Editor Marco Capalbo on Cutting Werner Herzog’s Cosmic New Doc “Fireball”

Editor Marco Capalbo has been working with the inimitable German director Werner Herzog for the past eight years, most recently on Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, which premieres on Apple TV+ on November 13. We chat with Marco, who specializes in editing documentaries, about tackling the vast subject matter of meteors, comets and their influence on ancient religions, and how he looks for those “Herzogian moments” that make Herzog’s documentaries unique.   

The way that you’ve found that balance between the scientific,...

Alan Baumgarten on Editing Aaron Sorkin’s Rapid-Fire Dialogue in “The Trial of the Chicago 7”

For his latest feature coming to Netflix on October 16th, writer and director Aaron Sorkin shifts his political eye from the West Wing to the US government’s judicial branch. In The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin revisits the drawn-out trial of a group of Vietnam War protestors, including Abbie Hoffmann and Tom Hayden, accused of inciting violent riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The crux of the trial turns on whether the men conspired in their actions,...

How Emmy-Nominated Editor Katheryn Naranjo Cut “Stranger Things” Season 3 Finale

The third season of The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix hit Stranger Things culminated in an epic finale with two huge battle scenes and a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. For the uninitiated, Stranger Things is a sci-fi/horror series set in set in the 80s (with the soundtrack to match), which follows a group of young kids as they explore what’s behind a series of supernatural happenings in their town. Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers) leads the young cast—including Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven),...

“Hanna” Editor Morten Højbjerg on Cutting Amazon’s High-Octane Thriller

Hanna editor Morten Højbjerg cut the first two episodes of season one of creator David Farr’s relentlessly action-packed Amazon series, which was adapted from Joe Wright’s 2011 film (which Farr wrote) that starred Saoirse Ronan in the title role. In the series, Esme Creed-Miles takes over for Ronan as the titular young girl with a certain set of extraordinary skills not usually found in youngsters. Instead of planning sleepovers, doing homework, or arguing with siblings, Hanna is a forest-raised young woman who counts among her antagonists an off-book CIA agent and,...

How “Insecure” Editor Nena Erb Finds the Perfect Moment

“I’m not ready to go to restaurants,” Insecure editor Nena Erb told me while we were on the phone discussing her career, and, of course, life in the midst of a global pandemic. Yet for Erb, whose career has conditioned her to solitude, she’s making the most of her forced isolation by helping bring up the next generation of young editors. “I was able to work at home for about the first month of the pandemic, and I finished up Insecure,...

“Welcome to Chechnya” Producer & Editor on Their Immersion in High-Stakes LGBTQ Reportage

Few westerners took notice in 2016 when the Russian republic of Chechnya began persecuting gay, lesbian, and transgender citizens. But after Oscar-nominated documentarian David France read a New Yorker article detailing how Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime has tortured, imprisoned, and executed LGBTQ residents, he traveled to Moscow. There, France and his crew documented the Russian LGBT Network and Moscow Community Center for LGBTI+ Initiatives as they provide temporary sanctuary for refugees eager to gain asylum in friendly countries...

Arielle Kilker On Assembling a Largely Female Crew to Create Her Netflix Series Cheer

Arielle Kilker brings pretty much everything she’s learned in her career to bear in her Netflix‘s Cheer, the series she co-created, co-directed, edited, and produced. That includes the Emmy-nominated work she put in as editor on Chef’s Table and a supervising editor on the Peabody nominated Last Chance U. She’s also edited and written crime docuseries on projects for MSNBC, A&E, and PBS. For Cheer, Kilker decided to move away from stories about women who had been victims of crimes—with the focus often on the men who’d harmed them—to focus on a series that put women front and center...

Unraveling Marriage Story with Oscar-Nominated Editor Jennifer Lame

We’re looking back at some of our interviews with this year’s Oscar nominees in the lead-up to this Sunday’s telecast. This story was originally published on December 5, 2019.

It was well past 9 pm on a Sunday night when the word “hello” drifted through the speaker of my phone. On the line was editor Jennifer Lame who pulled herself away from Christopher Nolan’s action-thriller Tenet.

“It’s nice speaking with you again,” she said in an even-tempered tone...

How Parasite’s Oscar-Nominated Editor Helped Shape Thrilling Shifts in Tone

We’re looking back at some of our interviews with this year’s Oscar nominees in the lead-up to this Sunday’s telecast. This story was originally published on January 2.

Palme d’Or winner and Best Picture Oscar contender Parasite shocked audiences this autumn on the strength of writer-director editor of Bong Joon-ho‘s meticulously constructed blend of comedy, melodrama and thriller elements. The story follows the poor but well-educated grifters in the Park family,...

The Irishman’s Oscar-Nominated Editor Thelma Schoonmaker on her 53-year Collaboration with Martin Scorsese

Three-time Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker‘s association with Martin Scorsese even pre-dates his storied collaboration with Robert DeNiro. She edited his Who’s That Knocking At My Door in 1967, picked up the first of eight Oscar nominations for editing Woodstock, went on hiatus for a few years, then returned to the Scorsese fold in 1980 to edit his famously brutal Raging Bull. Since then, Schoonmaker’s cut every Scorsese movie, and she’s nominated for her work The Irishman, ...

