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“Being Able to Do Even Crude Ideas Yourself as an Editor Is Really Valuable”: Editors Austin Reedy and Mark Becker on The Librarians

A black stamp marks the return date on a library book.The Librarians, courtesy of Sundance Institute.

In The Librarians, director Kim A. Snyder’s documentary chronicles the efforts of these educators in states like Texas and Florida in the face of sweeping book bans, which largely censor stories that center on LGBTQ and racial identities.

Editors Austin Reedy and Mark Becker tell Filmmaker about working with archive, creating through lines in the edit and how this film “helps us build a more empathetic conversation about such an important institution.”

See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here.

Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job

Reedy: I had spoken to director Kim A. Snyder about working on this project well before I actually came on board; she was interested in some ideas she had about archive and visual effects and those are featured in a lot of the films I’ve done. We had a bit of a phone tag situation while my projects were wrapping up, but I freed up at a good time when she was ready to start playing with those ideas. Gaby Torres and Leah Boatright were already deep into editing the film, so I joined the team at that point.

Becker:  The storytelling of The Librarians was a collaboration between director-producer Kim A. Snyder and our editorial team—María Gabriela Torres, Leah Boatright, and Austin Reedy—all of whom brought strengths to the final version of the film. As an editor, I aimed to redefine scenes outside the boundaries of location-based scenes in order to bring fluidity to the storytelling and to achieve an escalating narrative of discovery.

Filmmaker: In terms of advancing your film from its earliest assembly to your final cut, what were your goals as an editor? What elements of the film did you want to enhance, or preserve, or tease out or totally reshape?

Reedy: My job was more about helping the groundwork they’d done get to the next stage. Kim had lots of stories she’d filmed and really wanted to integrate them in a compelling way, which is always a challenge with multiple characters. She was also interested in some visual aesthetics to help tie that ensemble together, and so we worked on creating the through lines of anonymous librarians as well as some visual ideas to help make that work.

Becker: The librarians in the film are under assault from a multifaceted and seemingly invisible adversary. And yet, in their intransigence and in their resolve, this army of librarians is inspiring even as they lose battles against Machiavellian forces. One goal of the edit was to capture their agency and humanity despite the brutality of the aggressive acts of censorship within their respective state governments and within communities. 

Filmmaker: How did you achieve these goals? What types of editing techniques, or processes, or feedback screenings allowed this work to occur?

Reedy: I love working with archive to help bring stories and ideas to life, and this was something the team had already been doing, so I was excited to help with that. Kim also puts a lot of value in hearing a lot of different voices and reactions, which is why she has a big team and likes to really consider all the ways the film is or isn’t working, so we had a lot of good discussions and experiments which is something as an editor I’m always happy to have the freedom to do.

Becker: Kim and the producing team got incredible access to bold librarians who were embattled by censorship forces who aimed to ban books under the guise of an anti-pornography crusade, fighting against “the woke.” Production informs the edit greatly, of course, but then there is an aspect of learning—during the edit—the story you are telling. The work of the edit is both responsive and active. Kim and the editors worked together to toggle between the material we had and the ideas that revealed themselves from the construct of our various cuts. Through an ongoing feedback process with insightful consultants, and by holding ourselves to task (Kim herself would watch the cuts early every morning), we were rigorously analytical about the story that was coming through. Over time, we made certain to push closer and closer to the fire of the book burners. 

Filmmaker: As an editor, how did you come up in the business, and what influences have affected your work?

Reedy: I actually came into editing from an unconventional route. My whole life previously I’ve been a musician, so I’d originally planned to be an audio engineer, but circumstances with my college redirected me into more of an editing path which happened to be something I loved immediately and got really interested in pursuing. From there I’ve been really fortunate to work with a lot of great directors on a variety of different types of films and series so I’ve had no shortage of people to learn from. I think musicality still really impacts my work, so I’ve held onto that interest and applied it as well.

Becker: I learned to edit from loving movies, watching a million films, making my own work and learning through collaboration like this one. For me the work involves a relentless quest to offer an audience the feeling that they are active participants—that they are on the trail themselves of learning about humans and human behavior. 

Filmmaker: What editing system did you use, and why?

Reedy: Adobe Premiere. I wasn’t around with the early crew for why they chose it, but it’s relatively easy to get set up quickly which is useful when you have multiple editors working in different locations, but the other editors would have more insight on that process than I would.

Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to cut and why? And how did you do it?

Reedy: Since I joined later, I was not cutting new scenes as much as helping reframe existing work folks had done, so from a ground up level I don’t have a most difficult scene per se. Looking at the film holistically is difficult and reimagining structure is a big task, so we really dove into the transcripts and looked for themes and ideas that could help shape the film around those ideas.

Filmmaker: What role did VFX work, or compositing, or other post-production techniques play in terms of the final edit?

Reedy: My experience with more VFX heavy edits was useful here, as Kim was open to any ideas that could work. I like to step out of the NLE and experiment in After Effects when there’s time, and I was able to help generate some new ideas that made their way into the design for the film. I think being able to do even crude ideas yourself as an editor is really valuable. It helps your director visualize the ideas and provides good templates for the eventual artists to do their work down the road. So it’s important to me to build on that skill while editing because I think visual heavy storytelling requires that.

Becker: VFX work was integral to the storytelling of The Librarians. Cassidy Gearhart brought incredible life (and clarity) to the social media posts and the web of connections bearing down on our librarians. Yoav Brill did an ingenious job of manifesting the world of imagination within the banned books and life to the government documents. 

Filmmaker: Finally, now that the process is over, what new meanings has the film taken on for you? What did you discover in the footage that you might not have seen initially, and how does your final understanding of the film differ from the understanding that you began with?

Reedy: I have been an avid reader and library patron my entire life. I’ve always respected the institution and been happy to use it, however I never really thought of there being a soul to these things and what it requires to keep them running. I think this film gives you a chance both to appreciate those institutions we take for granted, and also understand the people that run them, which is often what is missing most from the discourse. As always, it’s easy to demonize things we don’t understand, so hopefully meeting these librarians and understanding them and the work they do helps us build a more empathetic conversation about such an important institution.

Becker: Now that we have gotten to the finish line, we are all so proud of the collaboration. I cannot wait to meet the librarians in person who I first met and learned to appreciate on the screen in the timeline of our edit. 

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