Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124770
40 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2019 Elliott says that one major challenge in working on Part 1 was keeping up with the story structure. "The way our part was scripted, it was fashioned around flashbacks," she explains. "So the chronology of the part was always in flux. We played around a lot with structure, exploring a lot of different variations. Just keeping track of where we'd move a single line within the sequence of events was difficult. It has a domino effect in terms of sound design as well." (See related story on the show's sound crew on Page 44.) The assistant editor continues: "Ava had the artistic foresight to shoot really interesting, lyrical images that could be used throughout the part. We could pick them up anywhere as a flashback to the boys' earlier lives. It was good to think big and inclusively about the entire series up front. Ava's process expands out rather than narrows down. The vision becomes bigger as you're working." Elliot learned a lot, again, from working with Shropshire. "She is forever trying to return to that objective state, trying to put us in the audience's perspective, coming to it for the first time," she says. "That was a valuable touchstone for me." Music played an important role in the entire limited series, and music editor Monnar, who had been brought on to give a new direction to the temp track, describes its importance for Part 1. "It needed more shape, more energy, more emotion," she recalls. "The subject matter is quite difficult and the music needed to support that." In Part 1, we see the interrogations of the boys and their coerced confessions. "A lot of Part 1 is the boys being interviewed and threatened as the detectives fabricate a false narrative," she explains. "The music needed to get across that these were boys, scared children, while keeping the pace going." Monnar says her first task is to watch the cut "in whatever stage it's in" and talk to DuVernay and each part's picture editor to get a feel for tone and approach. "Sometimes I'll have a composer or score in mind," she says. "I go from there and start putting pieces of music in to see how it works against picture." To set the time period of 30 years ago, old- school East Coast hip-hop was chosen, she reveals. "There's some great music in the show that had a lot to do with the storytelling." Shropshire reports that when she began work on Part 1, neither Monnar nor visual effects editor Fleischman had joined the production. "But once Rolf was on, he was next door, and I could go and ask for help with a comp," the editor says, noting that effects played an important role in returning New York City streets to 1989. Fleischmann relates that one of his tasks was to recreate the original façade of the Schomburg Towers, where one of the protagonists grew up. "It had changed in the years subsequent and had to be restored," he explains. He also worked as a de facto one-man previsualization department and put together the occasional "Frankenstein" scene: marrying performances from different shots. Throughout the parts, 317 visual effects — almost all of them created at FuseFX, and a handful at Cadence Effects — transformed 2018 streets back to the 1980s. "Ava likes to shoot guerilla-style and tried to get a lot of coverage as quickly as possible," he says. "We had to either obscure production elements or do period fixes. We couldn't have a Prius driving by…" Assistant editor Mindy Elliott, left, and editor Terilyn Shropshire. Supervising music editor Jen Monnar and visual effects editor Rolf Fleischmann.