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Q3 2020

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36 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E in one. Broadway: Editing is a great mix of technology and creativity. When I was a kid, I loved Robert Zemeckis' "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" – the blend of animation with live action characters and the technology he used in the "Back to the Future" films fascinated me; that drove me into the lane of editing. Lewis: I started out in creative mar- keting and switched over to reality TV before landing at a commercial house working on an indie feature. In freshman year, I learned Avid and was hooked from the start. Hubbard: I was in a television produc- tion program in middle school and they taught us editing – we were responsible for a morning news program. In under- grad, I worked on several shorts while majoring in film and broadcasting, and really enjoyed the narrative side of it. So I went to AFI after that. Sana: When I was growing up, I was always playing with sound and would sample on tape. Whenever I found any- thing cool in the movies, I would record the sounds to make a collage. In junior high, I started DJing too. I met Mark Kamps [supervising sound editor at Technicolor] when I took his editing class at UCLA Extension – he was a mentor and inspired me to keep pursuing this. Q What is it like to work on something of which you were already a fan? Broadway: Watching Season One of "Insecure," I thought "That's why I got into this industry – to create this type of content!" So when I joined this season, I had already studied the show as a fan and knew how the show was cut, the visual style and comedy pace. Q What is the show's signature visual language? Erb: When I got the job, I re-watched every episode to study what kind of mu- sic they use, when they bring music in, how they use transitions, and what wide shots of L.A. they use for the transitions. Issa's scenes were shot more with hand- held cameras whereas Molly's were more locked off because she's more established in her life and career. Hubbard: I felt very much at home – they were speaking my language. I was already a fan of the web series ["Awk- ward Black Girl"], so I related to the show on many levels. Lewis: In terms of lighting, we always put our cast in the best light – everyone looks great, the city looks great. We have some shots where things are off-center or pushed to the frame, that's been part of the visual language from the beginning. Q What is the process from dailies to final cut? Erb: When I break down each scene – I'm looking for the heart and tone of the scene, what's the one thing I must get across. With dailies, I read that segment of the script again, paying extra atten- tion to screen direction in between the dialogue. The writer's intention informs my decisions on performance, pacing and rhythm. Hubbard: I usually accompany Nena to the table reads and start making notes then. I organize the dailies into bins the way she likes them so that we can move quickly – she only has a couple of days to hand over the first cut. For each scene, I also script sync it and add any ad-libs into the script; that way, she has everything transcribed. Lewis: When I'm the assistant, I prep the dailies for [editor] Mark [Sadler] to cut, making sure he's aware of anything different in a take. Once he's done, I do the temp sound while he scores the music. When I'm editing a sequence, I look at the dailies differently – now I'm looking more for performance, where the turn is going to be and subtext. When I'm cutting, it's about story, story, story. Erb: Aric is a VFX genius. In "Lowkey Done," the beautiful wide shot at the intersection where Issa first sees George running across the street to catch the bus, that wasn't how it was shot. Lewis: Issa's car and another car on the side of the street weren't where we needed them. We had to duplicate the cars and slide them over to make that scene work. We also had to "rotoscope" Lynarion Hubbard and Michael Sana. P H O T O : C H R I S T O P H E R F R A G A P A N E

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