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“The Best Collaborations Always Leave Me with Something New”: Editor Victoria Chalk on Third Act

A black and white photo of filmmaker and artist Robert A. Nakamura, who smokes a cigarette while leaning on a camera.Third Act, courtesy of Sundance Institute.

In Third Act, director Tadashi Nakamura trains his camera on his father, Robert A. Nakamura, “the godfather of Asian American media,” after the latter’s Parkinson’s diagnosis. The film, part of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, weaves this present-day storyline with archival footage dating back to the director’s childhood.

Veteran documentary editor Victoria Chalk was brought in as an editor for Third Act. Below, Chalk discusses how she balanced filmmaker and subject in the edit and the joys of having so much archival footage to work with.

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?

Chalk: Tad (director) and Eurie (producer) had been working on the film in post-production with an assistant editor for about a year already when they reached out to me. I had recently worked with Eurie on the PBS series Asian Americans, and for that show, one of our main goals was to make the history feel personal, the past impacting protagonists today. Tad usually edits his own stuff, but this film, being so deeply personal, was proving to be challenging to find in the edit. I think Eurie thought I would be able to help in weaving both the historical/biographical thread with the intimacy of the unfolding present-day story. I saw some of the footage and immediately wanted to be a part of this film.

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?

Chalk: Third Act is a very personal film, and I think originally Tad had seen this project a little differently. When he set out to make the film, he was for the most part envisioning a biography on his father, Robert A. Nakamura, the godfather of Asian American media. As I started to delve into the footage, I realized Tad had captured this version of the film, but the real story was their relationship, both as father and son and as filmmakers.

I started by assembling scenes where the story was just as much Tad’s as Bob’s to see if there was an arc to explore. From there, director Tad could see the power of Protagonist Tad and how, in many ways, Bob’s story was Tad’s story. The process was then just trying to balance out the story beats for both protagonists. Once we got more of a handle on that, I really wanted to enhance the multi-generational backbone of the film, a theme that speaks to both the joy of family and the pain of intergenerational trauma in the Japanese American community. This meant working on weaving Jichan (Bob’s father) and Prince (Tad’s son) into the Bob/Tad structure—sometimes to go deeper emotionally, sometimes to mirror emotions, and sometimes to show change within the Nakamura Family. I’m hoping the audience really feels the push and pull between past and present and how both Bob and Tad process their emotions through their work

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

Chalk: One of the joys of this film was having so much archival to work with, both professional and personal. We are talking about a filmmaking family literally documenting everything, forever! I would mine the archival to find visuals that could speak both to the emotion of the present-tense story and to Bob’s craft, intercutting to create that push/pull feel of past and present.

Feedback sessions were extremely helpful, as we were trying to thread so many themes. The film would get muddy in certain spots, and we needed to hear frankly what was coming through and what was just getting lost. It’s always easier for me to cut back or tone something down than trying to add more later!

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

Chalk: I have been editing for over 15 years. I started editing commercials and cutting independent work on the side until eventually the indies became frequent enough to be sustainable, which I am extremely grateful for. I try to watch both fiction and documentary films and read a lot, which just helps keep the notion of story at the forefront of my creative mind. It’s something I think a lot about as a predominantly documentary editor, as we are writing the film as we edit. Mostly though, I’m drawn to people who are passionate about the films they want to make, and the best collaborations always leave me with something new that I can take to the next project.

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

Chalk: For this film we set everything up on Adobe Productions, which allowed for streamlined, remote work.

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

Chalk: The most challenging part of this project was finding the first 5-7 minutes. We have so many versions of this on the cutting room floor! I think it was just hard to unlock the way into the film until we found the balance of Bob and Tad as characters. Once we were able to really find the journey, it was easier to see where it should start. This chunk though was maybe one of the last things to come together.

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

Chalk: We worked with Travis Hatfield, who was the creative director and motion graphics artist. All of his work, from the photo albums to the titles using Bob’s own handwriting really was the perfect finishing touch on the film. Everything just got taken up a notch; it is all just so in tune with the intention of the edit.

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?

Chalk: I think for many, many months, I was completely wrapped up in the Nakamura Family story. I was getting to know them through decades of footage in some of their most intimate moments. I felt like Tad had trusted me with something so personal and precious that I just couldn’t fail them. I’m only now relating the film back to myself, thinking about my own family, specifically aging parents, and what family means to me. I don’t think I’ll make a film about it, but I’m processing it all at my own pace!

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