushed me in a way creatively that we got to a place with the film that I’m really happy with and I ended up winning a Leo for it. And so it was really good encouragement anyway.

Sabrina Pitre:

I went back to assisting for about one year after and just couldn’t take it anymore, essentially. So, once you get that first taste like we were talking about, you can’t really go back. So, essentially, no one told me I was an editor now, but I just said that to myself and just sort of refused assisting work and took only editing jobs. And it was a little bit of a dent in the pocketbook, but eventually, people get to know you, you change their minds about what they think of you as. And eventually you get calls for editing gigs and you just kind of go from there.

Justin Lachance:

Kind of like what happened with Freaks?

Sabrina Pitre:

Kind of like what happened with Freaks. Well, so the way I met the guys, I got hired onto my first union show for Disney called Mech-X4 and Zach Lipovsky was one of the exec producers on it as well as the showrunner. And Adam Stein was one of the directors that they had brought on board to direct some of the episodes. And so I got to work with both of them very closely and we got on really well and found that we were kind of on a similar wavelength terms of creativity. So, once that show wrapped up, the guys, they had a longstanding relationship and they had been writing script together for the longest time called Freaks. And they approached me about it and sent me an early draft and asked if I’d be interested in editing it. And I was like, “Hell yes, absolutely.” It just seemed like the right thing to do at the right time and I couldn’t say no, so.

Justin Lachance:

It’s perfect. And Mathieu?

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

Okay, so Mathieu started off as an assistant editor. He studied cinema in Montreal and then got a job at a post production facility, with one of the rare ones that actually had an Avid back then in the ’90s, so.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So then, he was only an assistant editor for a year, which is impressive. And then, one of his friends asked him to start a post production facility and he was the in-house editor for a while.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So, after doing music videos and commercials and tons of different formats, he finally was able to do a feature film that was called Full Blast by Rodrigue Jean that actually played at the TIFF, at TIFF Festival. So, I mean it’s called Fest anyway. And then, now, how did you get involved with Philippe Lesage, the director of Genesis?

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

Okay, so, that was a long sentence. Philippe was coming back from Denmark and he his studies down there and he came back to Montreal and was hired to do a Making Of a film that he wanted to make into a much bigger production, a documentary about that making of. The production wasn’t necessarily warm to it, but Mathieu decided to join forces and brother in arms, they made it together. And then they progressed on to making documentaries together and Philippe would do camera, sound, and everything. And Mathieu would do everything for post production like color and editing and assistants and everything. So, they were kind of a one stop crew film shop.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So, there’s an admiration from Mathieu towards Philippe’s work and the documentary language was easily translated into the fiction world. And as he was working on documentaries, he was always thinking about the next fiction and how to make that work.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

And I think it’s both language … two language documentary and fiction, but I think it’s very interesting to merge at the certain point.

Justin Lachance:

Absolutely. And Genesis does that perfectly. There’s some points where you actually feel like you’re watching a documentary because it’s just like long shots that are drifting, you’re just following what’s going on. So, let’s have look at what that looks like. Let’s play that trailer of Genesis from Mathieu and we’ll continue the talk after that.

 

[ Clip Plays]

Justin Lachance:

So, we had asked you for a clip of the film and there was a discussion where we’re just like, “You know what? What clip would we choose because they’re all very, very long.” And the strength of the film is let’s watch this happen. So, that’s why we chose a trailer, but a lot of this happens with young actors. You have sequence shots that take a long time and how did you guys work with that? Because young actors and sequence shots are sometimes the hardest thing to deal with as an editor. So, how did you guys work with that?

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

Okay, so the decision, it didn’t cause any problems to work with younger actors with less experience, but Philippe had a very specific decision or he wanted something very specific for each scene, so they just sometimes shot 30 takes per shot. And so, it wasn’t a difference in performance, not necessarily anybody flubbing a line, it was just that he was so specific with that’s what he wanted.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

And sometime, the first or the second take is almost perfect on [ Mathieu continues in French]

Justin Lachance:

First, I’ll translate and then I’ll ask him another question. Basically, what would happen is that, in the beginning of the first shots, there would be … the performance was actually pretty fresh and really great, but sometimes the technical aspects of the shot were not as great, so, they would continue and perfect that. And then, it would become mechanical in performances, so, then it wouldn’t work as well because you would kind of feel the acting. And then eventually, as the later takes happen, they would all be like, “Oh okay. They’re kind of tired, the actors are tired.” So, they just act more natural in that situation, and then, the technical parts would be great. And then, if it wasn’t in the first takes, it was in the last takes, the 30th take. And so, he would spend a lot of time watching all the takes though, in the edit suite. And was there any time you just decided to choose a middle one? Did that happen?

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

Yes. [ Mathieu continues in French]

Justin Lachance:

So, Mathieu has the chance to work on a lot of films d’auteur. I actually don’t know how to translate that, do you guys know?

Audience:

[inaudible 00:24:37]

Justin Lachance:

Auteur films, there you go, sure. And a lot of them have very specific narrative qualities, and that’s what he’s passionate about. And one thing with those kinds of films is that you have a lot more time and you have a lot more time to experiment and propose new ways of editing the scenes and you can really finesse it. And with Genesis …

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

That was the case with Genesis. [Mathieu continues in French]

Justin Lachance:

So, usually, he starts editing a film while it’s shooting and he doesn’t have the chronological order of the text. So, this time with Genesis, it was actually a little different, he started editing after they were shot, so you could really watch it unfold.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So, he was able to do an assembly very quickly and he was able to really follow what Philippe … the intentions and the rhythm of every scene.

Justin Lachance:

So, I’m going to go over to Sabrina too because you also worked with younger actors, specifically Lexy Kolker. And, but, you had completely different approach. There was no long shots and stuff like that. How did that work?

Sabrina Pitre:

Well, there were long shots, but they workshopped almost every one of her lines. So, they’d have her read it over and over again and with different intentions. They wanted her performance to be as real as possible. And so, I think similarly to Mathieu, the directors wanted something specific out of her and they just kept her going until they found what they wanted. Sometimes they didn’t know what they wanted and they just gave me the options and I kind of decided in the edit suite, sort of how … There were a lot of different ways to take it as a result because we had so many different reads that it gave me an immense amount of freedom, for sure.

Justin Lachance:

And you kind of masterfully got her arc perfectly. Every emotional build was really well done. How much of that was done in the edit room because you had so many options? How-

Sabrina Pitre:

A lot of it. Just because it was piecemeal in terms of how we were getting her lines. And plus her working with Emile, Emile was great at helping her get to those levels that she needed to have intensity in some scenes. He’d keep pushing her and she would push back and they’d kept growing, growing, growing, growing together and you’d get some really great back and forth. So, ultimately, I got everything that I needed out of those performances. It’s just a matter of picking and choosing, really.

Justin Lachance:

That’s amazing because she’s phenomenal in the film. She’s really, really great.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, I mean, really. She made the job easy. She’s a very talented little girl.

Justin Lachance:

She’s the main focus of the entire thing, so.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, she needed to carry the film, so getting a strong actress of that age was instrumental.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, amazing. Let’s watch that clip of Freaks.

 

[Clip plays]

Justin Lachance:

That is intense.

Sabrina Pitre:

I feel like that needs a lot of explanation if you haven’t seen the film.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, I guess if you haven’t seen the film, you’re just like what is coming out of her eye? But, why this clip?

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, so, this was an interesting turning point in the film. Before all of this, Chloe had been kept inside her house by her father, he’d been telling her that there are these dangerous people outside, never to go, they’ll kill you. And so, he has all the windows taped up and boarded, but she happens to meet this stranger who spots her from a window that she’s peeping through and coaxes her to actually come out. So, she unbeknownst to her father, had already left the house and met this person. And he gave her this sleeping powder to give to her dad, so she could continue to explore the outside. Up until that point, Chloe was very much sort of commanded by her father. The power was all in his side, and so, this was the first time that we weren’t even sure that she possessed any kind of powers herself or even that powers existed. It’s all very vague in the beginning. And so, this was the first time that she took control of the situation and did what she wanted.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, and it was interesting because there was just enough information to figure out okay, what’s going on here? And it kept you hooked the whole time and it was very well paced for that. I hear, that you guys did quite a few test screenings.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yes.

Justin Lachance:

And I’m just wondering, did that help with the comprehension or the pacing of everything like that or?

Sabrina Pitre:

It did actually. It ended up helping quite a bit.

Justin Lachance:

How many test screenings was it?

Sabrina Pitre:

14 test screenings.

Justin Lachance:

During post production?

Sabrina Pitre:

It nearly broke me, but yeah, 14 test screenings. Yeah, I mean, it was seven done in … all simultaneously done, seven in Vancouver, seven in LA. So we were getting kind of a lot of different feedback based on those two groups.

Justin Lachance:

What were you looking for? What kind of questions would you ask? That’s a lot of information.

Sabrina Pitre:

I know. So the big thing was, comprehension and just, it is a slow burn. And so, we were concerned how long we could keep audiences on the hook with before they lose interest. That was very good lesson in terms of these test screenings because we learned very quickly that we have to reveal little pieces. We have to give the audience something at certain point in order to keep them invested. So, yeah, I found the feedback we got from audiences for those test screenings was very, very helpful just to help us craft that. I mean, from how it was scripted to how it ultimately ended up here is quite different.

Justin Lachance:

I imagine. And then, so, how did you resolve those kind of decisions because you were working with a director duo who are also producers and have experience editing and also the writers? So how were decisions processed?

Sabrina Pitre:

So, after a test screening, the guys would sort of summarize everything that had been discussed at the test screenings. And then we would come back into the edit suite and just essentially intensely work for another week trying to solve those problems in the way we thought could work obviously while maintaining the integrity of their own vision as well. Because it’s easy to try and appease everybody, but you can’t to a certain degree, so. Yeah, it was just a matter of taking one issue at time. Okay, so, we notice that they’re really confused here, how can we solve that by bringing in something earlier that gives a little release. So, it was really just problem solving and just really trying to figure out things and little bit along the whole way until finally when you sit back. After every session that we had, we were convinced, this is it guys, we’re done, we did it, yes. And then the test screening would happen and we’re like, “There’s still questions. Oh god. Okay, well we got to figure this out.” So, yeah, the guys even called me at one point, they were all very serious and were like, “Sabrina, we know we’ve been in post for a while and we know we’ve had” … this is probably after the 10th test screening and they were worried I was just going to walk because I don’t think they’ve ever done this to another editor yet in their career.

Sabrina Pitre:

We’re all very similar in age, as well, so, they’re young filmmakers as well, so. They were worried that they were going to lose me at some point. But, it’s one of those projects, it’s so ambitious. I was invested from the beginning, so, there’s no way I was going to walk away.

Justin Lachance:

Absolutely. It was marathon.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, yeah. I think it was about six months in post.

Justin Lachance:

Okay, well, Lara, you also with Mouthpiece had a lot of test screenings, but not quite as many.

Lara Johnston:

I thought we had a lot, but then I met Sabrina.

Justin Lachance:

How many was it again?

Lara Johnston:

We had four. Yeah.

Justin Lachance:

That’s still considerable because usually it’s around two or so.

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, yeah. It’s still a lot for a Canadian film I think.

Justin Lachance:

Did it help with the story telling?

