Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316365
PEOPLE www.postmagazine.com 13 POST NOV/DEC 2020 Grace's story, presented as a focused POV. 'Atmospheric interstitials' — short sequences between scenes — help rein- force the upper-Manhattan location and the time of year. "It's mainly Grace," says Lester of the storyline. "You are not jumping around to different characters or different plot lines. So to give it that space and atmosphere to avoid it just being scene, scene, scene, that stuff is so priceless. It gives you a bit of space to think. And the city that they're in is a character — the seasons change and atmospheres reflect it. I am a big fan of those atmospheric interstitials." The series is presented in a 2:1 aspect ratio, giving it a cinematic look. Each ep- isode tends to end as a cliffhanger. The following episode picks up exactly where the previous one left off. "All the scripts' endings were fantastic cliff hangers," recalls Lester. "The only one that we did change was the end of Episode 2, when [Jonathan] comes back. Originally that happened in Episode 3, and in Episode 2, it was her thinking, 'Where is he?' It wasn't quite strong enough for an ending. Luckily, Episode 2 came out quite short and Episode 3 came out quite long, so when we watched Episode 3, it was pretty obvious we were going to move the whole chunk of that from the beginning." Lester says it was Bier's idea to begin each episode exactly where the last one left off, which became a bit of a signature for the series. "You didn't need a recap," he explains. "And that became a bit of a style. We had done that with most of the episodes. Not always. At least three of them start- ed exactly where they left off." From an editing standpoint, Lester points to highlights throughout the se- ries, including Episode 2, when Grace is wondering where Jonathan has disap- peared to after being named a suspect in the murder. "I remember putting that together," he recalls of the scene in the second epi- sode. "He comes back and you see him… or you see a shadow? It's got to be him! Or is it? You see an arm. Then you cut to the wide (shot) and you see him run in, but she's just paralyzed. And then he suddenly shouts. I remember doing that, and it made me jump! And immediately I thought, 'Wow, that's cool!' "I love that scene, because you see him first. Traditionally, you might see him and hear him at the same time, and do a jump/scare like that…When we had our test screenings, everyone shrieked and jumped up. And I was like, 'That's great!'" He also points to Episode 6 and its courtroom scenes, where Grace's testi- mony takes an unexpected twist while on the witness stand. "I think I probably spent about a third of the time on Episode 6," Lester recalls. "Episode 6 was the hardest. There is basically a 15-minute court scene in it, which I think is the longest single scene that I've ever done. And that was hard. It was a lot of work to just get the scene right. But the performances and the writ- ing are outstanding, and that does make my life a lot easier." Test screenings, says Lester, proved to be an incredibly-important part of the process in refining the edit. "You think something is working. You try your absolute best, but only when you see a real reaction to it from people who don't know anything about it, are you, 'OK, we've got this.' That guided us a lot in the process." The Undoing is available for streaming on the HBO Max platform. The six-hour series leaves viewers in suspense until the very end. The pandemic delayed the series' post production schedule.