Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124770
39 Q2 2019 / CINEMONTAGE On May 31, Netflix released a four-part, limited series about this tragic story, entitled When They See Us. Written and directed by Ava DuVernay (A Wrinkle in Time, 2018; Queen Sugar, 2016-present; Selma, 2014) and shot on location in New York City by Bradford Young, ASC. Terilyn A. Shropshire, ACE, cut Part 1 with her assistant editor Mindy Elliott, while Spencer Averick, ACE, edited Parts 2 and 4 with assistant Rachel Eisenberg, and Michelle Tesoro, ACE, handled Part 3 with assistant Katherine M. Shafer. Jen Monnar was supervising music editor and Rolf Fleischmann served as visual effects editor. To a person, everyone involved in the editing of When They See Us emphasized that, although it's called a limited series, the task was essentially to edit four feature films on a premium TV schedule. The editors prefer to refer to each of the four portions as "parts" instead of "episodes." PART 1 "Any time you're telling a story based on true events and actual people, you're going to have people who know the story — or think they know the story — and others who are coming into it fresh," explains Shropshire, who has known DuVernay since before the latter became a filmmaker, and who served as an additional editor on the director's A Wrinkle in Time. "When you're editing, as a storyteller, you have to forget what you know and be the first audience to the film's narrative. It's important to try to bring people into the story on an emotional level and disseminate information that will be important to help them follow the arc of the characters through the next three segments. If you don't care about the five boys in the beginning, it'll be hard to hold viewers' attention throughout." During production, DuVernay often had to shoot scenes out of order. "It was important to her to get feedback from what we were seeing — or not seeing," the editor says. "Communication from all three of us editors was extremely important to ensure that she was getting what she needed in production." DuVernay likes to sit and watch the cut, give notes and then go away and let the editor work, Shropshire relates, adding, "Ava is intuitive and her notes are so incredibly smart." With the three editors working in adjacent cutting rooms, DuVernay would move from one to the other, seeing how each part was developing. "What was great is that I also had the benefit of the perspective of the other editors," Shropshire adds. "We would go in and look at each others' cuts. I felt it was a very collaborative environment." Although there are four parts to the series, "Each one had its own story and rhythm, because they're all told in different periods of time for each boy's journey." by Debra Kaufman • portraits by Martin Cohen I n 1989, five teenagers of color were arrested and accused of the rape and brutal beating of a white woman who had been jogging in Central Park. Although the DNA on the rape kit didn't match any of the young men, they were first coerced to "confess" and convicted by juries in two separate trials in 1990. Dubbed the Central Park Five, the boys became men during their six to 13 years in prison before a convicted serial rapist confessed to the attacks in 2002. When They See Us. Netflix Opposite: Clockwise from bottom left: Mindy Elliott, Rolf Fleischmann, Katherine Shafer, Spencer Averick, Terilyn Shropshire, Rachel Eisenberg, Michelle Tesoro and Jen Monnar.