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, it was incredibly helpful. The whole movie’s kind of based on a conceit, if you haven’t seen it. That it’s one person who kind of becomes two people. So, kind of our early screenings were about comprehensibility, would people actually understand that? And our first screening was really small, it was actually just some … not just some editors … some editors. So, we had I think three editors and one person who was friend of mine come and they understood what was going on, but because they were editors, and it’s a great experience to show your film to editors, although you do get a lot of feedback, but it was about sort of the structure. And so, the film is two stories, kind of woven together. The woman’s mother dies and then it’s kind of about her dealing with her grief, but it’s woven together with flashbacks of her mother. So, the way the film was originally structured in the script was that we met the mom very late on, I think two-thirds of the way into the film. Yeah, and so, the main feedback from the screening was just that they really liked the mom, but by then, you’re kind of, you don’t want to get to know another character.

Lara Johnston:

So, we had to pull her story up to the beginning of the film. And that constituted a lot of work. I’d say if you look at the amount of time we spent working in that area, it was up here and everything else is down here. And again, if you’ve seen the film, there’s an escalator ride that just goes on and on and on, two escalator rows in the bay. And that was partly because we had this … kind of these flashbacks that were all locked together and had to bring them to the front. So, we had at least two screenings to try to kind of get it to a place where we were pretty happy with. But, then we also just got really specific with screenings. Patricia liked to do … she’s made some studio films and with studio films you do cards where you fill things out. And it’s pretty awful in a studio film because the studio will put it front of your face and go [inaudible 00:39:15]. Whatever, you need to put more of this character in or make this character more likable or whatever.

Lara Johnston:

But, she kind of does it because she really wants the person’s direct first impression rather than the mob mentality that you get after when everyone’s talking together. I mean, I find the talking together after really helpful too as an editor because someone will say something and then another person will go, “Oh yeah, I agree with that.” And then you get a sense of sort of consensus.

Lara Johnston:

But, one of the things that was really interesting that came out after one of the screenings, so there’s a plot point in the film and it was this screening was kind of breaking up and it had been a really good screening. We sort of felt like oh we’re done. We always picked our audiences, we wanted it to be the demographic for the film. And it was never trying to appeal to anybody we that we didn’t think was the demographic. But, just someone was standing around talking to Patricia after and just sort of mentioned they didn’t like this one thing in the plot. And it was like I don’t know why we never thought of it before, but she just said it seems kind of devicey. So, the mother’s supposed to take some pills, she decides not to take these pills and then dies as a result of not taking the pills and it’s directly the result of something her daughter has said to her. And this woman said it felt very devicey. And we were just kind of like yeah. Because it was a device.

Justin Lachance:

And that would have affect the entire rest of the film because that was at the beginning where you learn that somewhere, and yeah. Your perception of those characters is completely changed.

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, yeah. So after that, we said, “Well, why don’t we try taking it out?” And we did and it came out so easily, it was just sort of a clue that it was a device and it really wasn’t woven that organically in. Except there are a couple scenes where I really had to do some hack jobs to sort of get around the talking about it and stuff. But, it was really useful for that and then also just, everyone here I’m sure has experienced it, that feeling of watching something with an audience tells you so much, right? You just don’t even have to ask them anything, you just get-

Justin Lachance:

You feel the vibe of the room.

Lara Johnston:

You feel it, yeah. And sitting beside Patricia, and she’s looking at me and going like this. They were incredible helpful in that regard.

Justin Lachance:

And there’s this feminist undertone throughout the whole movie that’s basically the essence of the movie. And it’s wonderfully done and beautiful to watch. But, there’s also this moment where Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a cut. She says flat out what is the message and it’s powerful, it’s very powerful because what a great spokesperson. But, I was just wondering, how did that come to be?

Lara Johnston:

That was in the script and it happens to fall in the … Patricia and I call it the escalator ride to hell. So, it’s one of the areas I just felt was too long anyways, so I strongly did not want it to be … It’s just you go to the escalator, you go to a flashback of the mom, you go into these weird musical numbers, and then come back to the escalator, and then you go to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I’m like we don’t need that. I felt like it was already very sort of there in the film. But, a lot of people, when we showed it to audiences and young women especially, it really resonated with them. And I felt like it was something I could’ve fought harder to take out, but the audience reaction to it did really resonate with me. And so, it’s kind of that line of deciding it’s not my favorite moment in the film and I feel like why do you just go there for one time. It’s not woven in, but it was important to people and they really liked it. And so, you decide things to keep and things to lose. That’s deep.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, you pick your battles.

Lara Johnston:

Exactly. Yeah.

Justin Lachance:

No, but, it is a very powerful moment in the film. It does take you out a little bit and you’re like wait, what just happened? But, that message is so clear and it really resonates throughout the whole film. It’s wonderful. So let’s watch a clip, this one’s in the grocery store of Mouthpiece.

 

[Clip Plays]

 

Justin Lachance:

That’s an amazing clip. Why did you choose that one?

Lara Johnston:

I was talking to Mathieu about that before I don’t … I didn’t know we could pick a trailer.

Justin Lachance:

Oh really?

Lara Johnston:

No, it’s really hard to pick a clip because it’s not so much about the scene. But, I mean I did pick that … the movie only has two musical numbers, so it’s actually not really indicative of what the movie is, but the language of the film is something we … it kind of evolved as we were editing. And there was a third musical number which got cut and there’s sort of a shot that I couldn’t figure out how to use that they shot for the scene. And I ended up using these flash cuts to use the shot to get into the musical number. And everyone really liked that. So, then I tried it with this scene. They shot this on the last day and they sort of had liked the earlier scene, so it kind of wove, had the dialogue go back and forth so we could kind of do it going out of the scene too.

Lara Johnston:

And also the musical numbers were much longer in the script and shot longer and the musical numbers were always on the chopping block because they were left from the play, so this is based on play. And they were very much of the play’s DNA and some people, Patricia included, she kept on saying, “I hate musical numbers. Why am I doing these musical numbers?” But, some people really liked them and they’re very much part of the theme of the film and the performative aspect of being a woman and her having to kind of come up with what she’s going to say about her mom. And so, the happy medium we came up was just making them shorter, which I think they’re great.

Justin Lachance:

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s also a device that you used throughout the whole film too that kind of helps those transitions. I know it’s during heightened emotions there’s flashes and there’s a specific one where a bathtub where she’s drowning in the bathtub. How did that devise?

Lara Johnston:

That was again, that was left over from the play, but in the first act, they do get into the bathtub, but there was a scene where they sort of have a fight in the bathtub. And it’s sort of supposed to frame the fight that they have at the end and that early audience we had of editors, yeah, if you want to feel bad about your film, show it to a bunch of editors. They’re like, “Oh yeah, we just feel knocked around at the beginning.” So, part of the beginning was taking stuff out and really figuring out what needed to be there. When I read the script, it was almost like train spotting, sort of the opening and it couldn’t be further from that, it’s very slow sort of getting into it.

Lara Johnston:

So, there’s this bathtub scene and the footage is pretty cool and we ended up putting a shot of it in the credit sequence. And then, there’s this scene where they have this feminist awakening in the bathtub. And I always … I didn’t quite feel like the scene went far enough and so one day, I just put in a bunch of the bathtub footage and I sped it up. And everyone’s like, “That is so cool. I don’t know what it means, but let’s leave it in there.” So, it was just kind of trying to use stuff and for me, it was a little bit about what’s just boiling inside of her.

Justin Lachance:

And just being overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed. It was wonderful, it was beautiful. I had talked with Richard Comeau who’s an editor, really great editor from Quebec and he’s done a bunch of films here. He said that the difference between a documentary editing and fiction editing is, documentary you’re always asking what do I put in, and in fiction, you ask what do I want to take out? I don’t know if you guys had any input on that kind of stuff. But, I feel like when you’re rewriting scripts and stuff like that and the third writing of post production, there’s always that kind of idea of removing scenes.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

Oh, wow. We’ll just carry on. I’m sorry.

Sabrina Pitre:

Similarly, yeah, I find with scripted you have this sort of bones of a scene, but once it’s shot and once you see how the actors have interpreted it, things change dramatically. And so, a lot of the test screening too helped us determine whether or not some characters just needed to be lessened or whether some scenes needed to be pulled because the father was coming across too harsh. That relationship was a very delicate balance between him and Chloe. And so there were some early scenes of him punishing her essentially that were just removed because we found the audience just wasn’t connecting with them as father-daughter. So, yeah, it’s like the script is sort of just the foundation and then you can kind of take that and just mix it up and do what’s necessary to get really the core of the story coming through and the themes that you want and it all kind of has to be harmonious, so it’s never set in stone what’s written down anyway.

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, I guess. Like our film was … Patricia kept on saying it’s film about a woman who does errands for the day and writes a eulogy. It’s not terribly action heavy, so I think that really drove, whittling and whittling and whittling. And there’s some really kind of fast cutty stuff in it, but then part of it is you just have these moments where you want just to kind of go into this kind of very lull where she’s just in her head and she’s kind of thinking and stuff. And I think for those moments to kind of resonate, you kind of wanted the other moments to kind of move quickly. And so, yeah, I mean just sort of finding that balance between the two kind of tones I think was helpful.

Justin Lachance:

That pretty much sums up our job. I’ll open the floor Q & A. Is there anybody, yes?

Audience:

Hi. My question is how do you work with the director and how much room you have from the director, how you communicate with the director and what kinds of director that you think is fantastic to work with?

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So the director is on set always asking questions and they have to have answers constantly. And they’re bombarded by decision making and they have to be on all the time and so, in the post productions situation, the time and the possibility of questioning themselves and really trying things out, gives them a lot more freedom and that is for an editor, you’re supposed to nurture that and help that along.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

And so, depends on the director, some are hardly there, sometimes you just work on your own, sometimes they’re always there constantly. And so you have to stay a little bit open to different kind of ways of working.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, I think Mathieu covered that really well. Essentially, you have a relationship with the director, director-editor. It’s like a collaboration, so I think the more you take that to heart, the better really. The idea that you can experiment together in the edit suite and there’s isn’t any set way necessarily to achieve something, it’s just you kind of find your way there together. Obviously, getting the freedom to experiment alone is always helpful too as an editor just because I feel if you don’t have somebody watching over you the whole time, you have a bit more freedom to do something incredibly bad and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s not going to work.”

Justin Lachance:

And then you feel like you’re God because it’s like, “Oh this is perfect.”

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, right. So, yeah, it’s really just giving that, having that flexibility and building that relationship with your editor. It’s sort of symbiosis really.

Lara Johnston:

To feel safe, to try crazy stuff and there are a couple scenes where I cut them completely different than she wanted. And she was like, “That’s interesting, but let’s try this.” And we ended up doing it her way, but then we used some of the ideas in a different spot. You have to feel like you have the freedom to do that and Patricia just really nurtured that, she said that to everybody on the crew, just go crazy. It just created such a great sort of environment.

Audience:

I have a question about test screenings? And I know two of you, Lara and Sabrina, mentioned test screenings. I don’t know for you Mathieu for Genesis, are there comments you get back from test screenings that you completely disagree with and fight for those edits to stay in and have you been successful?

Lara Johnston:

Yeah, I mean, one thing …. and Patricia right from the beginning was like, “We’re only going to do the things we agree with.” And that wasn’t that she wasn’t open to other comments, but it’s kind of a way of confirming something that you already have doubt about or if there’s something you’re disagreeing about, that it can kind of give you … And for me, it’d be Bader Ginsburg and there was one other … There was many versions where we had a title card in the beginning because some people didn’t understand the whole conceit of the movie until very late and it upset them. And so, it was just always a balance between the ones that are helpful and then the ones that aren’t. It’s different with studios because sometimes you have to do them, but not in Canada, which is what’s so amazing about it.

Justin Lachance:

Yes it is.

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo:

[Mathieu answers in French]

Justin Lachance:

So Mathieu said that he hasn’t really done big test screenings with a giant room full of people, but he has done with a select few people who have been nicely chosen. And sometimes you can fight against those notes, but they always come back in your brain and they always start making you think about this current thing. And it’s like okay, let’s try some things. It can usually help.

