Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532181
25 S P R I N G Q 1 I S S U E F E A T U R E movie," said picture editor Myron Kerstein, ACE, who has collaborated with Chu on five other films, including "Tick, Tick… Boom!" for which he received an Academy Award nomination in 2022. "Anytime there were references to the delightfulness of Oz, we would try to jam pack it into every frame of the film, and that would inform my choices." Kerstein said he worked closely with the visual effects, production design, mu- sic, and sound teams to capture both the darkness and the comedy in the retelling of the origin story of the witches of Oz — El- phaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande) — based on the "Wicked" book by Winnie Holzman from the bestselling novel by Gregory Maguire. "It's a great mashup between those two source materials," he added. "It is not a 'Disney' retelling of [the stage musical] 'Wicked.' It's a fully immersive, emotional juggernaut of an experience." CineMontage got a chance to meet with Kerstein and supervising sound editors Nancy Nugent Title and John Marquis as they put the final touches on the first of the two films. (The second is expected to be re- leased in November 2025.) The team shared their favorite musical sequences (they all agreed on "Dancing Through Life," among several others) and discussed how hard they worked to bring the beloved story to the screen. They wondered when they won't have the music still stuck in their heads. And they shared what they hope audiences will take away from the film. CineMontage: Aside from its massive scale, how did this project compare to others you have worked on with Jon Chu? Kerstein: On "Crazy Rich Asians," I think we had maybe four visual effects shots; on "Wicked," we had thousands, so the learning curve on the movie was huge. I didn't know "pre-vis" from "post-vis" until I started this show. I remember visiting Wyatt Smith in his edit room for "Little Mermaid," and I said, "How in the f *** do you do these things? I know how to cut a musical. But this…" And his advice was, "Nothing's changed. You're cutting. You're NOT IN KANSAS: Director John Chu looks at playback with Erivo, Ariana Grande, and crew members. P H OT O : U N I V E R S A L P I C T U R E S Myron Kerstein. P H OT O : J AY C L E N D E N I N