Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1382552
41 S U M M E R Q 2 I S S U E C O V E R S T O R Y 'Soccer is a game of collaboration, much like picture editing.' SEE PAGE 57 reactions after. Most producers would cut these pauses out, but that shows he really gets how comedy plays. McCoy: Jason has given them all such rich deep backstories. They will usually add a bit of improv that elevates the scene or some surprise element that I didn't quite get from reading the script when I see the actors perform the lines. One scene that was such a delight when I saw the dailies was in 103 when Keeley comes to Rebecca's office with a cactus as a thank-you gift. The energy between them was that these two women are going to become the best of friends. I didn't see that relationship coming until after I saw the dailies. Keeley is so endearing in her performance pulling Rebecca out of her cold shell and Rebecca is flashing her these, "You are crazy but I kind of like that" looks that I simply loved. The whole scene felt so true to how female friendships form and was a major highlight of season 1 for me. Q What was your biggest editing challenge during season 1, and how did you meet it? McCoy: The biggest challenge was finding the line between comedy and pathos. People ask me a lot about how we were able to go between the two, and I think it's because we always tried to stay true to the character and honest to the moment. Sometimes we'd cut a funny joke because it wasn't true to the character, and then on the flip side, some- times we'd pull back on a very dramatic moment and play a more reserved take to help the moment not get melodramatic. Catoline: The "Allen Iverson speech" in 106 may be the wildest scene I've ever cut. It was not in the script. Jason said he wrote it days before the shoot. It may be his most inspired improvs in the series, though it's not improv. It's a near word-by-word parody of the infamous, rambling press conference given by NBA star Allen Iverson in 2002 where he repeated the word "practice" dozens of times. When my assistant Alex Szabo and I watched the dailies coming from London we thought 'what is this? Where have we heard this before?' And that's the joke. I cut a version of it for the director's cut, and we set it aside. Along with the director, producer, writer, we agreed it would be better to work on with Jason, and sure enough he wanted to watch every take. Jason is very intuitive in the editing process and he imagined this scene like a Western film showdown. I enjoyed working together over many Zoom calls as we built a performance that shows Ted slowly getting hotter and more intense, finally squaring off with Jamie, whom he's butt heads with all sea- son. It was about pacing the repeat of the key line, as Iverson did, "it's about PRAC- TICE, man! NOT the game. Practice!" We had a transcript of Iverson's speech to stay true to the original, and I think fans appreciate that level of detail. At the crescendo, Ted is towering over Jamie and yelling. And we cut to a 50-50/two shot in a dutch angle that makes Ted look taller and more intense. And then we cut to Jamie's closeup and he looks like Ted has finally broken this cocky guy down. And we cut to Ted as he realizes he has made Jamie feel shamed. And we learn later in the episode that Jamie has been shamed by his own distant dad who only values his son if he wins. And Ted sees the expression on Jamie's face change and he cools back down. Q Describe your team and how they helped you get the workflow done. Catoline: Soccer, much like picture editing, is a game of collaboration and passing the ball. Collaborating with Bill Lawrence is a masterclass. Being a comedy writer, he understands that editing is the final rewrite. He knows how to cut dialogue to pace up a scene, and write a new line of dialogue that we can hide on a character's over-the-shoulder to seamlessly bridge the cut. I love collaborating with my assistant editor Alex Szabo. We watch scenes together over Zoom and get ideas, and Alex has a good ear for suggesting music tracks. Alex helped me keep track of co- medic improv gems using a color-coded system in Avid Script Sync. In episode 110, the producers asked us to build a robust temp sound design for the game sequences, because we wanted to feel the energy of the crowd in the picture editing stage before our amazing sound team went to work. Alex layered in sounds of the game. In episode 102, when the entire stadium chants "wanker!" to Ted on the field, we had a clean track of about 10 extras chanting in the pub set. Alex added a D-verb effect in Avid Audio Suite to make it sound like it was coming from 10,000 people in a stadium. McCoy: This is my fifth show with Bill and I think we've developed a great shorthand when working together. He's a master of getting a scene to its maximum comedy potential. Working with Jason was not only really fun because he's such a funny guy, but he's also a real cinephile and would reference different movie or TV scenes as inspiration in addition to having such a wonderfully clear vision for the whole world of Ted Lasso. He wears many hats very well. Our whole post crew bonded last year over discovering what this wild show wanted to be. Everyone was excited to watch cuts as they came out or pitch music ideas or lend their voice for temp