Sabrina Pitre:

Yeah, I mean for the most part, you’re always going to get those comments. Like, what the hell, come on. But, it’s always going to be a mixed bag, but it’s more I think about maybe how many of the similar comments like those you’re getting. It’s important to weigh sort of the percentages of how many are saying the same thing. But, ultimately, it is your vision, so, it’s up to you whether you want to take it to heart. But, it’s just a way of kind of pulling you out of sort of a tunnel-vision that you can get sometimes about your film.

Audience:

My question’s for Sabrina. Did you notice a difference between the comments you got from LA and the comments you got from Vancouver?

Sabrina Pitre:

Yes, yes we did. Yeah, that was interesting. We actually found the LA people were a little less in tune with the vision we had for the film, oddly enough, I think they’re used to a certain budget level, a certain … yeah, just way of going about things. Maybe the slow burn they weren’t a big fan of that either, ultimately. So, we did have to take a lot of those comments with a grain of salt sometimes without compromising the vision of the film. But yeah, but, it was interesting because ultimately, you want your film to appeal to a wide range of audiences, so you don’t want to … I think the guys were very specific about choosing people from various backgrounds and doing these multi-city screenings in order to get as much kind of varied feedback as they could. So, ultimately, it was quite helpful.

Justin Lachance:

Well, thank you very much for the film panel.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks for joining us today and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Maureen Grant, and the CCE Board for helping create EditCon 2020.

 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. 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 a way 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.

 

[Outtro]

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

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The Editors Cut

Episode 032: No Script? No Problem!

Episode 32: No Script? No problem!

Episode 32: No Script? No Problem!

This episode is Part I of a IV Part Series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. 

Panelist from EditCon 2020

Massive hours of footage, tight deadlines, and no script? No problem!

Elianna Borsa, Jenypher Fisher, CCE, Baun Mah and Ian Sit from hit the shows Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Yukon Gold, and In The Making share how they get to the finish line. Featuring clips from these and other top-rated and award-winning reality and factual programs, this discussion breaks down the process of cutting unscripted programming, both creatively and technically.

This panel was moderated by Jonathan Dowler. If you would like a transcript of this episode it can be downloaded here.What do you want to hear on The Editors Cut! Please send along any topics you would like us to cover or editors you would love to hear from!

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The Editor’s Cut – Episode 032 – “No Script, No Problem” (EditCon 2020 Series)

 

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Blackmagic Design. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. Today, I bring you part one of our four-part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday, February 1st, 2020, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. 

Massive hours of footage, tight deadlines, and no script? No problem. Editors from hit shows including Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Yukon Gold, and In the Making show how they got to the finish line. Featuring clips from these and other top-rated and award-winning reality and factual programs, this discussion breaks down the process of cutting unscripted programming both creatively and technically.

 

[show open]

 

Simone Smith:

Good morning, everyone. So we’re going to jump right in this morning with an inside scoop into the people who mine hours of footage to find the gems.

Simone Smith:

With experience in unscripted shows of all types, the Amazing Race Canada and Big Brother Canada to the nature of things and artist profiles in In the Making, our moderator is industry veteran Jonathan Dowler. Jonathan’s credits include Big Brother, So You Think You Can Dance, Master Chef, and the Amazing Race Canada. He is a 12 time CSA and 15 time CCE nominated editor, and has won five consecutive CSAs and four CCE awards.

Simone Smith:

Blackmagic Design are pleased to welcome editors Jonathan Dowler, Baun Mah, Elianna Borsa, Jenypher Fisher, and Ian Sit.

Jonathan Dowler:

We’re going to just dive right in. Unscripted is covering everything, from reality competition shows to factual entertainment, which could be hewed slightly from, I guess, docu-dramas or series docs and goes straight into unscripted. So you can have everything.

Jonathan Dowler:

Just to give you a little background, in this boom of TV that’s called the Golden Age, but shouldn’t be forgotten amongst all the scripted programs that unscripted is having banner years one after the other. And it’s proliferating the industry. Just in an outdated industry report, $300 million in the Canadian economy has come from unscripted programming, from formatted shows, and it is getting rave reviews. Amazing Race Canada is one of the highest rated shows in Canada every season, and many people tune in to see everything from house guests to chefs to artists to dancers, singers.

Jonathan Dowler:

So we’re here to talk about some of the experts and their experiences, because the challenges of this genre are incredible. You are given so much footage. What you don’t have in a script you have in footage that will help you forge the story, and arguably one could say that the story, more than any other format, is forged in the editing suites.

Jonathan Dowler:

So here we are. We’re going to talk about tips and tricks.

Jonathan Dowler:

First off, the majority of students coming out of colleges or universities, film schools, might get their start in unscripted. That being said, I just want to go down the line, and just see just a very quick intro of how you guys got into editing and to your first jobs in the industry.

Jonathan Dowler:

So, Jennifer, why don’t we start with you? Start down the line.

Jenypher Fisher:

Sure. Oh, it works. Great. That’s fantastic. If we’re a little nervous, I think it’s understandable. We usually hide in rooms. We don’t come outside rooms. We don’t speak in public, except if we blow up. We go back and hide again. So forgive us, at least me, because I’m nervous.

Jenypher Fisher:

I’m from Vancouver. I went to BCIT, which is a technical institute, because I couldn’t afford to go to film school. It was a lot of money. Technically, I got trained in news editing, which I had zero interest in doing, but it was a good way to get into the industry. I had, honestly, it was a two year program. Year one, it was tape-to-tape editing, because I’m kind of old. And I had no interest in that. Like, zero. I was like, this is great, it’s fine, but nothing.

Jenypher Fisher:

Second year of BCIT, the Avid showed up, and I went, ah, that. That is the way that I … Suddenly, it seemed like a thing I wanted to do, and no one knew how to use it, so I trained myself on it. Then I trained the teachers, then I trained my other students, then I trained the first-years, and then I went and got a job. And that’s pretty much how I got into editing.

Jenypher Fisher:

And, actually, the other thing is I remember right after the Avid came, I decided I knew I was going to be a shooter or an editor. One of these two things was going to happen, and I decided that shooting was a little too stressful, because you could really fuck it up. You could really, really screw people by not getting the right shots, by tinting it blue, by whatever. And editors could just save things, which is not true. We can screw it up, but seemed to me at the time to be completely true, and that’s why I chose editing because I have a need to fix things.

Elianna Borsa:

When I was a PA on set, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, and I just asked a lady for some advice, and she said get into either pre-production or post-production because they’re the longest contracts. And I didn’t like paperwork, so I’m like, okay, I’m going to try post-production. And I did like editing in school, and from an internship, went into the post-production department, and I was working as an assistant. And then I kind of just put myself out there to edit some webisodes and just some stuff that the network would see. And then from there, it’s just I had a really awesome post producer. She was great, and she was very willing to help assistants. That’s Angie Pajek. So she was like, “Let her do more things. Let her do more things.” And then from there, I quickly became … I’m a junior editor on the Cold Water Cowboys, and then about two months later was editing, and it’s kind of just gone from there.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. I started out doing the typical Asian son thing and trying to become a doctor. In third year, I realized I was going to fail at that, so I started taking some arts courses because I’ve always been interested in photography, visual arts. And then I took a film course in my fourth year, and that sort of sparked it, the beginning of my love for film. And then so once I graduated, I had the choice of either becoming a lab assistant or doing research for the rest of my life, or try again and have a hand in film.

Baun Mah:

So I applied at Ryerson. I got into the Ryerson Image Arts program. I did four years there. Ended up loving it, and, yeah, I also did a little bit of camerawork. Super stressful. This body is not made to stand for like 10 hours, so I gravitated towards the chair, which went into editing.

Jenypher Fisher:

Sitting is good.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Standing is better.

Baun Mah:

And then from there, after I graduated, I did sort of smaller jobs here and there. I … not really assisted, but I was like a web content editor for a Discovery series called Diamond Road, which was a really great series. One of Jennifer’s coworkers, Andy Bailey, actually trained me how to use Final Cut, because I was an Adobe Premier guy.

Baun Mah:

And then from there, I just kind of sort of dabbled in documentary, smaller documentaries for local channels. And then my big break was getting the editing job for the Gemini Awards, which is now known as the Canadian Screen Awards. And from there, I’d met some producers who got me in touch with Insight, and they happen to do a lot of the bigger reality shows here in Canada. And it’s been nine years from that.

Ian Sit:

I also didn’t go to film school. It was a sort of Asian son thing as well. I studied economics, and I got a degree in commerce at U of T. But then I had no intention on becoming an economist ever. I always knew that I wanted to try something in film, so after that, I taught myself how to edit. At the time, it was Final Cut Pro 7. That was the easiest software to get your hands on.

Ian Sit:

Then a couple of years of just doing anything, saying yes to everything. Not getting paid for any of these jobs until one day on Facebook someone posted a job posting for an assistant editor job for a travel food show, and it seemed very urgent. And I just so happened to be the first guy, because you can see the time thing. It’s like two minutes posting. So I immediately replied, and it was urgent. By the end of the day, I was at Technicolor doing assisting editing work for this travel food show.

Ian Sit:

And then from there, I guess I made a good impression, got recommended for more jobs, and then just grinded it out for several years before I became a full editor.

Jonathan Dowler:

All right. Now we’re all here in the landscape of unscripted, and I think we had a discussion when we first met up, and it was “no script, no problem.” And, Ian, what did you have to say about “no script, no problem?”

Ian Sit:

I said you should change it to “no script, a lot a lot of problems.” Super many problems.

Jonathan Dowler:

Yeah and it’s just … Problem solvers. That’s what we are in unscripted, because when you say “unscripted,” does that mean that there’s no plan, and where we figure into it? So I guess the question would be what is your average workflow for someone who might know what unscripted, how that flow works? We’ll just talk about factual elements. And I want to talk about factual entertainment. You can think of reality competitions as whenever someone’s singing to win, on a race to win, trying to win in a household competition. But when we talk factual, it could be something that’s more storyline based such as Cold Water Cowboys, the Deadliest Catch, all the way down to, if you’re going to the other end of the spectrum, which is the Kardashians or other ones which are long form stories that take place over the course of a season.

Jonathan Dowler:

So let’s talk about unscripted factual, and basically Jennifer and Ian, give us … Why don’t we say, Jennifer, you’ve worked on Jade Fever.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Let’s just talk about perfect scenario and then we’ll talk about what actually happens, but in terms of no script, what do you get in the form of story in terms of footage? What do you get?

Jenypher Fisher:

What do I get? For Jade Fever, current is a half an hour show. It’s about Jade, a lovely green rock that people apparently want. I don’t understand, but that’s fine. We have two writers on the show. We have a showrunner and a writer, and that’s it. And we have two finishing editors. I’m one of them, but I also do my own rough cuts, and I think we’ve had three other editors.

Jenypher Fisher:

Generally, the workflow is the editor who is doing the rough cut … We call it the internal rough cut. It gets four weeks. You get a string-out from a writer. Now, a string-out could be anything from 40 minutes. Keep in mind, that’s a 22 minute show. 40 minutes of general thoughts, “Here’s what I think is going to happen.” It could be great. It could be crap. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’ve got to deliver a show at the end. Jade Fever is actually pretty good. It’s well thought out.

