Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1468810
F E A T U R E 44 C I N E M O N T A G E December on the Paramount+ streaming service — requires coordination, dedica- tion, and enthusiasm. The picture, sound, and music editors who work on "Yellow- stone" have each in spades. "I think every department is running at 110 percent of their creative abilities, and I think that that is seen onscreen," said supervising sound editor Jason King. "I'm not saying that other shows are pulling punches, but there's a passion that we have here at 'Yellowstone' that really gets onto the screen. That happens from crafty all the way up through the actors, the transporta- tion people, the folks in post—everyone." Music editor Kyle Clausen describes be- ing changed by his work on "Yellowstone" and now "1883." "I have worked on a lot of projects in my life, and I have never cried while editing a feature, ever," Clausen said. "Going through 'Yellowstone,' and then the prequel, I don't know if it's me being a new father, but I was in tears editing this show. There were times where I was trying to do some mixes for review, and I couldn't do it." As the team describes it, the sense o f p a s s i o n a n d p u r p o s e o n t h e s e r i e s starts with Sheridan, a native of Cranfills Gap, Tex., whose earlier efforts include writing the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the drug- cartel action thriller "Si- cario" (2015), starring Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro, and writing and directing the acclaimed Western "Wind River" (2017), on which picture editor Gary D. Roach, ACE, met Sheridan. "We hit it off immediately," said Roach, a veteran of Clint Eastwood's films. "It was fun to get to know Taylor. He's so talented, and then 'Yellowstone' came up. I was all about doing it." Roach has worked on every season of "Yellowstone" since. Picture editor Chad Galster, ACE, joined the series in the midst of Season 1 and has since become one of Sheridan's closest collaborators, working on subsequent sea- sons of "Yellowstone" and the first season of "1883" as well as serving as the editor of the filmmaker's most recent feature, "Those Who Wish Me Dead" (2021), starring Ange- lina Jolie. "The word 'authenticity' is used a lot about our show, and rightly so," Galster said. "Taylor is not some guy who just read about cowboys. Taylor has been on horse- back his entire life. He understands that world, these people, intimately." And, because of the way Season 1 was delivered, Roach and picture editor Evan Ahlgren (who has since left the show) had something of a crash course on Sheridan's take on the modern West. "They weren't shooting one episode at a time," Roach said. "They were shooting everything at once, and [Ahlgren] and I just kind of tag- teamed the scenes that came in every day. We edited, and kept up to camera, and did pretty much the whole season that way. That's why [all the editors] were credited on each episode." M i d w a y t h ro u g h S e a s o n 1 , G a l s te r — who joined the show after being recom- mended to Sheridan by a mutual friend — entered the picture, first as a "finishing editor " who executed Sheridan's f inal notes on each episode. "It's been a part of my relationship with Taylor from the get-go," Galster said. "He has a lot of things moving at all times, so it's just about distill- ing down the post-production work to one persona, really." Although Galster soon began editing his own episodes from start to finish, he still helps guide each episode to the finish line, whether he originated a cut or not. In addition to Ahlgren, Galster, and Roach, the other picture editors to have worked on "Yellowstone" over its four seasons are Tim Bartlett, John Coniglio, ACE, Michael N. Knue, ACE, and Chris G. Willingham, ACE. Prior to the pandemic, all of the picture editors working on a given season worked in the same off ice, but when the virus necessitated remote working, some of that in-person collaboration ended—though not Galster's role as the last person to help steer a show to port. "The relationship that I had with Taylor didn't change, so I would fly to Texas, sometimes every 10 days to two weeks," Galster said. "I would work with him on whatever episode had to be finished next." Starting with the third season, the picture editors settled into a more routine workflow where each was responsible for their own episode. From the outset, the sto- ry was sufficiently complex to necessitate unusually long episodes that quickly ex- ceeded the parameters given by Paramount. "The first season, they gave us a time," Roach said. "I think it was 43 minutes, and the editor's cuts, on all of the episodes, were over an hour: hour and three minutes, hour Chad Galster. Jason King. P H OT O : M A R K E D WA R D S P H OT O : M A R K E D WA R D S