Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542296
P H OT O : J AY C L E N D E N I N EVERYONE NEEDS AN EDITOR: : David Rogers, center, flanked by Julie Cohen and Sascha Stanton-Craven. 37 W I N T E R Q 4 I S S U E F E A T U R E has found a new subject. That filmmaking style opens up a lot of possibilities — both for comedy and a framing style of storytell- ing — but it has rules. We generally don't score it. There is a limited number of cameras. If reporters go to a house, there isn't already a camera inside, like in normal coverage; on this, the camera has to get in there. Once our people are established, they have to move, and the camera has to be with them. For driving, we use lipstick cameras to capture people inside, or we bring a crew member into the car. And we use "talking heads" when people are addressing the camera. It's a great way to comment on what's going on or advance the story. Sometimes it's just a pure comic joke that helps the narrative. CineMontage: How did you interpolate the documentary that shows the newspaper's glory days? Rogers: We redressed the whole set to look like a 1970s newsroom. Greg Daniels and Michael Koman based it on Frederick Wiseman's documentaries — the black- and-white film look, the texture, the gear. We brought in period costumes and type- writers, even had a few people smoking, and shot on black-and-white 16mm film. Even the aspect ratio was different from the rest of the show. Th e i d e a w a s to s h o w h o w b i g a n d important working on a newspaper was back then — and how many people it took to deliver the news. You see how cavernous the room was, filled with hundreds of people, and now it's the same room, but it's practi- cally empty. CineMontage: As these very idiosyncratic characters and personalities are introduced, how did you want to bring them together? Julie Cohen: It's a fantastic cast. In Ep- isode 2, they actually start reporting. Ned pulls together volunteers — many of them accountants or staff from the toilet-paper company — so journalism isn't their train- ing. But they're inspired by him and want to build a great local paper, so they pair off to cover stories around Toledo. As they attempt to do their jobs, every- one deals with the camera crew in their own way. Oscar (Oscar Martinez) is reluctant to let them back into his life. Ned wants to seem like a benevolent, well-adjusted boss — which, of course, only makes things weirder. Mare (Chelsie Frei) is one of the two people with real journalism experience; she's amused and a bit skeptical of Ned's zeal to remake the paper. And everyone else is essentially winging it, pretending to be the "official press." There's a lot of goodwill, not a lot of know-