Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504875
Vicente Bruguera: It's a show that requires many elements, from graphics to sound design, and since the schedule is a bit tight from the recording moment to air day, the editors of the main show are divided between even and odd episodes. But as the weeks go by, we become one team. David Greene: The live element is a major factor in what we do in post. They try their best to shoot an act in a straight- forward way, live, but obviously it's usually two to four times longer than an 8-minute act. So, cutting to feel live is a big part of it. Pacing is very important, and the crowd is a character. Watching them play along with the game is pivotal when we cut the live acts, even down to their performances. How can we enhance the story of the audience playing against the comments made by the panel? We have to have the right number of red herrings or little clues, while making it feel live. We do a ton of work in post to narrate the story in the way that we need. CineMontage: So, you're utilizing audi- ence reaction footage wherever needed and not reactions to that exact perfor- mance, I assume? Greene: It is exactly that and probably pretty rare that we cut to an actual reaction to a moment. We always want to tell a story throughout the performance of, is the performance good or not? And then, who could the performer be? So, we're cutting to the audience as they're trying to figure out who it is, then slowly starting to enjoy the performance and getting increasingly into it. But it's actually a very difficult task because you don't want to mess with the performance choreography—which is real- ly well shot and laid out—while telling the story of the game. Samantha Diamond: The studio audi- ence isn't that large and the producers don't want to see the same audience members again and again. So, even if it's a really great reaction that actually happened in the mo- ment, we can't use it because that person's been seen too many times in the episode. Brett Snyder: The audience is sort of trained at the top of each day on how to act out and a lot of it is shot on a separate pass during playback of the performance. Diamond: Or taken from a different episode. Bruguera: It was very difficult, especial- ly during the performances, because we had to find the audience shots that matched the lighting, the rhythm of the song, and also the emotion we were trying to convey. S ny d e r : Th e A E's d o a g re a t j o b o f organizing bins of audience for each per- formance. Different emotions, laughing, clapping — "trying to figure it out" is one of the categories. David Timoner: Disagreeing, agreeing. "Trying to figure it out" is a tough one because you're really relying on them being good performers. Greene: There's a lot of overacting. We really play director and ask, how is this per- formance? Are they overdoing it? Are they underdoing it? Because the show has a fun, exaggerated vibe, you can add exaggerated responses, and those seem to be the ones that survive the notes. Diamond: Subtlety doesn't play on our show. Snyder: When COVID hit, we didn't have an audience for season 4, so we cut with old audience footage. Timoner: We had a crazy camera angle with fake heads in it, and there was some CG audience, too. CineMontage: How are the acts structured? Greene: The first has a pretty grand cold open intro and a quick bit on the rules. Then we introduce the first character pretty quickly, a walkout, and go into a clue pack- age that will give the audience lots of clues. Then the performance kicks off. Then we get reactions from the panel—a couple just commenting on how well they did or how fun they were—which leads into a stage clue and guessing from the panel and audience. Those are the acts introducing a performer, which lead into the reveal acts David [Tim- oner] and Samantha usually take. Bruguera: Another special thing about this show is that each episode has a different theme, and we have to find creative ways to approach that vision in the editing process with fun graphics or effects. For example, on movie night, we might edit an opening in the style of "The Matrix," or on Muppets night, we need to find ways to involve all the characters and allow each one to shine with their own distinctive personality. CineMontage: Working from home during COVID changed so much—I'm thinking about how rare the old-school apprentice experience has become. Editing is such a social and collaborative job. How do you compensate and what has been lost? Bruguera: We were fortunate to start working on this show before the pandemic. I feel like that's why there is great commu- nication within the entire post-production team. Additionally, when it comes to locking an episode, we do it in person with the pro- ducers to prevent anything from being lost in a text. It makes everything run so much smoother and faster. Greene: You really have to work on your personal connections outside of Zoom. Sam and I try to do lunches. You have to make sure that you're still seeing each other. I think we're lucky—most of us worked together before the pandemic and have been on the show long enough to have a relationship with each other. A huge part of our industry is the camaraderie—editors, but also editors and the producers. It's such a collaboration. There are many times when I'm digging into something where if I didn't have that relationship with an executive, it would be much more difficult to create the TV that we're creating on the level that we are. Snyder: Also, a lot of the same people do these competition shows. Name any show: "American Idol," "America's Got Talent," "The Voice," "Dancing with the Stars"; it's a lot of the same people. So, get on any Zoom call for a new show and you know more than half the people there. Timoner: But it is a hard format to crack in the beginning, I don't know how success- ful we'd be starting off all remote. CineMontage: I think frequently about connecting an audience with a character through the character's eyes. With your 35 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E F E A T U R E