What drew you to The Friend?
To be honest, what first drew me to The Friend was not the film, but the filmmakers. I had previously worked with directors Scott McGeHee and David Siegel, as well as their producing partner Mike Spreter, on the film Montana Story. That was our first collaboration and I found them to be sensitive storytellers, as well skilled filmmakers and overall great folks. I was very excited when they reached out about collaborating again.
The next draw for me was the source material. Scott and David sent me a copy of Sigrid Nunez’s wonderful book and I read it in one sitting. It very delicately balances grief and musings about craft with a very charming story of connection and communication between humans and animals.
The final draw and real cherry on top was the cast. As an editor, performance really is my north star as I build a scene and there is nothing better than having the performances of an incredible actor to work with. I had been such a huge fan of Naomi Watts for such a long time. I count Mulholland Drive as one of my favourite films; not to mention her amazing work in Funny Games, The Impossible and Luce. I wasn’t going to turn down a chance to edit her footage. And I grew up on a steady diet of Bill Murray films. The biggest draw though, was of course Bing.
How did you approach bringing the story to life with your edit?
I realised early on that the story of the film is really a two-hander. It is not just the story of Iris, played by Naomi Watts, overcoming the loss of her mentor and subsequent burden of being bequeathed his dog. It is also the story of Apollo – himself now an orphan in the world, learning to trust and love his new owner. The film sprung to life once I began to approach Apollo as a full fledged character in the film and not merely as a device.
I will often approach a scene by asking “who does this scene belong to?” By which I mean, whose point of view are we participating in or whose narrative is being changed during the scene. Often times that is the lead, but in this case the revelation that a scene could actually “belong” to the dog, freed me up to edit in a way that gave their relationship much more complexity.
Was the film edited during production or after it had wrapped?
I edited remotely as production was filming. Often times, I like to build a full assembly of a film or an episode of television – complete with temp sound design and score – before sharing. However, with The Friend, we found it very helpful to share work in progress scenes from the previous days shoot just to be certain the filmmakers had captured the necessary footage from Bing. In a couple instances, this did lead to going back and picking up some extra footage.
Did you edit remotely or work on-prem. If a hybrid, what was the rough split?
I live in Los Angeles and the filmmakers are New Yorkers through and through, so remote work flow was always going to be part of the equation. Our previous film, Montana Story, was edited entirely remotely over Evercast, during the pandemic when in person workflow was not even an option. In fact, I never met Scott and David in person until the premiere of that film at the Toronto Film Festival.
When it came to editing The Friend, our previous experience assured us the remote workflow was possible. So I spent the time of production as well as the first 3 months of our directors cut working from my converted garage. And then for the last 6 weeks, I flew to New York for test screenings and sound mixes, etc that benefitted from in person work.
What editing tools did you work with and why did you choose them?
We used Adobe Premiere, which is my editing software of choice. For my personal system I used a Mac Studio Pro with two monitors, including one ultra-wide that I prefer for my sequences. The footage and project was stored on a collaborative cloud server. My assistant editor, Cameron Ross, and I were both able to access the project remotely via Premier’s production workflow. Once production wrapped, the filmmakers and I collaborated over Evercast and sending assemblies via Frame.io.
Can you explain the process you went through editing the film?
The process for editing is typically the same for me from project to project.
I start the day by reviewing the scenes I cut the previous day. Often times, a good night sleep will allow me to look at a scene with fresh eyes and I can usually quickly identify issues I had spent hours struggling with the day before. This time with the previous day’s edits also gives my AE, Cameron Ross, time to ingest and organise footage that was shot on set the previous day.
Once I am ready to move on, I will look at the call sheet and identify which scenes will be coming in. I will then re-read the script pages for those scenes to re-familiarise myself with their intent and how they fit into the larger story.
Once the footage has been prepared, I begin on a scene by watching all the takes. I like to watch all the footage from a scene before diving into the timeline. This allows me to identify the director’s intent with blocking and camera, as well as identify performances and takes that I feel will be my north star emotionally.
The rest of the day is spent editing. I do my best to keep up with the pace they are shooting on set, though sometimes it is harder than others. Once I feel like a scene has taken a solid shape, I will do sound work and if needed try to find some temp music options. If I feel like it is 80 per cent of the way there, I will then put it on a shelf and look at it again with fresh eyes the following morning.
This is my day-to-day during assemblies. I find the best workflow is to find a structure and rhythm to my schedule that allows me to take it step by step and not get overwhelmed by the big picture.
How much footage did you have to edit? Were there a lot of takes?
There was A LOT. As you can imagine, part of shooting a film with a canine main character is just shooting a lot of footage and hoping you got what you need. In some ways, I felt like I had to rely on my learned skills from documentary editing, where continuity is not always the main concern, and identify ways to tell a story without the usual guardrails of consistent coverage.
All that said, Scott & David, as well as their DP Giles Nuttgens, have made many films and are consummate professionals. They did a lot of rehearsing with Bing before takes and thankfully spared me and my hard drives from many of the steps along the way.
Apart from the obvious canine factor, in what ways did working on the film differ from your previous projects?
Every project has it’s own set of challenges and aside from the obvious canine factor, a big challenge on The Friend was trying to convey Iris’ interiority in a way that felt natural and cinematic.
Sigrid’s book utilises a lot of first person monologue, which is not necessarily transferable to film. While the filmmakers did decide to incorporate voice over, much of the movie still takes place without dialogue. The challenge was finding ways to make these scenes of quiet communication between Iris and Apollo tell the story we wanted without feeling flat or slow. Thankfully, it’s hard to get bored when Bing’s big blue eyes are staring back at you.
What was the biggest challenge you faced on the film and how did you overcome it?
Maybe not the biggest challenge, but an unexpected one for me was sound. I did not anticipate that Bing’s trainer and owner would have to be talking over a lot of the footage, rendering it essentially MOS.
For me, even in the assembly stage, sound is such an important tool in my toolkit and without the recorded audio, Apollo felt extremely dull and disconnected. To overcome this challenge, I spent an afternoon following my own dog – a 65 lb Pitbull named Blue – around my house recording his footfalls, barking, eating and snoring. These became the temp sound design of Apollo and some of it is still in the film !
Did you get to meet Bing at all?
I did!! And I was completely star struck. Bing (and his owner Bev) joined us at the premiere of The Friend at the Telluride film festival and I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say he was the biggest star in town 🙂