Jenypher Fisher:

My last string-out was two hours long for a 22 minute show, so that was a lot. I still have the same 10 days to get it to basically an assembly. So I take 10 days, which generally comes out to I have to conquer two scenes a day every day. At the end of 10 days, I have a general assembly. It’s not great, but it generally shows the picture of what the show will be. At that point, we all sit down. That’s me, the writer, and the showrunner, and maybe the in-house executive, and we basically look at it and go, okay, this works, that doesn’t work. Fix that.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then you’ve got two more weeks with the writer. Oh, I forgot to mention. The first two weeks, it’s just me. There’s no writer. It’s I’m in charge of everything. I’m in charge of the VO, which I write badly, but it’s there. I’m in charge of basically crafting the entire thing. Second two weeks, I actually get a writer. We hammer it out. We try to make it look good. We put music on it, and then it goes to a finishing editor, which is also me in this case, and because I’m the assembly editor, they give me one week instead of two because my assembly is supposed to be better than everyone else’s. It’s not fair, but that’s fine.

Jenypher Fisher:

So four weeks to an internal rough cut. One week or two weeks to broadcaster rough cut, which is a very lax schedule and it’s really awesome, but basically we have almost zero notes. We have no fine cut, and we have no lock. So it all works out in the end.

Jonathan Dowler:

She’s downplayed it, but I have to say these are some facts that Jen was actually able to give me. To give you an idea of the shoot and the quantity of footage that two hour comes from, it’s 95 days of the shoot for the season over four months, and there’s eight hours per day times two cameras, so roughly 16 hours a day of footage. Then that equals about 96 hours of the main cameras for the season. GoPro gets roughly around three hours a day. Drone footage to capture the vistas and make it a little cinematic is four hours per episode. Yeah, so basically over 14 episodes, you could be looking up to 1800 hours of footage to deal with. And so the way you approach story and the way this workflow is supposed to work, you have to be really on your game.

Jenypher Fisher:

That’s not including, by the way, we have the footage from all four of the … We’re in season six. We have footage from all five of the other seasons. That’s all open game. If you need cover, you have to go look in post seasons, so that’s another 1800, and another 1800, and another 1800.

Jonathan Dowler:

All parts of the buffalo. I think that’s absolutely incredible.

Jonathan Dowler:

Ian, what would you say in terms of your average workflow on a show, like either Forever Young, which we’ll see a clip for later, or In the Making?

Ian Sit:

Those two actually differ quite a bit. I’ll talk about In the Making.

Ian Sit:

In the Making was very much a director-driven series, and so the producers had the mind to give the director as much flexibility as far as workflow, and they were far less streamlined. So it was usually a direct relationship between the director and the editor and one other assistant editor. There was one story producer that sometimes gave us notes and time codes, but a lot of the times, it was just a paper edit or a direct conversation with the director before we tackled the footage.

Ian Sit:

Similar, it was a half an hour show. We had four weeks to do an internal rough cut. I don’t think any of the episodes stuck to that schedule. It went way beyond because it was a lot more trial and error with this show that we, in fact, cut many versions of a lot of these episodes, which at the very end of it, because there was so many chefs in the kitchen, they couldn’t quite decide on what they wanted. We had to go back to ground zero. So it was not an easy show to do, but I think ultimately all that hard work showed up on screen, and I’m proud of that.

Ian Sit:

With Forever Young, which is a one hour doc, for that one, it was a lot more of a “Here you go. Here is a bunch of footage. Try out whatever you can, and then I’m going to continue shooting …” This is the director speaking to me. “And then we’ll come back, and then we’ll see what you’ve done, and then keep shaping it from there.” It was a very, very organic process. So that’s basically how you get into it. It wasn’t really structured is what I’m trying to say, but because the director is so competent and efficient with the way he works, he knows exactly what he wanted, which is such an asset when you’re working with someone, that it turned out to be quite an easy, not a very stressful edit.

Jonathan Dowler:

Basically, it starts of, I guess, from production. You’re getting the idea from production or producers saying, “This is the rough idea of what we’re going to go for,” and then you get a string-out, be it handed down from the director or from the story editor. They’ll hand it off to you, and that’s your starting point. But you both seem to be left alone to experiment and find the story.

Jenypher Fisher:

I call the string-out an opening theory. That’s exactly what it is. Some theories are better than others. Some are not a good thing at all. What you’re given to begin with is probably not what you will end up with, anywhere close to it. It’s just here’s an opening thought, then we all as a team tackle it.

Jonathan Dowler:

Tackle it. Well, then let’s go over to reality competition, because at least in terms of reality competition shows can be built around competition. Baun, if you can just give me an outline, how is the story process streamlined in a competition show like Amazing Race or Top Chef in terms of how is the story handed off to the editors, and then your process there?

Baun Mah:

On the bigger shows, you end up working in teams. I don’t think I’ve ever done a large challenge show solo.

Baun Mah:

So what you do is you start off with usually there is a lead editor and then a team of editors with them, probably usually just two or three other editors. You get together with the story editor, who helps you facilitate all the story and what they feel like is the through line through the episode.

Jonathan Dowler:

So it’s like a meeting? Like they have a —

Baun Mah:

Yeah, yeah, it’s a meeting that you have, and depending on who you’re working with, sometimes what you get is a paper edit. Sometimes they actually have selects for you ready in Avid. The really good ones have somewhat of an assembly or at least markers so that it saves you time from sifting through all the footage, and you can just look through the markers bin. So it almost reads like an annotated notes kind of deal.

Baun Mah:

And then we split up the work between all the editors. For example, it’s different for every show, but for example, Amazing Race … For assembly, we have 13 days, so on day one is when we have this big story meeting, and we divvy up the work. Day five, we have an A-line screen, which is like our radio edit. So what we try to do in those first five days is go through all the footage that’s relevant to our sections. We go through all the sound bites to see what is relevant, and we try to make our story beat. So typically a story beat would be you try to land it somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds. Sometimes, if it’s a really good beat, it goes a little longer. But anything more than that, especially on a show that’s as fast paced as Amazing Race, it actually feels like it drags in the end.

Baun Mah:

So you try to break up your story beats that way, and then on day five, you screen it together, just so everyone gets a sense of where the story is, where the characters are, whether or not a beat is working. And there could be multiple beats that have … For example, a team could be struggling. It’s like where is the best example to show where this team is struggling? So that’s where you figure that all out.

Baun Mah:

And then you have another four or five days, so day nine or 10, you have the internal screening with the whole team, the story editor, and our post producer, where we then get notes from the post producer. And then on day 13, we screen with the showrunner, and then we get his notes.

Baun Mah:

And then we go into what’s called the screen cut. So we have four days to do the screening cut, which is then shown to the executive producers. We get notes from them, and then we finally get to the rough cut, which is five days, and that’s just with the lead editor. The other editors go on to do other episodes. You have five days to clean all of that up, and really a lot of the challenge comes from bringing it down to time, because some of the rough cuts can end up being, for a 44 minute show, the longer ones … I haven’t worked on a premiere, but I know the premieres, I have heard, have ended up being like an hour-10, and hour-15. I remember in Season Four, our Vietnam episode was an hour-25, so we really had to cut it down.

Jonathan Dowler:

In terms of races, to give you an idea, some people question … One of the questions, I don’t know if we’ve got some of them, is why are so many editors needed to tackle this, and it could be broken down quite simply by schedule, which you’ve just heard. But an example for Race, on our first episode or season premiere of Race, so it could be a longer episode or it comes down to right time, on average, 101 XD cam discs, which is seven per team, including interviews. So, yeah, you basically do 101 XD cams. Each one of those, about 70 minutes. You’d have 42 GoPro cards for various helmet setups. You would have car cams, and then you’d have a drive full of drone footage. And then 56 audio cards, which is almost every contestant is mic-ed. You have the on-camera stuff.

Jonathan Dowler:

And then I should say on the XD cam is also the mats, the various zone cameras, so if you are ever wondering why a certain number of names are on anything, it takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of effort to get to those schedules.

Jonathan Dowler:

And did you want to say, in terms of a rough cut, are you talking about some music, maybe some black gaps, or are we talking about-

Baun Mah:

No. Yeah, and this is more of a trend that I feel personally is not great that’s happening is we no longer have what is known as a traditional rough cut. Our rough cuts include sound effects, music, lower thirds, graphics …

Elianna Borsa:

It’s polished.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. It’s polished. It’s a polished cut.

Jenypher Fisher:

Color correct sometimes.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Sometimes because you know you’re going to get feedback saying “This shot is too dark,” so if you have the time, you try to color correct a little bit. So that’s what our rough cut is. It’s basically a finished cut. Other than the length, it’s air-able. So it takes a lot for the rough cut, and especially with a show like Race, which is super, super fast-paced, if you look to the timeline, if you look at any Timeline Tuesday, if you look at the whole timeline of the episode, it’s basically all black because of all the cuts. You can’t even see where a cut begins and where it ends. And, yeah, we end up doing 16 to 18 tracks, and you have four or six of those are dedicated to sound effects. Once you watch a couple clips we have, you’ll see that there are a lot of sound effects.

Baun Mah:

And each music beat really only lasts as long as the beat itself, so it’s wall to wall music, but it’s 20 seconds of music, and then you have to find the next track. And one that fits the mood and the moment.

Baun Mah:

So, yeah, it is a lot of work to get to that rough cut. Yeah. So just to pick up, so then you get the rough cut, you get the network notes. It’s two more cuts for the fine cut, and then you have one day to picture lock. And then it’s like beginning of that day and then end of day that should be done.

Jonathan Dowler:

And that goes on all summer long.

Baun Mah:

How many days is that total? I didn’t even calculate that.

Ian Sit:

Sorry.

Baun Mah:

It’s your typical 25. I guess … Yeah, that’s around typical. 25, but it’s like the show is on steroids, so you feel like you could always use more time.

Jonathan Dowler:

And then just to give an idea, Elianna, one of your first gigs you were working on was Big Brother. Just give an idea, what would you say just in ballpark … Big Brother has about 64 cameras running 24/7, 50 microphones, and turnaround, Elianna? Can you just give us a rough thing on how you remember Big Brother, just a ballpark?

Elianna Borsa:

Well, Big Brother, obviously as you know, it’s like three days a week the show airs. So, for example, when we’re doing challenges, they will film the challenge, one of them, on a Thursday night, and by Sunday it’s on TV. So you have a very short amount of time, and it’s obviously a ton of footage. Sometimes the challenges can go up to three, four hours, really depending on if it’s endurance.

Elianna Borsa:

And then it’s really cutting it down, figuring out who we really need to concentrate on. For that kind of show, it’s like who is going to be nominated, and who the Head of Household is.

Jonathan Dowler:

The end of the story, where you’re heading to and stuff.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah, and then cutting that all down.

Jonathan Dowler:

But, again, it’s teamwork stuff as well. It’s like you’re left alone in as much as your section of Race or Brother, but then you also have to work as a team, which is a different —

Elianna Borsa:

Right. It’s all very collaborative, and there’s a ton of editors. And mostly if you’re not working on challenges, you are taking scenes, and then sometimes you’ll work on a scene, and it doesn’t make it into the episode because something else just happened right now. And that’s more important than maybe a comedy scene. You can’t be precious about your scenes for sure. But, yeah, it’s like Big Brother is very collaborative and super fast paced.

Jonathan Dowler:

Why don’t we dive right into a scene, seeing as we just talked a bit about Race, because that seems to be digestible. And then we’re going to talk about some factual stuff. So, Baun, do you want to set up the scene that you have from Amazing Race, and the challenges? You’ve talked about some of them already, but just set up the scene from Amazing Race.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. So I chose a really seemingly simple scene, and in the larger scheme of the episode, it is a simpler scene. I don’t want to give too much because hopefully you guys get the story because that’s the whole point of the panel.

Baun Mah:

So, basically, so these teams, they’re coming from Indonesia. They’re landing in Toronto. They have to get to their next location for their next challenge.

[Clip Plays]

Speaker 8:

Go, go, go. Hold hands. Hold hands.

