On often overlooked element of both film and television is the edit, the process that pulls the narrative together in such a way that all the footage filmed is compiled to make the most sense thematically and dramatically. On Andor, that task fell to BAFTA and Emmy winning editor Yan Miles (Game of Thrones, Sherlock, The Crown) and speaking with Gold Derby he discussed the editing process, including the now infamous Ghorman Massacre and the presense of Syril Kaan.
Another impactful sequence concludes Imperial lackey Syril Karn’s (Kyle Soller) arc — all without any lines of dialogue. Amid the mayhem, Miles shifts to slow-motion, an out-of-the-ordinary but fitting stylistic flourish in the otherwise grounded Tony Gilroy-created series. “He’s witnessing it — it’s gone beyond the beyond,” Miles said. “Lasers going past, people being shot, but he’s just standing there like he’s bulletproof. He’s lost in it all. He doesn’t care anymore. Everything’s just gone.”
Then the question becomes for Syril: “Who are you?” It’s posed during his hand-to-hand brawl with Cassian, the man he’s spent years chasing. “In the scene with ‘who are you?,’ there was a lot of debate on set,” Miles shared. “Tony wrote it, ‘Who are you?’ Tony, [director] Janus Metz, Diego, and the people around asked, ‘Are there any other versions where Cassian does remember Syril?’ We did a cut where he does remember and says, ‘It’s you,’ and then Syril lowers the gun.”
That debate was quickly resolved in post-production. “I told Tony I have the other version,” Miles said. “He went, ‘No, no, no, no, it is, ‘Who are you?’ Andor doesn’t know this guy. This guy’s a nobody. It’s the worst thing that could happen to any of us, isn’t it? You could be doing something for years and years and one day you wake up and you’re like, ‘Who the hell am I? What am I doing?’ That’s life itself. Tony’s words were, ‘Who are you?’”
Gilroy joked to Miles that if he didn’t use that line, then he couldn’t keep the slow-motion shot of Syril. “Tony’s genius is, if you’re going to do something bold — like a slow spin shot or a poetic line — you have to earn it,” Miles added. “Otherwise, it doesn’t belong in this universe.”
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