Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1451742
earchlight Pictures' Nightmare Alley follows the charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), who finds ork at a traveling carnival. It is there that he en- dears himself to clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her mentalist husband Pete (David Strathairn). Stan learns their crafts while working at the show, and at the same time, falls for a young performer named Molly (Rooney Mara). He and Molly ultimately go out on their own, using their new-found knowledge to entertain — and take advantage of — New York's wealthiest. Cate Blanchett plays psychiatrist Doctor Lilith Ritter, who introduces Stan to a number of well-off p ospects. The introductions promise potentially-large paydays, while increasing the risk of Stan being revealed as a fraud. Guillermo del Toro directed the film which received four Oscar nomina- tions, including for Best Picture and Cinematography (Dan Laustsen). Editor Cam McLauchlin has worked with the filmma er on a number of projects, including Pacific Rim, The Strain, Crimson Peak and The Shape of Water. He stayed in touch with del Toro, and when he asked the director for some career advice, the filmma er suggested he cut Nightmare Alley. McLauchlin, who is based in Toronto, accepted, and recently shared his experience with Post. You have worked with Guillermo del Toro on a number of projects, dating back to Pacific Rim in 2013. Can you talk about how that evolved? "I got a call from the studio saying, 'We need another assistant.' And from there on, he and I kind of developed a short hand with sound and music. And I sort of departed (from) being his fir t assistant editor. I became more of creative set of hands for him and the editor, and we just kept working together." What was your understanding coming onboard for this film? "From the beginning, the script was 155 pages, so everyone knew this was going to be his epic film. he challenge (was) going to be: How do we keep it moving through all that material? And that's just something you don't know until you start getting the footage." Describe your workflow? "I'll get there ahead, and get the dailies and start. I'll watch them and kind of go through his select takes, because I know [Guillermo] likes to see that fir t before we start looking into performances. He shows up maybe two or three hours after I'm there, and about an hour before call time, and we'll go through the scene or a scene that he shot the day before, and start making decisions. If we haven't finished th t scene, and he has to turn the camera around for that day, I'll throw a title card in where I think (we need) the reverse to this character or a POV, and he'll kind of start making his story- boards for the day based on what we are doing in the edit. Then he'll go off, and he may come back at lunch to see how the scene has evolved. Or, he'll call me… and talk about a take or something that happened that day. So there's a constant dialogue from the get-go." Is there a process that you follow when working on his films? "We have a wonderful team. Our post production supervisor, Doug Wilkinson, has been with Guillermo for almost as many years as I have. He's a guid- ing force for us through all this post. I also have a great fir t assistant, Mary Juric. She's a master in After Effects, so defini ely using her abilities, because Guillermo likes to see things as polished as possible. That means temp VFX, temp sound, temp sound design. "We rarely cut with music. The music is something that comes in later, as we're preparing for a screening or sending an output to someone. What I do is, I usually cut without music. Then, later, when the scene is working, I'll start playing with music. I'll put something in, and then I'll mute it, and I'll play it for him and to say, 'What do you think of this tone?' And get his feedback. Generally, those tracks are sitting on the Avid, muted, until we have to go and show the film " You always hear about the dangers of using temp music? "The ironic thing with that is, in this film, found it very difficult o temp. Something about the film h ving two parts, even though we're trying to distinctively have it feel like as whole cohesive piece, and the journey staying parallel. We had a lot of source music in the carnival that had a realism that we were kind of diving into. And then when we got to Buffalo, we could really lean into the noir, and quickly vibe off of Berna d Herrmann, and really (go with) a classic tone...but it could be misleading. Anything in the carnival would just reject it. It felt fake. It didn't NIGHTMARE ALLEY BY MARC LOFTUS EDITOR CAM MCLAUCHLIN ONCE AGAIN PARTNERS WITH DIRECTOR GUILLERMO DEL TORO S EDITING www.postmagazine.com 14 POST JAN/FEB 2022 Editor Cam McLauchlin cut on an Avid at DNx36 resolution.