Speaker 9:

There they are. We’re free, [inaudible 00:23:10], we’re free. We’re at info.

Speaker 8:

Board the Chevrolet Equinox to where it was assembled in Canada.

Speaker 10:

The Chevrolet Equinox has been assembled at the CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, since 2004. Teams must now determine the location of CAMI Assembly, and drive themselves to the two million square foot facility, being careful not to confuse this plant with any other Chevrolet plants in southern Ontario.

Speaker 11:

How about these guys?

Speaker 12:

Hey, question for you.

Speaker 11:

We’re looking for the Chevrolet Equinox assembly line center.

Speaker 13:

Located at 300 Ingersoll Street.

Speaker 12:

Write that down. Ingersoll, Ontario.

Speaker 14:

Ingersoll.

Speaker 11:

And that’s CAMI Automotive?

Speaker 14:

Yeah. C-A-M-I.

Speaker 11:

Okay.

Speaker 12:

Let’s go. Let’s go.

Speaker 11:

Let’s rock and roll.

Speaker 12:

Yeah, Chevrolet Equinox is made in Ingersoll. Some of them are made in Oshawa. The Equinox is made in Ingersoll.

Speaker 11:

Okay.

Speaker 12:

I would not be surprised just how many end up in Oshawa.

Speaker 15:

We are headed to Oshawa to the GM plant. Head east towards Oshawa.

Speaker 16:

We just stopped for directions, and now we’re just heading out all the way to Oshawa.

Speaker 15:

Oshawa.

Speaker 16:

GM Oshawa Assembly.

Speaker 15:

Oh, another car is here. Oh, my God, two other cars are here. I am very confused as to where we are supposed to go. It says to where it was assembled in Canada, so maybe this isn’t where it was even assembled. Hmm. What are we thinking? I have a feeling this isn’t it.

Speaker 16:

I think you’re correct.

Speaker 15:

Do you guys have a phone we could borrow? Ingersoll. Ingersoll.

Speaker 16:

Ingersoll is another hour and 45 minutes past Toronto on the other side.

Speaker 15:

Oh. We have headed east. We now need to head west.

Speaker 16:

Ingersoll. Coming up, baby.

 

[end of Clip]

Baun Mah:

Okay, so I mean that is a relatively simple scene. It’s two minutes. I trimmed out the part where the teams that knew where they were going went to the right location, so that was maybe another 45 seconds. So altogether, this moment lasted two minutes and 45 seconds in the final cut. There were actually 30 hours of footage just for this. Because the teams did get lost, the camera is on all the time in the car, you’re looking for sound bites. Because as we were doing the radio edit, you’re looking for any relevant sound bites, any interesting sound bites, any interesting moments. So I hope it seems very clear here, but really it was like a huge mess from when they landed in the sense that everyone went looking for someone with a cell phone.

Baun Mah:

There were conversations that were really interesting because some of them did debate. They were like, “Where is it built? Oh, there are all these locations,” and usually you’d be like, oh, that’s really interesting because they’re trying to figure it out. Some people would go to gas stations, so we showed one of the gas stations, but really the teams that got lost and even some of the teams that went to the right location, they would stop off at gas stations, have conversations there.

Baun Mah:

The rough cut, when we showed the assembly cut, this was an 11 minute scene because the teams, when they arrived in Oshawa, they actually explored the plant and no one was there, and it was like actually really fun because they were like, “I feel like we’re going to get arrested. This doesn’t feel right.” It’s all good stuff, so we kept it in. And then with the cheerleaders, Leanne and Mar, in the previous two episodes, they were actually number one. They won both legs. So we cut out this whole section because they went to Oshawa. They ended up at a whole different part of the plant, and then things started getting tense, so they started getting a little more agitated with each other, and you could see that they weren’t really working as a cohesive unit. So there was conflict there, and it was interesting conflict because they were getting frustrated that they couldn’t find the location.

Baun Mah:

All of that very interesting, all of that that we had, but then it was too long. Once we did our radio edit and also I think we even went up to the internal screening with a post producer. There were more interesting moments, like at the very end of this episode the teams also got lost in Stratford not being able to find the final mat. And that was more interesting. That ended up being more interesting than these moments, so we had to come back to these, and revisit, and see what we could cut down.

Baun Mah:

So what we did anchor it on were what we considered two pivotal moments was when the teams who got it right … You heard the woman say there were two GM plants, one was in Oshawa, one was in Ingersoll. I can see how people could get lost going to Oshawa. And that was the key moment there. We decided, okay, we’re going to sum up this whole little moment in this one sound bite. That’s what sort of helped us clean up the rest of it because we just wanted that to be the message of this whole little travel beat.

Baun Mah:

And then the next moment is when they all end up at Timmy’s, but what happened is … So three of the teams did end up at Timmy’s, and they crowded around each other, and everything happened like it happened. But the cheerleaders actually didn’t go there. They went there, they saw that there was a crowd, and then they left again. And then we did have this whole moment where they went back to the plant, they talked to a security guard there, and the security guard actually told them that there’s another plant in Ingersoll, and that’s where it sparked.

Baun Mah:

But because the security guard and … People ask us sometimes why we cheat things in reality TV. In this case, it was very practical with the security guard. The security guard didn’t want to be on camera, so we didn’t have any vis of the moment, just audio. We didn’t have time to put those girls back at the Oshawa plant, so what we did was we just took the little bit of them entering the Timmy’s and exiting, and then just formed that moment. Made it just one big moment, and then that was the pivotal moment for the teams that lost realizing where they had to go.

Baun Mah:

And then so it ended up being from 11 minutes to 2:45.

Jonathan Dowler:

But you can also argue that essentially, talking about truth and fact is basically they figured out their mistake, and that is the truth-

Baun Mah:

Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

But it’s just collapsing it so you can make it-

Baun Mah:

Really, really condensing it just so that we had distilled it down to the basics. And, like we said, Leanne and Mar had all this tension building up as a team, but later on in another challenge, there was also a greater moment of tension. So working with the story editor, I actually was really fortunate because my story editor was Seth Poulin, who was actually a lead editor on the show for three years, so he knows how this show goes. So we talked about it, and he was actually really great in helping whittle it all down. And his whole motto was you may have 10 great moments, but what’s the gold? So you have 10 great moments, but can it be distilled down to five great moments, and still keep everything that you want? And that’s the mentality that we go in with.

Jonathan Dowler:

And you say that the prime rule on Race, if you had to order the priorities when you approach a scene, would be clarity first?

Baun Mah:

It would be clarity first, so that’s why you string it out. And then it’d be trying to maintain that clarity while cutting it down to like one-fifth of what you had.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. As you say with that clip of that one girl in the car saying, “Well, I’m sure a lot of people will mess this up, and go to the wrong place,” it’s really making sure that every word, because it has to be cut down so much, that every word matters unless it’s comedy. So if something is in there that doesn’t matter, it’s not helping the story, then we don’t have time for it. And if you’re not listening when you’re watching that show, you might have to rewind because you’ve definitely missed something.

Baun Mah:

Totally.

Jonathan Dowler:

And would you say, in terms of you finding that, is that you going through the 30-odd hour so footage?

Baun Mah:

For the travel beats, usually, because there’s so much to do that the story editors that are helping us, they tend to focus on the challenges and the mats. Travel beats are usually left up to the editors. Sometimes, like when the story editor has time, they loop back around and help you clarify things. So Seth did loop back around. We talked about it. He went through some of the raw footage as well. But I feel like that’s a luxury. Usually it is up to the editor to condense these travel beats, and find what’s interesting in them.

Jenypher Fisher:

I have a question. When you do this, when you’re looking for something and you know you’re looking for something, how do you find it? Do you use the waveform to figure out where people speak?

Baun Mah:

Yes. That’s all we do.

Jenypher Fisher:

Or do you listen to things and fast-forward, or a combination of the two?

Baun Mah:

There’s a mix of both.

Jenypher Fisher:

These are great tips.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Depending on your system. If your system can handle fast-forwarding, because we’re doing multi-cam, too, especially in challenges. But, yeah, on these travel beats, you could definitely … Because it’s a single camera on each team. So you can scrub through at one-and-a-half or two times speed. I usually look at the waveforms, so as soon as I see someone talking-

Jenypher Fisher:

Listen to that.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, I listen to that. And that’s why we do the radio edit because we barely pay attention to visuals. Like maybe you can make a mental note, or put a marker when you see something interesting, but usually when you’re doing your A-line edit, the radio edit, you’re literally just looking at waveforms, and sound bites, and trying to form your beat using that.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. And sometimes it might not exist in that travel beat, and like you said, there’s previous episodes and their footage, and you might just go in and grab them saying “There it is” from another episode.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, 100%. Even when Courtney was summing up the whole thing about how you go to Ingersoll or Oshawa, the camera wasn’t on her the whole time, so you saw that I cut away to her brother, and that shot was from way later in the footage just because the camera didn’t stay on her at that time.

Jonathan Dowler:

Well, I think we’re talking about using all parts, all things that you can find to tell the story appropriately. I think that throws really well to, I think, Jennifer’s scene, because I think, Jennifer, on a factual show like Jade Fever, you’ve got a different sort of challenge. You’ve got the shooting over the course of the season, so how do you approach a scene and build it out? Because there’s not so much a challenge to build around, so what is it built around?

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s always built around character. Character, character, character. Always character.

Jenypher Fisher:

My process, it’s always the same no matter what I’m working on. I could be working on a two hour doc doing a nature of things. Honestly, I’ve done Bachelor. I did the same thing on Bachelor. I’m specialized in men’s TV. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. My process is almost always the same. I have a super bad memory. I generally go to the writer and say, “Tell me the bullet points. Don’t go into detail. I won’t remember anything you tell me that happens in the back of the show. Just give me the least amount of information humanly possible.” Then I’ll watch the string-out. I will forget. This is a four act structure. I will forget acts two, three, and four. It’s not going to stay. But I will actually watch it.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then I actually am super linear about the whole thing. The way I do it is I watch the string-out for the scene that I’m currently working on. I fix the audio, because honestly, I could get audio that’s parsed down because someone actually knows how to use Avid, or I could get 16 tracks of I don’t know what this is. I have to find the mics of the people who are in the scene, not the ganged mics. The actual mics. They could be hidden because often I’m dealing with track two may actually have four mics on it, so I’m having to search through all that, find the mics.

Jenypher Fisher:

While I’m actually sorting the audio, because I’m kind of militant about audio, interview on one and two, background on … I’m super organized about it because if you’re not organized at the front, the back end is just going to be a mess. I’m also familiarizing myself with the footage. It doesn’t take that long, but you’re actually really getting the story. You’re starting to drink it in, and you get to understand while you’re doing that what the problems with the scene are.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then I always go talk to the writer. Even though I have 10 days all by myself, it doesn’t mean I don’t get up, walk to the writer, sit in front of them. It’s not something I do online. I need to see their eyes. I need to understand, and I say, “What is the story you are trying to tell?” Whether or not they actually told it, I want to know what they want to tell because that’s what I have to make.

Jenypher Fisher:

And then I literally just go for it, then very linearly start putting it together, keeping in mind most importantly who the show is for … Most importantly … The broadcaster and the audience. You always cut for those two things. I’m not making a soft documentary most of the time. I’m making men’s television, and I need to know that it’s for men between the ages of 16 to 34, and the broadcaster is History, and they want this. And that’s what I need to deliver. Because I only have 10 days.

Jonathan Dowler:

And so when you’re given a scene, why don’t we talk about the Jade Fever seen now? This is a series that is still ongoing. This is an earlier cut that you’re dealing with right now?

Jenypher Fisher:

This is actually a cut I’m currently working on. Actually, we just locked it on Thursday. So this is locked. Yay.

