Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541878
but within the confines of the script, meaning it was the story that was being told, the words that were being told. But whether we chose to be at Greeley (Air Force base in Colorado), watching peo- ple, or whether we want be on the 'watch floor' in Washington, listening to people, you could choose where you wanted that information to unfold." By the time you finished the third chapter, you probably wanted to go back and make some adjustments? "Yeah! And I think what played a role in that is the working relationship with Kathryn. Like I said earlier, there was just so much enthusiasm to make it, and I wanted to keep that energy alive in the room. In the first pass of just creating a compelling story, that had a lot of kinetic movement, but also gave pauses for the actors on those emotional moments, which I called 'the frozen moments,' when actors sort of just get punched in the solar plexus, and become still. She very much liked the movie we had. And I was sort of going, 'Oh, but this takes :15 to happen in that one, and here we're doing it in :08, and I want to get those things closer. And she was a bit like, 'Ohhh-kay, but it's really good.' And I was like, 'I'm not going to break anything. I promise!' In most cases she was super willing and accepting and great." What was the status of the visual effects while you were editing? There are a lot of monitors on-screen. "She did a lot of it live, so there was always something on the monitors, so everybody was responding to things live. It was great for the actors, but then we had to kind of recalibrate it all later. There was a lot of busy work on-screens, to swap out performances of actors, to get the chart exactly correct where the nuclear missile was. There was a lot of re- jiggering. But in that first sweep through, everything was close enough to be able to just sort of gallop. Then there were visual effects. The very end of the movie was a visual effects shot. The missiles be- ing sent out, those things were all visual effect shots…(But) I had no blank spots. I had the movie ready to roll." Is there a scene or a sequence that you feel is strong editorially? "[There are] so many sections that I really love in the film. I love in the second chapter, going through The White House metal detector, and that kind of chaos of talking on the phone, sort of going, 'I'm not talking to you.' And then reaching up and sort of getting pressured to say what the odds are of the success. That whole string to me, it almost reaches comical timing…But editorially [what] really stands out was the countdown. The waiting [on] if the missile is going to be intercepted or not. I loved presenting that exact same timeframe, same piece of story three different ways, and using the same sort of template of audio that grows with more people getting on the line. "In the beginning, you've got so many faces you can go to for the first chapter between Greeley and the watch floor. And then the second chapter, you're inside [US Strategic Command]…You've got all these different places to go as well. And by the third, you've just got two faces, but you know that same storyline. I just loved slicing up the first one. We played (it) mute with no music, and the tension holds like there's no oxygen in the room. And then the second time we use score, and the audience knows what's going to happen, but you have this sense of hope that something's going to evolve and get better, and it doesn't. And the third time is just quiet devastation." You're currently working with director David Fincher. Where are things at? "Day 75 of shooting. (We) keep shooting until the end of January or some point in January, and I think they hope to release around October. It's a big film." www.postmagazine.com 29 POST NOV/DEC 2025 The film's three chapters were cut in story order. The feature was edited in Adobe Premiere.