Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 45 picked up by Amazon Studios with a theatrical release date of December 25 and a streaming release date of January 18, MLK Day. It all began in November 2019 with a phone call from my good friend Chris Harding (executive producer) asking on behalf of Snoot if I wouldn't mind taking a look at a script. Of course, I obliged as Snoot and I have quite a history of collaborating on some remarkable fi lms over the past decade—Blindspotting, The Guest, Blair Witch to name a few. Kemp Powers wrote the play (his fi rst) and also penned the screenplay. I found myself several times wanting to pause, refl ect upon, and sometimes re-read these incredibly profound lines of dialogue about the struggles of Black America during the civil rights movement. Woven into the script is a vulnerability and a humanity that Kemp voices these superheroes with that is rarely seen in depictions of these four men, along with some sweeping moments of grandeur in the boxing fi ghts and concert stage performances. I thought to myself that if Regina can pull this off, we would have something really special to share with the world. Upon fi rst meeting Regina, we discussed our ideas for the fi lm and the approach for some of the key scenes. I told her that during the dialogue-heavy moments, I would lean out and that my work would be invisible so that the audience can connect directly and intimately with the characters, and that only when necessary would I bring in reinforcements. That desire to maintain a level of intimacy with our characters was a thread we wanted to carry through the whole fi lm even during the big loud moments of the boxing scenes and the concerts with Sam—a delicate balancing act when overwhelming the audience with a sense of scale but also trying to maintain that intimate connection. More on that later.