Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546034
24 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E THE 'BEAST' IN THE JUNGLE By Kristin Marguerite Doidge H ow many editors does it take to h e l p t ra n s fo r m a m a ss i ve Yo u - T u b e s h o w i n t o a u n i o n i z e d , broadcast-ready hybrid series for Amazon Prime Video? In the case of "Beast Games," the hit game show created and hosted by YouTube star Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson, it took about 38 assistant editors and about 40 editors (including picture editors Pi Ware, ACE, Jon Emerson, Ben Striz, and Rainbow Shalom Hayes, who joined in Season 2). They quite literally tamed a beast of con- tent, built from roughly two petabytes of continuously rolling, multi-camera footage captured across 200+ cameras and 1,000 contestants. The post team, which flipped the show to union status in its second sea- HOW A LARGE EDITING TEAM TAMED ALL THE FOOTAGE FOR A NEWLY UNIONIZED YOUTUBE SHOW son, created new workflows that pushed the limits of Adobe Premiere Pro. In fact, with tens of thousands of files, it's the largest Premiere production ever created. The first season of the 10-episode reality competition series became the streamer's most-watched unscripted series after its 2024 premiere on Amazon with 50 million global viewers. The contestants competed in physical, mental, and social challenges to vie for a $10 million grand prize. The second season premiered in January and focused on the stories of 200 contestants competing for a $5 million top prize. CineMontage caught up with the post te a m to l e a r n h ow t h ey n av i gate d t h e unprecedented challenges of bringing a YouTube show to TV, including the absence of story producers on the Beast side, the need to adapt to different communication styles and expectations, and the mindset they hope other hybrid teams can benefit from in the future. CineMontage: How did you begin navigating the process of bringing a YouTube show to TV? Pi Ware: I think the challenge in Season 1 was that there were two teams. There was the Amazon Prime Video team, which is the (now) union Hollywood team, and then there was the "MrBeast" team, which makes massively popular YouTube videos that prioritize viewer retention. Each team had its own ideas about how to do a thou- sand-contestant TV show, but there wasn't much coordination at f irst. Since both teams came from different perspectives, it complicated both the storytelling and the BEAST-LY: Don Fisco editing coverage.