Interviews
Interviews
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“Blissful Madness!”: Lucas Celler on Editing Sandi Tan’s Documentary Shirkers
Twenty-some years ago, Sandi Tan and her friends shot a 16mm thriller called Shirkers. It was a guerilla-style production in her home country of Singapore. The film, however, was never finished because a member of the crew – the mysterious Georges – stole all the footage and disappeared. Tan’s new documentary, Shirkers, is an experimental dive into that footage and what it meant to her as a young filmmaker. Tan hired filmmaker Lucas Celler to edit and give shape to the film. Below, Celler discusses editing this “collage film, constructed with everything from video to film to photos to maps to […]
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“A Film about the Trials and Tribulations of Artists”: Editor Sabine Krayenbühl on The Price of Everything
Sabine Krayenbühl began her career as an editor in 1994 with a number of small shorts and features. Her breakthrough came in 2003 with My Architect, a documentary on architect Louis Kahn directed by his song Nathaniel. She has since edited more than 10 feature-length docs, including the 2016 film Letters from Baghdad, which she directed. She reunites with Nathaniel Kahn for The Price of Everything, a documentary look at the contemporary art world, which, as she says below, “values money above everything.” Krayenbühl spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the film’s five screenings at Sundance about her editing process. Filmmaker: How and why […]
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“It Would Have Ruined the Film if We Had Made it More Pleasant”: Editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm on Holiday
Danish filmmaker Olivia Neergaard-Holm was one of three directors on last year’s Criterion-anointed documentary David Lynch: The Art Life. Neergaard-Holm has edited a dozen shorts and features since 2010, including the single-take German thriller Victoria and the Danish horror drama Shelley. She most recently edited Holiday, the debut feature from director Isabella Eklöf, which appears in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Neergaard-Holm spoke with Filmmaker about Holiday‘s tricky gender politics and why it was important for the film to maintain a “cold, cynical and misogynistic vibe.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the […]
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“I Started Editing by Accident”: Editor Sofia Subercaseaux on Tyrel
Sofia Subercaseaux readily admits to editing her first feature film with the aid of “tutorials on YouTube.” That film, Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, went on to premiere at Sundance in 2013. She has since gone on to edit Nasty Baby, Christine and Dina – all of which debuted at Sundance in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. This year she edited two films at the festival: Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing and Sebastián Silva’s Tyrel. Below, Subercaseaux discusses her continued collaboration with Silva and the “instinctual and easy to navigate” feel of editing on Adobe Premiere. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“Time and Access to Justice Ginsburg Was Very Limited”: Cinematographer Claudia Raschke on RBG
Few figures remain as adored among liberal Americans as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite this, and like all her fellow justices, the public has little access to Ginsburg as a human being. One isn’t likely to see photos of a Supreme Court justice at dinner or in a Starbucks line. Hence the enormous appeal of RBG, a new documentary on the life of Justice Ginsburg from directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West. The film makes its debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. RBG‘s cinematographer, Claudia Raschke, discusses the high-stakes shoot and the importance of all-woman team on this project below. Filmmaker: How and why […]
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“People Always Laugh at Me for Pulling out a $1,000 Camera to Shoot Alongside an Alexa”: DP Sam Chase on Paint
Writer/director Michael Walker returns to the Sundance Film Festival for the first time since Price Check, his 2012 comedy/drama starring Parker Posey and a pre-fame Amy Schumer. His new work, Paint, is an episodic series about three young artists living together in Brooklyn. Walker tapped Sam Chase to shoot and coproduce the series. Chase previously shot Price Check along with more than 25 shorts, features and series. Below, he discusses his love of the Black Magic Pocket Camera and why Hangover 2 is the work of a “coverage and lighting genius.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer […]
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Melba Robichaux on Editing the Zellner Brothers’ Comedy/Western Damsel
Brothers David and Nathan Zellner are a reliable presence at the Sundance Film Festival. Their films Baghead (2008), Goliath (2008), Kid-Thing (2012) and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014) have all premiered at Sundance. To that list they now add Damsel, their new comedy/western starring Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska. Damsel editor Melba Robichaux spoke with Filmmaker before the film’s premiere about some of the key questions one asks during the process of editing a feature film. 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 […]
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“The Psychedelic Colors of the Earth”: Cinematographer Jarred Alterman on Bisbee ’17
Documentary filmmaker Jarred Alterman began his career on an unlikely note: as the director of more than a dozen episodes of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s animated show Tom Goes to the Mayor. Alterman would later serve as the DP on Contemporary Color, a 2016 concert film starring David Byrne. He collaborated on that film with Robert Greene, the esteemed documentary filmmaker and indie film editor. Alterman shot Greene’s latest non-fiction creation, Bisbee ’17, which screens in competition at Sundance. Alterman spoke with Filmmaker about the film’s western aesthetic, singular setting and unique blend of scripted and documentary scenes. Filmmaker: How and why […]
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“My Past as a Dancer Has a Big Influence on How I Work”: Editor Charlotte Munch Bengtsen on The Last Race
Charlotte Munch Bengtsen began her career as an editor in the mid-2000s on a number of documentaries and shorts. Her break came in 2012 when Joshua Oppenheimer hired her as an editor on his seismic work The Act of Killing. Munch Bengtsen’s newest project is The Last Race, the feature doc debut from visual artist Michael Dweck. Below, she shares her thoughts on the importance of test screenings, rushes and how her experience as a dancer influences her work as an editor. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes […]
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“1970s Independent Movies Had the Biggest Influence on the Look”: DP Markus Mentzer on Clara’s Ghost
Bridey Elliott makes her debut as a feature writer/director with Clara’s Ghost, which premieres in the NEXT program at Sundance 2018. Elliott has appeared as an actor on Silicon Valley, Battle of the Sexes and Steven Soderbergh’s HBO series Mosaic. Her first short film, Affections, also premiered at Sundance in 2016. To achieve the specific, ’70s-inspired aesthetic she was after for Clara’s Ghost, Bridey hired DP Markus Mentzer. Mentzer makes his debut here as a feature film DP, though he worked as a 1st AC on last year’s The Disaster Artist and Detroit. Below, Mentzer goes deep on the logistics of shooting a feature […]