Virgin River Editor Nicole Ratcliffe on Cutting to Where it Counts

Editor Nicole Ratcliffe has an unusual story to tell—she began editing right out of film school. Why this is unusual is it usually takes some time before you’re properly cutting scenes in the editing room, but for Ratcliffe, who grew up in Vancouver and works there, she began editing more or less immediately. Not only that, she worked on so many visual effects-heavy projects that she became a visual effects editor.

“I went to Vancouver film school, from there I got an assistant editing gig right out of film school and worked for a few production companies in town,”...

In Fact-Based Just Mercy, Editor Nat Sanders Cuts to the Truth

Before editor Nat Sanders earned an Oscar nomination for cutting Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, he forged a tight bond with filmmaker Destin Cretton. Their latest collaboration, Just Mercy (opening wide Friday, Jan. 10), casts Michael B. Jordan as real-life lawyer Bryan Stevenson who goes to bat for Death Row inmate Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) by proving he’s been framed by Alabama law enforcement authorities.

Sanders broke into feature films when he edited Florida State University classmate Barry Jenkins’...

How Editor Lee Smith & Sound Editor Oliver Tarney Crafted the Immersive Story of 1917

If you caught last night’s Golden Globes, you saw Sam Mendes‘ World War I epic 1917 take home both Best Film (Drama) and Best Director for Mendes himself. 1917 bested some very steep competition, including Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman, Todd Phillips Joker, and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. Mendes’ film is practically flawless.

Now imagine you’re a picture editing working on a project where the story is utterly personal to the director,...

Oscar Watch: How Parasite’s Editor Helped Shape Thrilling Shifts in Tone

Palme d’Or winner and Best Picture Oscar contender Parasite shocked audiences this autumn on the strength of writer-director editor of Bong Joon-ho‘s meticulously constructed blend of comedy, melodrama and thriller elements. The story follows the poor but well-educated grifters in the Park family, who insinuate themselves into the lives of the wealthy Kim household by posing as an earnest tutor, housekeeper, and chauffeur. When the Park teenagers and their parents conspire to wrest domestic control from the Kims’...

Best of 2019: Breaking Down Three Key Scenes With Ad Astra’s Editors

*We’re reposting some of our favorite interviews of 2019. Happy Holidays!

On Tuesday we published the first part of our conversation with Ad Astra editors John Axelrad and Lee Haugen. Director James Gray’s film (which he co-wrote with Ethan Gross) is the rare intimate epic. It involves some of the most breathtaking sequences in any film this year, as well as a very personal father/son story in which our hero, Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride,...

Best of 2019: Spencer Averick on Finding Truth & Humanity in the Edit of When They See Us

*We’re reposting some of our favorite interviews of 2019 from some of our favorite films and shows of the year.

Netflix rarely releases viewer numbers, but on June 12th, the streaming service tweeted that Ava DuVernay’s miniseries When They See Us has been its most-watched content in the US since the show’s premiere on May 31st. In the UK, When They See Us has been running second only to Black Mirror...

Editor Gordon Rempel on the Music of Editing

Gordon Rempel sees parallels between the approach he takes editing film and television and his love of making music. With more than two decades of experience in both fields, he would know.

“I actually have a musical background. I’ve been playing in bands continuously since I was a teenager. Music takes a lot of the same parts of your brain as editing does: it’s all rhythm, tempo, and pacing. And finding that accent point. Putting a movie or TV show together is not all that dissimilar to putting together a song or piece of music.”

As a student in the Film and Television program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology initially focused on the camera,...

Unraveling Marriage Story with Editor Jennifer Lame

It was well past 9 pm on a Sunday night when the word “hello” drifted through the speaker of my phone. On the line was editor Jennifer Lame who pulled herself away from Christopher Nolan’s action-thriller Tenet.

“It’s nice speaking with you again,” she said in an even-tempered tone. A tone very unlike the characters in Marriage Story from writer/director Noah Baumbach that dissects the inevitable split between spouses Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver)...

Breaking Down Three Key Scenes With Ad Astra’s Editors

On Tuesday we published the first part of our conversation with Ad Astra editors John Axelrad and Lee Haugen. Director James Gray’s film (which he co-wrote with Ethan Gross) is the rare intimate epic. It involves some of the most breathtaking sequences in any film this year, as well as a very personal father/son story in which our hero, Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride, travels all the way to Neptune to face dear old dad Cliff (Tommy Lee Jones)...

Ad Astra’s Editors Talk Space Pirates, Murderous Monkeys & More

James Gray’s Ad Astra travels as far as the icy colossus Neptune, an achingly gorgeous planet, as blue as our own, but, alas, utterly lifeless. Only that’s not entirely true in Gray’s space epic, which finds Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride traveling to the distant giant planet to find his father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones). It seems Cliff’s been out there, hovering just above Neptune, for years. The reason he’s become something of an interstellar Colonel Kurtz and what he’s been up to in deep space are of grave importance to both Roy,...