Jenypher Fisher:

So this cut is from a show I work on called Jade Fever. It’s in a place called Jade City up in BC. They mine for jade, which is technically giant pieces of rock. They don’t look like anything until you actually saw them in half. Then you see the green.

Jenypher Fisher:

The wonderful thing about this clip, and I’m going to set the clip up slightly, is … And a friend of mine said this the other day. Reality never works the way you want it to on TV, which is exactly what we’ve been talking about.

Jonathan Dowler:

It’s just the whole thing. Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

And this sequence is completely true and about 80% made up. Like I didn’t have so much stuff. I’m going to tell you the problems I had, then we’re going to watch.

Jenypher Fisher:

This is the end of a six year journey for them to sell jade. We’re in Season 6. They’ve never sold jade on their own. Never. Not once. This is the pinnacle, this is the moment. I had nothing. The buyer, it’s a Vietnamese buyer, he’s the only Vietnamese guy in there. You’ll know him. He showed up to buy a rock. It was still being cut, so technically it just looks like a rock. You can’t see green. There’s no green. It’s not cut. He agrees to buy it, and he does buy it two days later when they finish cutting it, and they’ve actually taken pictures of the jade and sent it to him in Vietnam because he’s leaving. He’s not going to be here tomorrow.

Jenypher Fisher:

This is a problem because it’s a show about jade. You want to see the jade. I watched the scene, and I’m like, “You can’t see the jade. This is a terrible thing. When is the jade cut?” “The next day.” “Is he there?” “No.” Okay. I’m going to try and marry these two days. That’s the problem because the buyer is gone, he’s left, he’s gone. It’s sunny the day he’s there. It’s raining, it’s cloudy, but that’s fine. I’ve done that before. We can figure this out. I don’t have a picture of the jade falling to the ground because no one was shooting that, unfortunately. Usually, we’re pretty good at that, but they didn’t get it, and there are only two people present. There are, I think, six to seven people. The day he bought the jade, there’s only two people.

Jenypher Fisher:

So at the front of the scene, you’ll notice there’s only two people, and it’s sunny. And as soon as the Vietnamese buyer goes up, the weather changes, but no one really notices. And then he buys.

Jenypher Fisher:

There’s many, many more problems. I’ll tell you about it after the clip.

 

[Clip Plays]

Speaker 17:

Going to be close.

Narrator:

Early evening at Two Mile …

Speaker 17:

It’s going to fall over.

Narrator:

The clock is ticking.

Speaker 17:

You start hearing it cut hard like that, it’s getting close.

Narrator:

The crew have just one more hour to try and sell a jade slab to their buyer, Mr. Long.

Speaker 19:

I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

Speaker 17:

There. Now it’s done. It’s a big chunk of jade.

Speaker 19:

Beautiful grade.

Speaker 17:

Now, before he flies out, he can see it. I hope it’s good.

Narrator:

If Mr. Long likes what he sees, this sale could go a long way towards paying for their mining season.

Claudia:

This is it. Our last visit.

Speaker 19:

Yeah.

Claudia:

Ooh. We’ve worked so hard to get here. This could change everything.

Claudia:

Okay. Is that good?

Narrator:

Mr. Long has to make sure he can work around any fractures to carve this piece of jade into a five foot tall Buddha statue.

Claudia:

So, Long, are you still thinking about it?

Mr. Long:

[inaudible 00:39:04] is good.

Claudia:

Yeah? This one’s a deal? Like a handshake deal? Like a yes?

Mr. Long:

Yes.

Claudia:

100%? 100%? Okay. I think I just sold jade.

Josh:

That’s happy dance right there.

Speaker 19:

That’s the best.

Claudia:

This is what we mine for. This is our dream.

Speaker 19:

We got a job next year maybe. We got a job next year maybe.

Narrator:

Claudia has just landed a $250,000 jade sale.

Speaker 19:

Thank you, Long. Thank you, buddy.

Claudia:

This is exactly the moment that we’ve been waiting for. Took 10 years.

 

[end of Clip]

Jenypher Fisher:

So that’s an unfinished scene. That’s actually my voice. Yay. I love doing voice over. I used to suck at voice over. The first time I did a rough cut, the guy behind me, the executive, went, “Can’t you even try?” And I sat in my seat like this, going, “Oh, God, it’s an hour long show and this is Act One. We’re in trouble.” And so I endeavored to get at least better.

Jenypher Fisher:

So other problems I had. There’s only two people. There’s two guys in the sunny scene. I inserted the third guy, who is the younger kid who does the happy dance at the end. He’s the guy I love. He’s good at TV. He knows he should do stuff like that, and I will put it on TV. We call him a clip monster. He’s always one you look at. “What did Josh do? What did Josh say? He probably said something useful.”

Jenypher Fisher:

I inserted him into the footage from the 29th into the footage on the 30th, to actually try to marry the scene so that you would think Josh was there, and it wouldn’t be weird that he suddenly popped up with Mr. Long. Because he didn’t arrive on an ATV. Only the two of them arrived.

Jenypher Fisher:

There’s an actual wardrobe change that I don’t think anyone noticed. One guy goes from wearing a bright yellow thing to a dark thing, but it doesn’t matter because there’s a couple shots in the middle, and there’s time for him to have taken off his jacket.

Jenypher Fisher:

I couldn’t show the buyer, Mr. Long, with the jade because the jade was still being cut. It just looked like a rock, and he’s buying a finished thing. That’s a problem, so every cut away of jade is not the jade. It’s from some day at some point of some rock. While I’m picking jade, it has to be plausibly the rock he has bought. It can’t just be any rock. It has to be believable. So it kind of cuts down.

Jenypher Fisher:

The buyer, Mr. Long there, was not super clear about buying the jade. He kind of took a minute to go, “Eh, eh, eh.” It was not rewarding at all. The piece of jade you see him buying there isn’t the jade piece I want you to think he’s buying. It’s a second piece of jade he bought later in the day. That one was way more rewarding, so I faked it. So it’s completely true he bought the piece of jade. He bought a second piece of jade much clearer, so I took the footage from the second piece of jade, and made him buy the first piece of jade using that. Which was a problem because directly behind him is the piece of jade I want you to think he’s buying, and directly in front of him is the piece of jade I don’t want you to think about. So it’s a problem.

Jenypher Fisher:

And the entire thing is pretty much … Oh, and actually Claudia, they were pretty much all business. They did not smile a lot. So every smile you see in there is every smile I have. Like, all of them. It’s all wrapped around Josh doing the happy dance, which I was so happy to see. Because I’m like, oh, someone’s excited, and Josh wants to high-five people. It’s like, sweet, I’m going to split that into two, and I’m going to sparse it out just to make it seem happy.

Jenypher Fisher:

And every closeup you saw in that whole thing, both before and after the tension and the happy, was taken around a back of a pickup later in the day when they were discussing lunch. Because no one got closeups. But I needed to create tension, and then I needed to create happy. So you just do what you have to do. It took awhile, but completely true … Not at all true.

Jonathan Dowler:

My head is almost spinning out because you’re like “I don’t have this.” “Oh, yeah, the one thing you need? Yeah, we didn’t get that.” And then I guess there’s varying degrees of that because some camera will get all the shots. You got that perfect shot of the slab falling off, but then-

Jenypher Fisher:

After it fell.

Jonathan Dowler:

After it fell.

Jenypher Fisher:

Which is fine. I have to say, as an editor, for the first 10 years, I was super like, “Why didn’t the shooter get that?” And then I really sat down and started to think about what these guys are doing, and what these girls and guys are living with, and the cacophony of chaos that’s in front of them all the time. And I’m less harsh on them now because I’m like, I don’t want to go out there. I want to sit in my chair.

Jonathan Dowler:

A senior editor I once knew said, “I really want to become a cameraman because I think that it would be one of two things. If I go out to try and shoot something, it’ll be either easier than I’ve ever thought possible, and then I have a new job that I can do, or it’ll be the hardest thing ever in the world, and I’ll shut my mouth, and I’ll happily go back to editing.”

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s that one. It’s that one.

Jonathan Dowler:

And so, yeah, he never got to try it, but I think that was something that’s resounded with me.

Jonathan Dowler:

So were you pitched this scene of this is the scene, this is the big thing. You’ve got to make it work.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Or did you realize this is it?

Jenypher Fisher:

Pretty much.

Jenypher Fisher:

No, it wasn’t pitched to me as this is the scene. I just watched it and knew what that was, and then I went to the writer and went, “We can’t have a rock that you can’t see. How do we fix this?” I think I said, “When does the jade fall? Can we use that?” And they’re like, “Well, it’s supposed to be in the next episode.” I’m like, “It can’t be in the next episode. We need it. Go get it.”

Jonathan Dowler:

And then they’re like, well, that’s going to cause a problem in the next episode. You’re like, “I’m not editing that episode, so-“

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah, I don’t care about that episode, nor am I finishing that episode, so I could give a rat’s ass.

Jenypher Fisher:

No, this was all pretty much me going “There’s a problem.” I’m pretty experienced. I’ve been doing this. It’s not my first rodeo. Me going, “No, there’s a problem. I think I know how to fix it. Just let me fix it,” and then doing a rough string-out, showing it to people and going, “Eh?” And then them going, “Keep going,” and that’s how. It’s just all initiative. It’s feel. It’s instinct. It’s what you know. You know what you have to do.

Ian Sit:

This thing that Jennifer’s talking about, not having enough footage to create a scene, I find that we’re often confronted with this. And it’s a strange paradox where it seems like you have hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage that you have to sort through, and yet not have the shot that you need to create a two minute scene.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, you’re always missing that key moment.

Ian Sit:

And so what I find that is strange but perhaps should happen a lot more often is just having a conversation or being able to talk to your DPs prior to … I don’t know how often you guys get a chance to talk to production, but telling them in order for us to get a scene, if you’re going to shoot a jade thing, please shoot it. Have a closeup. Or hold your shots for more than 10 seconds please so that I can cut to it, and–

Baun Mah:

I’d like five. Five seconds, please.

Baun Mah:

I’ve thought that way a lot, too.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Baun Mah:

And now, seeing what production goes through, I will say that, especially on these competition shows, they don’t know what the through line is. They’re just trying to get everything they feel is relevant. I would love them to hang on a shot a little longer.

Baun Mah:

Let’s say, for example, the Food Network show. We have 10 chefs, and only three cameras, and they have to capture everything. And, you’re right, we often miss those key moments that we need that end up being in the story, but at the same time, I can’t imagine how they could predict some of it. The jade seems like maybe they could predict that a little more.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah, maybe.

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s going to fall.

Elianna Borsa:

I should say what’s great about this scene is, as we watch it, it doesn’t seem like it was something hard to cut, because it just seemed like it was there, right?

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah. It’s right there.

Elianna Borsa:

So that’s the thing about reality TV oftentimes, especially on the Race, is I was told when something looks like it might have been easy to edit, you’ve just done a really good job of doing exactly what Jenypher did.

Jenypher Fisher:

I will say one of the things I do, and I probably get away with it because I’m older and people know me and they trust me … I’m not sure I would do this with someone that I was just starting to work with if they didn’t know me … Is I refuse to put music in till we’ve nailed the story. It’s a privilege I have because I know my boss, and I know my boss trusts me, but I absolutely will not music in. I’ll put sound effects in. I will absolutely smooth the audio. It’s going to sound great, but there will be no music. I can hear all the music in my head. I actually build for the music. I know the moments. All the pensive stuff, that was there before. I just refuse to put it in until we’ve nailed the story enough that I’m not going to have to re-edit the music over and over again.

Elianna Borsa:

You are very lucky.

