Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1456671
35 S P R I N G Q 1 I S S U E F E A T U R E also joined "Emily in Paris" for season two following a stint as an assistant editor on "Younger," compares the current series to the fast-paced, quick-witted screen come- dies of decades ago. "I'm just a big fan of Darren's sensibil- ity, and I think he's very smart and funny," Rutledge said. "'Emily in Paris' is like this love letter to screwball comedies of the mid-20th century. . . . In this case, it's like a battle of cultures, which I think is a fresh take on the genre." Pacing is a big deal in "Emily in Paris," and all of the editors emphasize that the cutting has to follow the quick tempo of the scenes. "When you read it, you hear it, and then you have to make sure that's showing on- screen," Minnick said. "You have to mold it to the pace that you can tell it's supposed to be." M i n n i c k , w h o p r e v i o u s l y e d i t e d episodes of NBC's "30 Rock," said that 30-minute comedy in general requires edi- torial interventions to assure that the pace is as fast as envisioned by the writers. While a scene that unfolds in a wide shot has the potential for dragging on, a scene broken up into multiple shots usually achieves the desired quickness. "You're not going to get it in a wide shot," Minnick said. "You're going to have to bounce around. You just have to edit it. You have to really wrench it into place. I think people want to play stuff out wider, and that's always the goal. But if you want it to sound like it's supposed to sound, then you're going to have to tighten it up [and] hit singles." At the same time, Minnick and company want to avoid scenes appearing too cut-up. "It can't look cutty and sloppy, but y o u a r e k i n d o f c u t t i n g p r e t t y f a s t ," Minnick said. Rutledge said that the actors always provide the editors with enough choices to construct scenes. "We had all the reactions we could have asked for from the actors so that we see the emotional resonance. It's not just some kind of flat ping-pong game," she said. O f c o u r s e , e x t e n d e d w i d e s h o t s , including walk-and-talks, do make the cut, especially when they show off the beautiful locations. "You want to indulge those locations in those wides as much as you can because you think, 'I can't believe I'm here,'" Ray said. "But oftentimes, you need to get in there [to edit]." As "Emily in Paris" hit its stride in season two, the editors found that the show increasingly marinated in French culture. "It felt more expanded," Rutledge said. More and more scenes feature French actors speaking in their own language for a few minutes at a time. " T h e u s e o f F r e n c h i n t h e s e c o n d season. . .allows you to get to know these characters on their own terms, on their own turf, in their own language," Ray said. And cutting dialogue spoken in a foreign language isn't as tough as it might sound. "I'm not fluent by any stretch, but I had a base knowledge [of French]," Rutledge said. "It was surprising how easy it was to not speak the language and still totally under- stand everything. The emotional core of the scene and the beats are the same." For a show defined by its striking sense of place, it's a bit of an irony that postpro- duction for the second season of "Emily in Paris" took place in hybrid fashion: Last summer, all the editors had setups at home and were able to cut remotely (although there were in-person off ices available when needed). "The flexibility is nice," Rutledge said. "But . . . it takes a little bit more energy to type up all your notes that you want to convey to the showrunner or the director than if you were sitting in the room together." Even so, the editors' handiwork assured that audiences felt they were tagging along with Emily as she soaks in the City of Light. Ray calls the show "the right job at the right time." "You go home with a smile, and when you're stuck at home working, this is certainly a lovely project to get to be a part of," he said. T h a t 's p a r t o f t h e r e a s o n w h y t h e series remains so popular with pandem- ic-era viewers. "I also think that it was like a vacation for people," Rutledge said, "who couldn't take a vacation during COVID." ■ Peter Tonguette is a freelance writer who specializes in film and television. Alex Minnick. Veronica Rutledge. 'It was like a vacation for people who couldn't take a vacation.'