Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1262492
50 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E "I try to put dialogue scenes together and have them play as quick as possible without losing comprehension," Sanford said, adding that care must be taken to avoid overloading the audience. "If you simply ping-pong back and forth and have everybody on camera saying their lines as fast as possible, that rhythm gets exhausting. Part of the trick of 'Maisel' is to find ways to vary the rhythm so it's not just a 'Dragnet' kind of back-and-forth." Over the course of three seasons, San- ford and Streeto have found that cutting from comedic hijinks to more serious scenes is one way to give audiences a bit of a breather. "We then suddenly will pump the brakes and give these dramatic beats their due," said Streeto, adding that the basic story features many elements that are grist for the dramatic mill. "It's a story of a woman struggling in a society that's structured against her," he said. "She's going through a divorce, which is difficult. She's had relationships which are difficult for her to manage." Sanford will press the showrunners to allow more time for a dramatic moment within what is basically a comedic scene. Episode 5 of Season 2, "Midnight at the Concord," features a key scene in which Midge performs one of her stand-up routines in front of an audience that includes her father, Abe — the first time he has attended one of his daugh- ter's sets. In general, Sanford said that scenes showing Midge doing stand-up are among the most challenging to get into shape simply due to the volume of coverage. "Typically, three cameras for each take and many passes," Sanford said. For this scene, the editor lobbied for pauses in between the jokes to focus on the relationship between Midge and Abe. "Amy and I did the dance that we always do: 'How long is Midge going to stop and look at her father and have a dramatic moment before the comedy picks back up?'" Sanford said. "I tend to argue for more frames than Amy is willing to give, and we arrive somewhere in the middle — maybe closer to her side." Of course, the much-noted speed in the show is frequently baked into the footage itself: Numerous scenes in 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' unfold in so-called "one-ers": scenes that consist of single shots. "Many scenes are either shot as one-ers or shot as a series of c o m p o s e d s h o t s a n d v e r y c a re f u l l y staged shots that require these actors to really move through and to keep that dialogue going," Streeto said. "We're not going to have in some cases the luxury of traditional editing [and] coverage to pace things up." A s s i s t a n t e d i t o r T r i c i a H o l m e s said the actors are consummate pros. "Assistants always feel like we should be keeping a gag reel, but we're like, 'They're just so professional! They don't mess up or anything,'" Holmes said. When Sanford and Streeto sit down with the footage, they often feel com- pelled to make the one-ers play even faster. To do that, the editors turn to some of the tricks of the trade, including invisible jump-cuts and speed changes. "We pull up everything we possibly can," Sanford said. "If someone darts behind a doorway, that's an opportunity to cheat." Adding music to a scene also makes it play faster. "We do a lot of scoring to make the rhythm seem as quick as possi- ble," Sanford said. S h e r m a n - P a l l a d i n o h a s e q u a l l y strong preferences when it comes to line readings, leading to individual words w i t h i n l i n e s b e i n g re p l a c e d d u r i n g post-production; dialogue is truly sculpt- ed in post. "Making the show flow is not only making it fast but making it feel like it flows seamlessly," Sanford said. "[Sher- man-Palladino] likes Rachel's voice to be as forceful and strong as possible. And all the work that Rachel Brosnahan is doing sometimes exhausts her voice . . . so we work hard to make sure she's projecting and she's the forceful character that has been established." Assuring that all of that sharp, crisp dialogue comes through is the mandate Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." P H O T O : A M A Z O N