The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker editor Maryann Brandon discusses her process and how she structures the edit of a film with Steve Hullfish from ProVideo Coalition.
HULLFISH: With Star Wars, once production was done and you’d assembled the first cut, what kind of structural discussions or decisions were made and how did that process play out?
BRANDON: Well, we’d sit down and we’d all watch it — my co-editor, Stefan Grube and I and J.J. and the writer Chris Terrio, and the producer Michelle (Rejwan) and Kathleen (Kennedy) Everyone would throw in their version of what their impression was and what story we’re telling, and we looked for the clearest, best story performance and came up with where we were going and what the balance would be.
It’s an evolving process, like any film. Once it’s up in front of you, you can see the strengths and weaknesses and what’s working and what’s not working, and we just tried to balance it. There’s nothing very specific to talk about because like all films, you take one thing out of one place and it works better out of the film or in another place, and you try a bunch of stuff that intellectually you think will work and throw it up there again and see if it does work.
Daisy Ridley is Rey and Adam Driver is Kylo Ren in STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
HULLFISH: Did you use scene cards on a wall to help do that structural stuff? Or no?
BRANDON: I have done that in the past. They’re great to just remember what scenes are what. I don’t find myself using them that much because I didn’t sort of grew up in the business with them. We did use some scene cards on this film for the battle at the end because we were trying to figure out where to intercut going back to Rey fighting the Emperor or going back to the battle up above. So we used scene cards to sort of break that down and switch it around, but pretty much, once we did that initially, we abandoned it.
But it does definitely give you a visual if you have a big bulk of scenes like that, and oftentimes when they’re shooting a scene like that, especially with a lot of visual effects, the numbering system isn’t really going to help you, so scene 235 doesn’t necessarily come after scene, 201.
It’s great to have the script and the script supervisor’s notes, but they’re not helpful. The scene cards are more helpful for that.
It’s a fascinating interview, explaining how Brandon utilizes music, previs, sound effects , certain scenes that were added late in the day and more to construct a working edit, and well worth a thorough read.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker editor Maryann Brandon discusses her process and how she structures the edit of a film with Steve Hullfish from ProVideo Coalition.
HULLFISH: With Star Wars, once production was done and you’d assembled the first cut, what kind of structural discussions or decisions were made and how did that process play out?
BRANDON: Well, we’d sit down and we’d all watch it — my co-editor, Stefan Grube and I and J.J. and the writer Chris Terrio, and the producer Michelle (Rejwan) and Kathleen (Kennedy) Everyone would throw in their version of what their impression was and what story we’re telling, and we looked for the clearest, best story performance and came up with where we were going and what the balance would be.
It’s an evolving process, like any film. Once it’s up in front of you, you can see the strengths and weaknesses and what’s working and what’s not working, and we just tried to balance it. There’s nothing very specific to talk about because like all films, you take one thing out of one place and it works better out of the film or in another place, and you try a bunch of stuff that intellectually you think will work and throw it up there again and see if it does work.
Daisy Ridley is Rey and Adam Driver is Kylo Ren in STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
HULLFISH: Did you use scene cards on a wall to help do that structural stuff? Or no?
BRANDON: I have done that in the past. They’re great to just remember what scenes are what. I don’t find myself using them that much because I didn’t sort of grew up in the business with them. We did use some scene cards on this film for the battle at the end because we were trying to figure out where to intercut going back to Rey fighting the Emperor or going back to the battle up above. So we used scene cards to sort of break that down and switch it around, but pretty much, once we did that initially, we abandoned it.
But it does definitely give you a visual if you have a big bulk of scenes like that, and oftentimes when they’re shooting a scene like that, especially with a lot of visual effects, the numbering system isn’t really going to help you, so scene 235 doesn’t necessarily come after scene, 201.
It’s great to have the script and the script supervisor’s notes, but they’re not helpful. The scene cards are more helpful for that.
It’s a fascinating interview, explaining how Brandon utilizes music, previs, sound effects , certain scenes that were added late in the day and more to construct a working edit, and well worth a thorough read.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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