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January 2015

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www.postmagazine.com 13 POST JANUARY 2015 there's a very distinctive look and pace to The Blacklist that he adheres to in the editing process. "My aesthetic as an editor is obviously to keep things interesting, within each and every scene," he says. "We have a lot of very talented directors who work on The Blacklist. Michael Watkins, our supervising pro- ducer who sometimes directs up to six or seven episodes a year, was a DP for many years, and has a really good eye. His sensibility and my sensibility seem to click from the standpoint that he likes to shoot a lot of what I like to call 'ultra wide masters' where you see whatever location or room that he's shooting in, you have a really nice, wide angle to use. He does a lot of interesting contrasting angles against those wide angles, which would be more your ultra close-up, where you're only seeing a portion of somebody's face or a profile of some- body's face. It's very close. It's interesting. The aesthetic on the show from the pro- ducer's standpoint here in Los Angeles is one where we often shy away from your standard two shot or medium shot." Brookshire also explains that the show's airtime is 42 minutes and 34 seconds, but sometimes the first cut can come in at anywhere from 10 to 14 minutes over. He says that it's often the case that they "pace" the show up to "sometimes an ultra extreme where it's just moving at a breakneck speed, which is sometimes difficult for the viewer, but it's kind of our mandate to work in as much material as we can, given that time frame. It's a challenge, as you can imag- ine, but it seems to work. The show is definitely paced very quickly. And I think that can either be a hindrance or some- thing that people really enjoy. I think we're in an age where people that watch these kinds of shows, are pretty adept at watching something at a higher rate of speed than we used to watch. Shows like Bonanza or the old Columbo type of shows moved very slowly, but this is the new format, the new frontier we kind of entered into. "As editors, we have to kind of refine and tailor our abilities to the particular show that we're working on. On The Blacklist, we're asked to work at a quick pace as far as telling the story. But it's really an incredible balance of telling the story in a very interesting way, while also trying to allow the viewer to process all of the information at such a high rate of speed. Often, it's about getting through and working at this kind of really nice, quick pace and then picking out those moments where you feel things really need to land and the viewer really needs to process this particular moment in order for them to go forward and follow the story. It seems to work and it seems to resonate with viewers." As for any specific mandates handed down to the editing team, Brookshire explains that when you have James Spader on the screen, you let him take his time. "You let him deliver his lines, in what I call, that 'Spader-ish' way, where you just are reveling in that moment where he often has a showdown with another Blacklister and you just really want to soak all that in. He's very charismatic; the camera loves him — his tone and rhythm and flow of his speech. It's one that mandates us as well not to try and rush him through those great moments but allow him to use those moments to really elevate the show in a way where he's moving at his own rhythm and flow, and it adds to the overall view of the show. Those are things that, as an editor with experience and wisdom, you begin to allow yourself to say, 'This is a moment where we need to slow down and we need to soak all of this in.'" PRIMETIME The Blacklist is shot on Sony F55 4K cameras with Panavision lenses.

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