Jenypher Fisher:

And that’s a privilege. I know.

Elianna Borsa:

That’s nice.

Jenypher Fisher:

I know. But it works really, really well because once you put the music in, you can mask a lot of stuff. You can fool a lot of people for a really long time, but then someone is going to go “This doesn’t make any sense, but it’s flashy.” And that’s when you’re really in trouble.

Jonathan Dowler:

Ian, how do you approach music then? Do you bring stuff into your clips? Do you bring the music in, or is it-

Ian Sit:

I have the exact same attitude as Jennifer. I try not to add music until I know the story is functioning, until you hit your A-B-Cs, I will not put music in. And then, strangely, we’re editors, so we’re very visual, but, honestly, you always work with the audio in terms of getting your pacing right. And sometimes I’m closing my eyes when I’m editing, which sounds strange, but you do it, too, right?

Jenypher Fisher:

I absolutely do it.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

I spend half the time with my eyes closed.

Ian Sit:

You close your eyes. You kind of find your selects. You put it all together, and then you just want to hear the rhythm of the speaking just to know that you have what you want in terms of how you want the scene paced out. And then you look at the visuals, and that’s when you realize you don’t have what you want, and you’re swearing all the time. You’re like, “Oh, damn it. Hold the shot a little bit longer.”

Ian Sit:

And then at the end, that’s when you put the music in, and you make your adjustments. So the pacing of the audio that you’ve constructed in terms of how you want the scene to play is what informs the music. You can use a music track to inform your editing, but I find that that tricks you into building moments that don’t actually exist in the footage that you have. So I try to reserve that process of adding the music until as long as I can before producers and director-

Jonathan Dowler:

Let’s just talk about building your storyline, the audio. When you close your eyes and you’re listening to stuff. When you’re talking, a lot of this is written by the interviews, by the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff interviews both in the situ and after the fact, like in the interview stuff. For example, in the Jade Fever scene, just at the end, she’s like, “This is the big deal. We’ve done this whole time.” Let’s talk about, because this is a frequent question for unscripted, you’re writing it through their interviews. Do you fake what they say or do you make them sound better? What would be your approach? We call it franken-editing. Franken-grabbing is a term.

Jenypher Fisher:

I hate that word.

Jonathan Dowler:

Yes. It is thrown about quite a bit, but a lot of people say, “Well, I didn’t quite say that,” but you’re writing it using their words. Let’s just talk about how you build up your A-line stuff.

Ian Sit:

You do it in terms of being ethical about it. I think you do exactly what Jennifer did with her scene, whereas like it all happened. This is what actually happened, but you don’t have the footage or the person saying exactly what they are trying to say, and so you cut it, and you do manipulate the arrangement of the words occasionally in order for them to actually say exactly what they wanted to say.

Jonathan Dowler:

Or to be more clear. In an example of Race, to be absolutely clear.

Ian Sit:

Exactly. You’re cutting out um’s and uh’s and pauses, but sometimes people speak circularly … You know what I’m trying to say.

Jenypher Fisher:

Circularily?

Jonathan Dowler:

If this were an interview, we would cut this part out.

Ian Sit:

I would be, yeah, cutting myself in such a way that would be far more coherent, and precisely what I’m trying to say.

Jonathan Dowler:

But exactly.

Ian Sit:

But you never, at least in my experience, I have a problem with creating a version of that person that did not exist in order for your to aid a story along.

Jonathan Dowler:

There are certain levels. Clarity and what happened, and speaking to that stuff, is what generally happened, or in the case of the Race would be like this happened, they got to this point, and how they got there, it’s too complicated to get into specifics about security guard, clearance, whatever, but you get to that point. And that is something like A-to-B that’s what happened. So, like you say, 100% true, but 90% constructed.

Elianna Borsa:

Unless you work on the Bachelor.

Jenypher Fisher:

All bets are off on the Bachelor.

Elianna Borsa:

Most of it’s true, but …

Jenypher Fisher:

“Yes, she really does love him.” That would be a bad franken-edit.

Jonathan Dowler:

I think it’s worth talking about, because Bachelor is certainly the black sheep that kind of comes up quite frequently, and there’s also a lot of discussion both online or whenever you’re dealing with unscripted or reality TV is I think in some ways when it comes to scripted, you have someone like an actor saying, “Thank you for the editor who was curating my performance along with the director in close …” Someone like Lupita Nyong’o would say, “Thank you to Joe Walker for editing me in 12 Years a Slave, because that’s my performance. It’s not me personally.” But we have characters or personalities that are cast in these reality sections, and they’re quite certain people. Certain people will certainly come up and will be quick to blame the editors. In this age, a lot of them are media savvy. Quick to blame the editors, saying, “I didn’t say it that way,” or “You made me say …”

Jonathan Dowler:

What would you have as an answer to that in terms of … We could talk about it more, but more of it just in general when they say, “I never said that,” or “I never did this.” What has been your experience with that?

Jenypher Fisher:

I, personally, don’t make people say things they would never say, with the exception of the Bachelor, which took me awhile to wrap my ahead around once I landed there. It’s just wrong. I would never, ever do it. I will make them say what they would’ve said had we been able to ask them in the moment. The fact is I’m editing four months after you shot. I only have this footage. Would they have said it? Would they object to me making them sound better? Hopefully not, which doesn’t mean I’ll take out colloquialisms. If people talk in a certain way, I’m going to use that. I’m just going to make it as clear as humanly possible.

Jonathan Dowler:

For example, we’re boiling down the characters, the essence. We don’t have time sometimes to bring out all the little nuances of certain elements. So, for example, in a series that’s as fast-paced and run-and-gun as Race, a lot of things that happened over the past season was an example of characters who were the villains or the bad people and stuff. And I think it’s nothing that, at least in my experience, it’s nothing that’s been done. They do do that, but we’re boiling down the essence.

Jenypher Fisher:

We just make them more them.

Jonathan Dowler:

More them. Yes. Elianna, you worked on the last season of Race. What would you say about the villain characters or how that happened?

Elianna Borsa:

Right, yeah. A lot of people were upset about those villains because they weren’t Canadian, and everything that we showed, that’s how they were and they were very competitive. And one of the guys, it’s in his character to want to win, and I’m here for a competition to win, and I’m going to try to get into your head no matter what. Because that’s literally his job every day as a boxer. So he took that there, and he really does have a big heart. I actually really liked him. But when you watch the show, and Jennifer hated him-

Jenypher Fisher:

I hated him so badly.

Elianna Borsa:

And I totally understand why you would because you kind of just see that side of him. But then we also want to show their good side, so we try to show that as well. But when they’re just giving “No, we’re here to win,” that’s what we got. And it makes good TV.

Jonathan Dowler:

And it’s mostly the impression of them. Certainly some of those elements, that’s just them doing the race. And people can take a strong view of it. But, you’re right, we’re showing them doing stuff, but I think in this age, a lot of people are media savvy. Young people who are applying to a show like Big Brother, they were just born when the first Big Brother aired, so they’ve grown up in this age of … And they’re very cognizant of editing. And that is certainly a challenge for people because it gets very meta.

Jonathan Dowler:

I remember some people talking about, “Oh, I was edited that way.” And then it becomes this whole thing of impressions and stuff.

Baun Mah:

I think definitely they’re very aware of how the show is done. Especially Big Brother, because there’s a livestream on both the US and Canadian versions, so they see everything play out in real time, and then they see the edited show. They’re like, “Well, that’s now how it happened.” Of course that’s not how it happened. It happened over the span of an hour and a half, but we condensed it into a three minute scene. And by doing that, by virtue of compressing, you’re creating a heightened version of whatever confrontation that was, or what that moment was.

Baun Mah:

But, yeah, the contestants especially are very aware of the cameras and what they’re saying. We even had a problem in Season 3 where the house guests wouldn’t confess to use in the Diary Room, because that’s where they’re supposed to tell their true motivations, but they were just so wary of trying to project their image that it took a lot to just say, listen, this is the one place where it’s a safe area, and we need to know what you’re really thinking in these moments. But they were just so in their heads about their image that it was actually really difficult-

Jonathan Dowler:

Overthinking it.

Baun Mah:

They were all super fans and strategists, so they just didn’t want to give anything up. They wanted to stay in the game the whole time.

Elianna Borsa:

Or an ego thing when they do really poorly in a competition, and they’re like, “Oh, no, but I wanted to lose then.” And it’s like but you went in there. We heard you saying that you really wanted to win. So on TV, they’re like, “No, I planned that.”

Ian Sit:

A lot of the time you’re actually making your subject look way better than they are. You’re making them look way more competent, way more interesting, way more coherent, and so the news you hear about Bachelor and stuff is like, “You made me look bad.” It’s like, what about 90% of the time we made you a lot better and more interesting?

Jonathan Dowler:

Very erudite and, yeah, you spoke really well and concisely, and so great. Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Often, the longer a show goes, the more the characters get a little more … They know what you’re doing, and you end up asking them questions over and over and over and over again. You’re asking because you need them to say it in that space, and you need them to say it well. If someone asked me the same question for six years over and over again, I understand where they’re coming from, but we really just need you to say “I want to find jade.” Say it here, or whatever. I really just need you to say that. And it’s because you might have said it badly five times.

Jenypher Fisher:

Or confused. Like they think they said “I want to find jade,” but they didn’t. They talked about jade esoterically, and it’s like I don’t need that. I need you to say “I want to find jade bad. My family will die if I don’t find jade.” Or whatever.

Jonathan Dowler:

But I think also the great thing, just going back to your scene for a second, is the scene is very dramatic. You have to set up stakes through all that stuff, and you have to get those great … Drama is founded on the conflict and the stakes, and you set that up in your scene as “We need to sell this. Six years have led to this, this big moment,” and then you need that moment … It’s very dramatic. You are applying any sort of dramatic rules that we have in any sort of cutting, be it scripted or whatnot, but you’re kind of coming up with it without the right lighting, without the right shots-

Jenypher Fisher:

On the fly.

Jonathan Dowler:

On the fly.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Unscripted, and that’s to be commended.

Jenypher Fisher:

You still have to make a good story. It doesn’t matter what they shot. Best case scenario, it has to compete with the best scripted shows on television. That’s your competition. You still have to try to meet that, even though it was shot in two days in the middle of nowhere with one camera guy and maybe an audio guy. Your goals are still the same.

Jonathan Dowler:

That plays to the heart of it. A lot of the writing or the first draft could be in the planning of the shoot, so how often do you find, percentage-wise, are you given enough to work with when you cut your scene? When you’re given your scenes … Not to slam production. We’re not trying to start a fight with production, but in terms of are you getting enough story? How many times are you getting to the point of, oh, my God, we really have nothing. Like what you were talking about. So much footage and they didn’t get anything. Or do you find that more often than not you’re getting what you need?

Ian Sit:

It’s a process because it changes depending on the scope and the angle, the story that you’re approaching. So they might have gotten all the footage you needed. It just so happened that when you started editing, you took this direction, and if you’re going to tell this story in this scene, you have no footage. And so if you get into a point where you can’t go any further, and you’re stuck, perhaps you have it the wrong way, and then you go back.

Jonathan Dowler:

What you have versus what you planned for.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Also, sometimes in the field they think they’re shooting one story, because they think that’s the story we’re going to tell, and in fact, that’s not the story we decide to tell four months later in post. We still have to use that footage that they were trying to tell that story to tell that story now. And that’s the job.

Jonathan Dowler:

I want to show Ian’s clip first. We’ll do the Ian clip, Forever Young. Ian, do you want to set this up for us, just talking about how you built this scene?

