Interviews
Interviews
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“Chronic Illness Doesn’t Lead to Tidy Endings”: Editor Kim Roberts on Unrest
Jennifer Brea had a challenge: to make a film from bed. Brea was a PhD student at Harvard when a sudden illness left her bedridden. She sought to create a documentary portrait of her experience and found support from labs at Sundance, IFP and elsewhere. She premiered Unrest, her debut film, in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Kim Roberts, an editor and writer on the film, spoke with Filmmaker about what drew her to the project and finding the right tone for a story this personal. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What […]
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Working Through Fear: An Interview with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum
Driving down Beverly, you head opposite Hollywood, away from Studio City, toward the nondescript, single-level, brown-bricked building that’s the literal Blumhouse — the offices of horror movie maestro Jason Blum. Since founding the company, Blum has produced dozens of films that have made varying degrees of impact on the zeitgeist: the found-footage scares of the Paranormal Activity films, the reinvented haunted house of the Insidious pictures, the social violence of The Purge series. And then, of course, there’s megahit Get Out, Jordan Peele’s ferociously intelligent satire on racism that, despite its share of lobotomies and knifings and violently applied white […]
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“Editing Is an Unending Series of Difficult Decisions”: Editor Peter Kinoy on 500 YEARS
For director Pamela Yates and her colleagues at Skylight, 500 YEARS marks the end of a documentary trilogy on Guatemala. The film follows When the Mountains Tremble (1983) and Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011), both of which screened in previous years at the Sundance Film Festival. Veteran documentary editor Peter Kinoy edited all three films. Below, he discusses Skylight’s unique model as both a human rights organization and a film production company. 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? Kinoy: I […]
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“The Horror of Modern Warfare”: Editor Joe Klotz on The Yellow Birds
French filmmaker Alexandre Moors made his feature debut in 2013 with Blue Caprice, an acclaimed indie inspired by the 2002 Washington, DC sniper attacks. He returns to Sundance (where Blue Caprice premiered) in 2017 with The Yellow Birds, an Iraq War drama screening in competition. Moors hired Joe Klotz to edit The Yellow Birds in part based on his affection for The Paperboy, one of three Lee Daniels films Klotz has edited. Below, Klotz discusses how he and Moors balanced “the fragmented nature of time” in the script with their mandate to tell a coherent narrative. The Yellow Birds will screen six times during the […]
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Writer/Directing/Editor José María Cabral on Sundance Prison Drama Woodpeckers
Dominican writer/director José María Cabral has made several feature films at the age of just 28. His latest, Woodpeckers (Carpinteros), tells a love story inside the Najayo Prison in the Dominican Republic. As he’s done on most of his features to date, Cabral served as the editor on Woodpeckers. Below, Cabral discusses the challenges of editing this film, which relies heavily on a form of prison sign language (or wood-pecking) for communication. Woodpeckers premiered in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to […]
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“A Huge Historical Project”: Editor Kim Miille on Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities
MacArthur Fellow Stanley Nelson has devoted his career to documentary explorations of the African American experience. The 65-year-old director/producer has made films on Marcus Garvey, the Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers. His most recent film is Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities, which premiered this week at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Nelson hired editor Kim Miille to cut the film. Below, Miille shares her thoughts on historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), making archival photos and letters cinematic and her origins as an editor. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
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Directors Saschka Unseld and Lily Baldwin on Editing Sundance VR Experience Through You
Saschka Unseld and Lily Baldwin explore the phases and facets of love in Through You, a dance-infused VR piece that premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Unseld is an animator who directed the Pixar short The Blue Umbrella and is a cofounder of Oculus Story Studio, a VR media company. Baldwin arrived at filmmaking by way of dance, having worked with everyone from the Metropolitan Opera Ballet to David Byrne. As a creative challenge, the two decided to edit Through You themselves. Below, Unseld and Baldwin discuss the roughly 150-200 hours they spent editing a 14-minute VR experience. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“We Never Wanted to Treat the Film as a Comedy”: DP Christian Sprenger on Brigsby Bear
In 2007 a group of four comics and creators joined to form Good Neighbor, a sketch comedy team that would go on to breach the ranks of Saturday Night Live. The group is known mostly for Kyle Mooney, a weirdo comic voice whose left-of-center SNL skits often get cut for time. Mooney stars in Good Neighbor’s feature film debut, Brigsby Bear, directed by fellow group member Dave McCary. The film tells the story of a secluded young man with an unhealthy obsession with a TV show literally no one has ever seen. Below, DP Christian Sprenger speaks to the film’s tricky tone, which eschews […]
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“The Grandeur of this Exceptional Human”: DP Alice Gu on Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
Among the world’s most well-known surfers, Laird Hamilton has surfed professionally since he was 17 years old. Now in his 50s, he’s the subject of a documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Rory Kennedy. Take Every Wave offers a profile of Hamilton as a surfing innovator, celebrity and family man. Below, DP Alice Gu discusses the challenges of shooting this fast-moving, larger-than-life figure. Gu, one of two DPs on the project, goes into detail on the cameras and lenses required for the project. Take Every Wave will screen four times during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind […]
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“A More Elegant and Softer Image Inspired by Turn of the Century Painters”: DP Kat Westergaard on Novitiate
Director Maggie Betts and DP Kat Westergaard became creative partners on The Carrier, a 2010 documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The two worked together again on a 2014 short (Engram) and again on Novitiate, which debuted at Sundance last week. The film marks Betts’ fiction feature debut and stars Margaret Qualley and Melissa Leo. Westergaard spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the festival about the film’s painterly aesthetic, lighting challenges and “ghostly intimacy.” Novitiate will screen in competition six times during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led […]
