Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/914212
59 Q4 2017 / CINEMONTAGE being real all the way through. You can always steal a reaction from somewhere else too, and sometimes that can be very effective. I worked on this really good movie several years ago called Disconnect [2012], and in one scene, the director, Henry Alex Ruben, did one of the craziest things that I absolutely loved. After getting all of the takes he needed, he asked the actors to do the scene without any dialogue — do all the action and blocking but don't speak. It was great for reactions and clean action and sound. We wound up using a lot of it. It was a crazy idea, but really effective. CM: You've worked with many different directors, but you seem to be Alexander Payne's go-to guy. Tell me about that relationship? KT: We're very close after all these years of working together. We spend a lot of time together and have a very respectful relationship. We really talk about specifics — how we can get out of situations, how we can make things better all the time. He's very respectful of all his crew and actors, so he always gets the best out of people. CM: What's your actual methodology of collaborating with him? KT: We usually work together to build the scenes, but sometimes I say, "I think there's a better scene here. Let me work on this myself and tomorrow morning I'll show it to you." He's very good about experimenting with structure, like "Let's watch the movie without that scene." One of the reasons I love working with him is that he is always willing to take a fresh look at something. He does that every day while we're cutting. He's constantly experimenting with stuff, which is great. There's always compromise. We had a lot of screenings on Downsizing; many of them were in the cutting room with just 10 people. We had small screenings at the Paramount lot, and we had a bunch of bigger previews. CM: How did preview screenings affect the cutting of Downsizing? KT: Well, the biggest thing that happened out of our previews was that we cut out a big, huge storyteller/narrator element from the head and the tail of the movie. Originally, there was an old man in a cave from 8,000 years in the future telling a bunch of children around a campfire the story of Paul Safranek. It was really funny dialogue, and voiceover from the old storyteller peppered the movie throughout. Then we met him again at the end. It made the movie even funnier and weirder than it is now. It was a tough loss. But as good as it was, it seemed our audience lost patience and we realized we had to get to Paul's introduction as soon as we could. The scene and the narration added another three or four minutes to the top of the movie, which made it longer to get to Matt Damon's character. You can let some suspense build, but in Downsizing, and most movies, audiences want to know who they're supposed to be following, what the movie's about and how they're supposed to be feeling about it. Then they can settle back, relax and get taken on the journey. But if you don't get them right in the beginning and hold their hand for a little, you have the potential for not ever getting them engaged in the movie. That's my theory at least. CM: There are a lot of different tones in the film: the excitement, fun and comedy of the Leisure Land intro, and then the more somber and thoughtful series of goodbyes and "smallness" issues. What were the discussions balancing how long to be in each of those tonal sections? KT: That's the tricky thing with all of Alexander's movies, and this one was no different. It's hard to remember all the many adjustments, deletions and additions