What happens when a frustrated film editor grabs snack food and final cut? 1,904 words. Illustration by Thomas Warming.
3:03, 2:52, 2:37, 2:30, 2:13, 2:04 to under 2 hours. The length of the rough cuts corresponded to Shannon’s weight in reverse. As the film shrunk, her body ballooned under a steady stream of snacks, food fending off fatigue.
Hollywood was awash with the adage that the behind-the-scenes stories from the making of a film were often more interesting than the film itself, but no one ever said that about post-production. Post-production rarely generated gossip. Unlike the larger than life personalities that dominated a film set, post attracted a tribe of filmmakers who were frequently introverted, soft-spoken and respectful — the librarians of cinema.
Shannon still needed to chop 10 minutes from the film. “I’ve listened to this a thousand times and I can’t tell if the clown’s saying ‘Gosh’ or ‘Gus’. Neither line is in the production draft or script supervisor notes.” Shannon rarely made eye contact with her director. Monitoring his reflection on the large display screen suspended above the editing bay was intimidating enough.
Jeffrey “the film needs to breathe” Harwell stopped texting one of his girlfriends long enough to address Shannon’s concern. “‘Gosh’? Nobody uses that dumbass white bread word anymore. Not even the jerkoff screenwriter we overpaid. Cut out all improvs. Every fucking word!! ‘Gosh’? ‘Gosh’?? ‘Gosh’??? Asshole actors vomiting verbal diarrhea all over my fucking movie!” Like many directors, Jeffrey took most of the credit but little of the blame for his film’s failures. Like many editors, Shannon knew that only by pretending to be subservient to the director’s whims was she able to be in just as much as control as he. She also knew that this director would conveniently forget his edict about improvs when an actor added something clever to the dialogue.
effort Once Upon A Midnight earned her a Best Directing nomination this year, has vanished. Hessman has not been seen since the Academy nominees luncheon on February 6, though she was not officially reported missing until yesterday when she failed to show up for her Oscar gown fitting. Hessman’s cell phone was tracked to a dumpster where it was found inside a Prada purse containing her ID and credit cards.
intelligent and intense that most people feared him. Fortunately, I had grown up around a man with fierce eyes, my grandfather. Being his favorite, I was the only one of his grandchildren permitted to sit on his knee and – privilege of privilege – play with his beret.