Ian Sit:

Yeah. This is from a one hour doc about immortality. It’s like a soft science show about people trying to live forever. So this one person that you’re going to see in this scene, Liz Parrish, was the first person to undergo a genetic therapy that has not been approved for humans. It’s only been done on mice.

 

[Clip Plays]

Liz Parrish:

What would you do if you might be able to save millions of lives with one action, an action that might take your life? What if you had to build a business to do this? Learn a new science. Be judged and treated like a lab rat. Would you do it?

Liz Parrish:

I am three days out from taking two gene therapies. One never performed in a human. I don’t feel well. I can’t sleep. Wake up with my heart pounding. I keep picturing the person who will find me dead. Hopefully, I will live. I am totally happy with my decision either way because, today, all sorts of people are dying, people I know nothing about, but they are just as real as I am. And I am in good company.

Liz Parrish:

I’m okay. Let’s just do it.

 

[end of Clip]

 

Jonathan Dowler:

It’s very lyrical, very beautiful. So in terms of what we’ve talked about, finding the stuff, talk about the breakdown of that scene and how you approached it.

Ian Sit:

So it was quite an organic way of cutting. Basically, we went through all the footage and tried to identify the most salient things, and just build from there. What was shot with Liz was a sit-down interview. There was also footage of her just walking around her home, which was that forest, and there was also footage shot of her reading a letter that she was composing while she was undergoing the experiment as a form of personal emotional therapy in case she died. She was trying to write a justification as to why I’m doing this.

Ian Sit:

So when I was going through the footage, the moment where she breaks down, that was kind of like, oh, that’s a good moment. Every time you have someone showing genuine emotion in that way, it feels like it’s probably important. So we started with that, but it occurred to me that the way she was reading the letter sounded a lot more like voiceover than it did just a regular person reading, so we attempted to pair that audio with the footage of her walking around in the forest, which started to create a kind of fairy tale-y, dramatic, narrative scene. Which was an interesting moment.

Ian Sit:

And it could’ve played out that way entirely, but we didn’t want to lose the on camera moment where she started to break down. And so the decision was made to kind of set it up in such a way where she’s kind of walking around in the forest, but then all of a sudden, you cut to her reading the letter, and it became a bit of a dance between these two things.

Ian Sit:

That scene was cut, and it was put aside. At a certain point of cutting the rest of the film, we decided that this would be the very first scene of the entire movie. There are other subjects involved as well, but we liked how it started. So once we moved it to the top, we needed to build a kind of a bit of a tease, a bit of a hook. And that’s when we got the footage from the actual experiment, which we did not shoot. Liz provided for us. And so that was inserted afterwards in order for us to build more of a moment where she-

Jonathan Dowler:

And that’s the button. The button at the end. Let’s do it. Let’s get this done.

Ian Sit:

And I don’t think it would’ve worked if we had just inserted that stuff hadn’t the theme been played out like a dramatic scene without that kind of grounded moment where she’s very emotional, and we see her on camera. So it ultimately kind of came together step by step as we were going through the film.

Jonathan Dowler:

That’s great. Well, I think it’s incredible to see, much like any unscripted, she’s commenting, and we’re seeing what she’s talking about. It’s all on her face, like you say, in the tears.

Jonathan Dowler:

We were talking earlier, saying action is character, but it’s actually reaction. And those looks that can be built, be it in the Jade scene, where it’s the look of the people as they’re watching things, even if they’re talking about lunch.

Jenypher Fisher:

They were really serious about lunch.

Jonathan Dowler:

They looked hungry. And even in Race, it’s those looks of sheer terror, or being ticked off. I think we’re going to go to questions now.

Audience Question:

This is for Baun, but I guess anybody can answer. Just referring to your scene we showed today. You talk about how the original version was 11 minutes and change.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Audience Question:

And then you get down to about two and a bit.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Audience Question:

I’m assuming your edits aren’t really loose, but do you ever cut assuming I know this is going to be two minutes so I should make it two minutes, or do you always leave it a little bit longer, and let the writers kind of break it down?

Baun Mah:

No, I think the key to doing a show like Race is if you do know, then that’s great. Yeah, cut it down as much as you can. I think in this one, them getting lost is such a … It’s happened before, but it’s such a unique moment in Race that I find it very interesting. And it was also that it did have these moments of tension, so we did leave it in for the rough cut screening just because up until that rough cut, or even our internal screening, we have no idea what the other people are doing yet. Our story editor, Seth, had set up a story board through Trello, so he was updating it daily, but we didn’t know which tension beats would work. At that point, I still hadn’t realized how crazy the foot race at the end … Obviously, you guys don’t know what happened, but it was a long but really exciting foot race to get to the mat. So that was prioritized over this.

Baun Mah:

So, typically, yes, you would try to cut it down to maybe … 11 was way too long, and I put that on me because my cuts to the assembly usually end up being a little longer. But, yeah, it should’ve maybe been around five or six. That’s a little more reasonable, and then you cut it down in half. But really we wanted to see how this played out, and because if we cut it to the two and a half minutes … Like say we did cut it down to the two and a half minutes right away, we might questions like, oh, what happened? How did this team find out, or how did this team get lost? And did anything interesting happen here?

Baun Mah:

So sometimes on Race, it’s like you show what happened, and then once everyone has an idea of what happened, you whittle it down. And then you realize at least you can justify why you cut certain things out. So you present your whole case, and then you just keep the best bits.

Jenypher Fisher:

I personally always know what the times are right from the start, and I’m really annoying with writers because I’ll always tell them what the times are. I will always tell them “We are 10 minutes heavy at the end of the assembly, just so you know. Act One is really long, it’s this long.” If it’s a four act structure, I’ll know how long each act is generally. I’m not annoying about it, but I want everyone to know we’re seven minutes long, so if you have anything you’re not loving, get it out of here.

Jenypher Fisher:

And every time, every cut, I’m always trying to shorten it, because I’ve worked on too many shows where you’re not cognizant of it, and you’ve got an hour-and-20, and it’s just do it from the start. It’s just easier. We call it killing our babies. Like start killing the babies early. Choose a few that you want to protect and love, and then just start whittling it down. It makes it easier in the long run.

Baun Mah:

On the flip side though, we’ve had moments, not necessarily on Race, but on other shows where we do cut it closer to time because we do know roughly what our Act One, Act Two, all the acts should be. But then either the producer or the network or whoever who is not directly involved in the edit, they’re like, “Do we have another moment of this?” Or “Does this moment play out more?” So it’s sort of like a give or take. Then you’re like I would rather cut down rather than rebuild. I always find it’s much easier to compress than it is to open things up again. So I come from that sort of standpoint, where it’s like, okay, let’s show them everything, and then … Not necessarily everything, but what we feel is good, and then you’re like, “Okay, this is what we have,” and then we’ll cut it down after the assembly or the rough cut.

Jenypher Fisher:

Don’t get me wrong, my assemblies are longer. It’s just like I always tell them.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

We’re always going for this.

Baun Mah:

It’s great to be vigilant on that, yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

The aim is always on time.

Baun Mah:

Otherwise it could get out of control, and you have a crazy long … Yeah.

Audience Question:

All right. Thanks, guys. I had a question about continuity because, as you mentioned, when you especially try to salvage a scene, you have to cobble together shots from different days. Things are obviously not going to completely match up.

Audience Question:

So my first question is how much does that actually come into play when you’re cutting a scene? And, more importantly, how do you deal with questions that you’re going to get, reactions you’re going to get, from your producers or director who may focus a little bit too much once they’ve seen one of your scenes and they say, “Well, we can’t do it that way because this thing in the background is different.” How do you react to that?

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. I think it also kind of depends on the show. When I was in school, I was taught a lot about continuity, but then when you get into reality, you just need to throw that away. You do. And it also depends on the show, but that’s actually what I find the hardest. Race is actually a little bit easier because you can have them jump from here to there, and you put in a sound effect, and just the nature of the show because you have to really get it down. But something on like Big Brother when doing a challenge, it’s like how do I get this down and still have it make sense of how they got there, and that’s always a challenge.

Elianna Borsa:

But we worked on a show, a beauty show, where continuity was very important, and that was super hard to edit just because of continuity. The shots wouldn’t match up, or we didn’t have something to cut to, so it really does depend.

Baun Mah:

It really does, and especially that particular show. I had PTSD from that show.

Baun Mah:

There was a stylist I guess that they had that they were originally going to put in the show, but then they decided against it, so that stylist was in all the shots. So as soon as you saw a glimpse of her, that’s what they would see. And it was just so hard because there were so few cameras to cut around to that you really had to be creative with how to get those moments where they’re trying on different outfits but keep the stylist out. Even though she’s fluffing all the dresses and everything.

Jenypher Fisher:

The most important thing is character. If people like the characters, they’ll forgive an awful lot. Like if you cut for character and there’s not continuity, and it’s all about the character, they may miss that she’s wearing a red shirt and a green shirt.

Jenypher Fisher:

Also another trick is put an interview between the two things where it changed, or like I did, the guy took his jacket off. He went from wearing black to yellow, which wasn’t really a big deal. I did notice it, but there’s four shots between when that happened, so you create the time to believably have him take his jacket off. You don’t put them back to back.

Ian Sit:

One of the things that I do, if you just cut on action, and there’s movement within your clip, you can get away with a lot as far as continuity issues. I also find that audiences now are so savvy. Everyone has a camera on their phone, they could video stuff. Especially with documentary or factual, there’s a lot more forgiveness on the part of the audience. They understand. It’s constructed. It’s not always going to be a cup here, and then a cup shifts over there. It’s like, whatever, they knew it’s on the same day.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Actually, I feel like nowadays, we can get away with it a lot more, even on Brother. Not necessarily the challenges, but the reality scenes that we have in between because it could be, again, an hour, hour-and-a-half long conversation. Like Ian said, they talk circularly, so you’re just really trying to compress that conversation to what the essence of it is. And the house guests are hopping around the room, they’re pacing back and forth. They’re standing, sitting, and we actually have gone looser. We used to try to keep continuity, but we’ve gotten looser with it over time because the audience now is very well versed in what reality TV is like.

Baun Mah:

And we even try to rely a little less on interview clips in our challenges because we try to play out the moments a little more because I find reality TV is kind of like going back towards a almost documentary style in the looser sense. But like a documentary style where you just try to let things play out because the audience knows. They know what the tricks are now, so you’re just trying to play it out more real, even though it may not necessarily be as super hyped up amazing.

Baun Mah:

I think the Great British Bake-Off has a lot to do with that, because everyone loves watching reality versus having it as a somewhat manufactured story.

Ian Sit:

Yeah. One last technique that I often employ is that you know how in school you’re like 180-degree, don’t cut this whatever …

Jenypher Fisher:

Doesn’t exist.

Ian Sit:

As long as you have an emotional rhythm to your scene, and you kind of hit the emotional rhythm, it’s hard to describe explicitly. But if you’re cutting an edit, and it doesn’t make sense in terms of where the positioning of the person is, but it makes sense in terms of the feeling, it hits that mark, no one is going to notice that the person is in the wrong spot in the previous shot or anything like that. Anyway.

Jonathan Dowler:

Please give a hand for our wonderful panelists. It’s been wonderful.

Ian Sit:

And thank you, Jonathan, for organizing this, and preparing us, and guiding us through this.

Jenypher Fisher:

Thank you very much. It was really awesome. This is not a comfortable situation, and you made it that. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks for joining us today, and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator.

Sarah Taylor:

A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Maureen Grant, and the CCE Board for helping create EditCon 2020.

 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. 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 a way 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.

 

[Outtro]

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

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Credits

A special thanks goes to the following people for helping to create EditCon 2020

Jane MacRae

Maureen Grant

Blackmagic Design

the CCE board

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

Chad Blain

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