Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504875
By Rob Feld T he first time many crew members behind "The Masked Singer" saw a version of the show was on televi- sion in Thai restaurants. It was the South Korean forebear, "King of Mask Singer," with contestants donning elaborate masks and gloves as they competed in a singing competition. "It looked crazy," recalled editor David Greene. The American version, which premiered on Fox in 2019, places celebrities from Margaret Cho to William Shatner to Johnny Rotten in elaborate disguises, singing for a studio audience and a celebrity panel tasked with guessing their identities. Hav- ing completed its ninth season in May, the show features elaborate performances and is shot with 18 cameras, augmented by pre- cut "clue packages" that tease the guests' identities. All the cameras are trained on the guests and judges on stage, meaning that audience reactions—so key to the storytelling—are captured during the video playback of the performance they just experienced live. Practical production constraints such as these have the edit team working every trick in their toolbox to bring surprise, suspense, and variety to a series with quick turnaround times. To explain how they do it, CineMontage visited with team members David Greene, Samantha Diamond, David Timoner, Brett Snyder, Vicente Bruguera, and Patrick McElroy. CineMontage: There are a lot of logistics behind this show—can you talk about the workflow? 34 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E Blindfold Test THE EDITORS BEHIND 'THE MASKED SINGER' CAN'T DISGUISE THEIR PASSION FOR THE UNSCRIPTED HIT David Timoner, Vicente Bruguera, David Greene and Samantha Diamond.