Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1536017
28 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E stylistic elements in the second episode to carry it through the rest of the season. The composer, Wendy Wang, had set up a lot of musical sketches when they were establish- ing the sonic tone of the show, and we used a lot of her sketches that weren't even in the pilot to set up the sonic template of the mu- sic. She made some cues loosely based on tracks I sent her by Yoko Ono and Bauhaus that became heavily used in all episodes. In the beginning of Episode 2, we started this concept of using flashbacks instead of doing a recap. That became a strong anchor for the style of the season. CineMontage: Varun, how would you define the style of the show? Viswanath: The invented new word mashup that got thrown around a lot was "crimedy." People started calling it that, and I think it IS that. The unique thing here was to find the balance. It's always going to be a comedy first, and that was the well-established North Star right from the beginning. CineMontage: It sounds like the mechanics of the plot are less important. Dean: I think the dominant approach to this show was to service the tone, the char- acters, the interpersonal interactions, and the vibe of what's happening. The plot was always a matter of: "All right, what do we need to explain just enough to keep the ball rolling?" It was never getting too into the weeds. It was more like: "In this scene they have a mission. They have to do this to get that." The outer mechanics of it are largely irrelevant; they just feed the panic of whatever the characters are going through at the moment. CineMontage: How did you three divide up the episodes? E r s k i n e : T h e y w e r e assigned to us. I think part of it might've been based on availability, too. Maybe Varun was still busy at the very beginning of post. Viswanath: I think we came into it expecting the standard structure: "OK, there's three of us editors, nine episodes to go." We just went in order. The collaboration came after the fact. With a new show and a new voice and so many actors in an ensemble cast interpreting tone and style in their own ways, I think our collaboration came out of curiosity first, then necessity. We'd say to each other, "Hey, what do you think of this?" We kept going with it, and I think we landed in a pretty great place by the end. CineMontage: Varun, how important was it that each of your episodes cohered as a whole? Viswanath: You can really play with how you let it unfold: how quickly, how much suspense you want, how much dra- ma, how much comedy. I remember one of the first things that happened when I was on the show maybe three days. I was just wrapping my head around a very intense set of dailies. Then I got a message: "Hey, jump on Evercast [a real-time remote collabo- ration streaming service] — we've got to look at something." I didn't have anything to show anybody yet, and then suddenly we're on Evercast. It was Tai working with Jenni, saying, "Hey, can you guys look at the opening of Episode 3? We're restructuring it." It was all three of us as editors. We just got thrown in that way. Then, suddenly, we were passing around sequences. It just felt so natural after that. We were making the same show, and we wanted to make each other's ideas better. We had two more voic- es to bounce it across, and it kept getting better every time we did that. Erskine: For me, it was a bit of a shock in the beginning: "Oh, wow — we're weighing in a lot with each other's sequences and playing with each other's episodes here and there." Obviously, I was very aware of both Varun and David and really respected their work, but this was our first time working together. Amazingly, we immediately got along so well, even though we were remote the whole time. They were hilarious, great, and easy to work with. After a while, you get so numb to what you're looking at that you need a fresh set of eyes — and in this case, two fresh sets of eyes. Dean: Once we each finish our editor 's cut, before we send it t o t h e d i r e c t o r, w e send each other the sequences to watch a n d c o m m e n t o n a n y t h i n g e i t h e r unclear or not working. What could be funnier or sharper? Even if it doesn't necessarily get applied at the beginning, it's immensely valuable to get each other's first-look perspec- Taichi Erskine