Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
55 Q4 2018 / CINEMONTAGE not want to get it wrong. Knowing that this is the first American feature film adaptation of James Baldwin's work left us with some pretty big shoes to fill. NS: I personally wasn't as concerned plot- wise with sticking exactly to what was in the book, but I know Joi and I were always trying to keep Baldwin's words intact as much as possible, especially in the voiceover. All of it is delivered by Tish [KiKi Layne]; some of it is written from the perspective of a naïve, innocent 19-year-old, and some of it is directly in the voice of Baldwin, the writer and intellectual. There was discussion in post as to whether this duality worked, and that maybe we should trim some of the Baldwinesque language. But his words were so powerful and brought so much context to the project that Joi and I were two of the voices that fought really hard to protect and preserve them. CM: The film has a complex structure with flashbacks and flash-forwards. Does that come from the book or script, or was that you guys experimenting in the cutting room? NS: The back-and-forth structure is in the book. But for us, the structure was definitely the most challenging aspect of our edit and the place where we spent most of our time. The first act had a set structure, but after that the story goes in a lot of different directions and, because it isn't overly plot-driven, could've been told in any number of different orders. For the vast majority of the film, we found our scene cuts and performances pretty quickly and we weren't really tinkering with the nuance of the individual scenes. It was really the macro that we spent time on. CM: What did that look like? NS: We had our post PA, Israel Vasquez, make a board with a picture and thumbnail description for every scene in the film. We would spend a lot of time sitting in the living room of the house where we were cutting, staring at the board and discussing the possibilities. Barry would shift things around and we would talk about why that would or wouldn't work, and the ripple effects, both good and bad. Barry, Joi and I together worked really hard to make sure the last draft of the film was the best possible version If Beale Street Could Talk. Annapurna Pictures