One of the biggest acquisitions at this year’s Sundance, Nisha Ganatra’s Late Night tracks Molly (Mindy Kaling, who wrote the screenplay), a new staff writer on a long-running late night show hosted by Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson). The film was purchased by Amazon for $13 million. Via email, its editor, Eleanor Infante, spoke to her work on the film, the latest in a long collaboration with director Ganatra. 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? Infante: Nisha Ganatra and I first […]

A music video director and David Fincher protege, Noble Jones makes his feature filmmaking debut with The Tomorrow Man. John Lithgow anchors the film as Ed Hemsler, a divorced retiree with a penchant for grandiose if vague conspiracy theories about the imminent end of the world. His unexpected romance with Ronnie Meisner (Blythe Danner) begins at a grocery store, but their path is full of unexpected bumps. Via email, editor Zimo Huang discussed his work on the production. 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 […]

Veteran documentarian Joe Berlinger has two films on serial killer Ted Bundy this year. One is a documentary that’s now on Netflix, Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. The other is a narrative take on the same story, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, with Zac Efron playing against type as Bundy and Lily Collins as his unaware girlfriend Liz. Via email, editor Josh Schaeffer spoke to his work on half of Berlinger’s year of Bundy. 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? Schaeffer: Initially I did […]

In Mexico City, there are only 45 publicly operated ambulances for a population of nine-million-plus, creating a need filled by private labor. Luke Lorentzen, whose first feature New York Cuts premiered at IDFA in 2015, embedded himself with one privately operated ambulance run as a family business, tagging along night after night. Operating as his own shooter for Midnight Family, Lorentzen’s sophomore feature is a formally controlled, sympathetically embedded portrait of multiple instances of economic inequity (with car chases!). Via email, Lorentzen spoke about his work on the editorial side. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? […]

For her feature debut, Jacqueline Olive examines the death of Lennon Lacy, a black 17-year-old who was found hanging from a swing set in his North Carolina home town. Though his death was quickly ruled a suicide by the authorities, his mother, Claudia, was understandably suspicious, given America’s long, far from resolved history of racialized violence. Editor and co-writer Don Bernier (whose recent credits include Charm City) spoke via email about how he worked on the project, which he first learned of in 2014 but didn’t officially join until last year. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor […]

Tracking “economic nationalist” and Deplorables-rouser Stephen Bannon from summer 2017 to fall of last year, The Brink follows Bannon as he tries to rebrand himself, post-White House, as a unifier of the European alt-right, culminating in the defeat of his preferred candidates on Election Night 2018. Director Alison Klayman shot the film and edited alongside Marina Katz and Brian Goetz. Via email, the latter two editors spoke about the challenges of assembling the documentary on a tight turnaround. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]

Samantha Jayne’s Quarter Life Poetry began life as a Tumblr and Instagram, transforming her millennial 20something experiences into doodles and poems. Now it’s an ambitious series set to premiere on FX Networks later this year, brought to life with director Arturo Perez Jr. helming all ten episodes. Via email, Zach Siegel gets technical about the difference ten (or even four) frames can make when timing a laugh, invisible VFX work and learning how to edit during the boom of branded content. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that […]

Lucas Heyne’s feature debut Mope is based on the lurid case of aspirant porn star Stephen Hill (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and his best friend, whose porn name was Tom Dong (Kelly Sry). In 2010, Hill went on a rampage with a machete, a story is told in this LA Weekly story from 2011, forming the basis for this porn-milieu drama. Heyne called on his friend Kern Saxton to edit. Via email, Saxton described the challenges of cutting down two and a half hours, filmed in an improvisatory style, into a tight 105 minutes. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of […]

Drawing on his longtime friendship with the legendary novelist, photographer and documentarian Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am paints a full, intimate portrait of her life and work. An assistant editor since 2000 whose first credit as an editor came in 2003, Johanna Giebelahus helped shape the copious material onhand. Via email, Giebelhaus spoke about the process of shaping a whole life into a documentary package. 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? Giebelhaus: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am is the […]

Australian editor and cinematographer Bryan Mason has collaborated with director Sophie Hyde before; their first was 52 Tuesdays, a mother-daughter drama in which the latter is transitioning genders. Adapted by Emma Jane Unsworth from her novel, Animals examines another kind of relationship at a moment of change, tracking two Dublin friends in their early 30s whose years of boozing and companionship are starting to be too much to handle. Also serving as the project’s DP, via email Mason discussed the challenges of editing a project with input coming from Australia, the UK and Ireland, getting lost in early edits, and reshaping the […]