Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1544083
10 cgw j a n u a r y • f e b r u a r y • m a r c h 2 0 2 6 David Trachtenberg: "I may be quicker in that capacity, but Stefan can marinate on a scene and come back with these ideas seemingly out of nowhere that truly elevated the film." Stefan Grube: "You could say, co-editing this film, David was Dek, and I was Thia. But in all seriousness, it simply brings another per- spective, and having a partner who really knows the footage and that you can trust to bring fresh ideas and honest feedback was huge on this film. I also hear Dave happens to have a very personal relation- ship with Dan, being his brother and all. So, they have this unique dy- namic and understand each other in a different way." How did you divide up the work? David Trachtenberg: "Stefan was finishing Dan's other movie, Killer of Killers, when I was getting started putting together that first fight against the 'elephant trees' so it could be handed off to VFX. But, we made a point of watching all the dailies together every day. And then once Stefan was fully on-board, we shared everything throughout. I would say we both had a hand in 95 percent of the scenes, just bouncing ideas off of each other. No one was proprietary about any one scene." Stefan Grube: "This was definitely the healthiest kind of sharing. We were never siloed and were always in the know of what the other was doing at any given moment." Tell us about your editing setup. David Trachtenberg: "We both worked on Avid on a shared system. We were set up at opposite ends of the hallway, with our assistant team in the rooms between us, and Dan would truck to one room or the other." Stefan Grube: "Our assistant team was incredible on this. Unflap- pable. Warren Paeff and Shay Yang. They were both reliable and creative. Because of our screening schedule, they did a lot of temp sound work for us. They were constantly asked to come up with new ideas. We threw a ton of challenges their way, especially in the sprint to the finish." Beyond your Avid system, what other tools did you rely on? David Trachtenberg: "There's an Izotope soware plug-in that al- lows you to de-noise dialogue, which I use a lot. For instance, there was a waterfall scene where the noise was so bad, and it helped tre- mendously for rough-cut purposes. Also, Stefan taught me a trick with reverb tracks, which is now a go-to part of my process on every show." Stefan Grube: "It's a method I learned from the incredible editor Tanya Swerling. It mimics how our sound effects editors work and has changed the way I approach a cut. Coming from the world of trailers, where sound is a major focus, building these tracks lets me worry less about sound because it smooths out the rough edges."