Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/957795
DGA QUARTERLY 57 special. "It's a different set of muscles. It's a constant left, right, horizontal move. What we ended up with was a rocking boat." When it's all assembled in the editing room, instead of being obtrusive, comedi- ans can point to things that only they might notice, such as hearing nuances in the way a joke hits that a director might miss. Lathan says he edits a cut of Chappelle's specials and then brings him into the editing room. The director knows to leave wiggle room so they can cut among shows, shaping the per- formance. "There's some nights, especially with Dave because he's so spontaneous, where the direc- tion will shift a little bit based on a specific kind of response from an audience," Lathan says. "Or something that might have hap- pened that day in the world that has a con- nection to something that he's talking about." Unlike Chappelle, Silverman tends to stand bird-like still onstage, and the intona- tions and beats in her material are crafted word for word. For Lynch, it's a matter of where he wants the camera to be on the punchline. "For Sarah, it's all about face expressions," Lynch says. "That's why they're so many close-ups on her." Silverman did two shows at Largo, and Lynch estimated that he shifted between the two nights some 70 times in making the final cut. "You're really trying to capture a come- dian's timing. It's an editing thing more than a directing thing," says Lynch, who has Silverman with him when he edits. "Even if you're not actually extracting any time out of it, your cuts, if they get too busy during a setup for a joke, or if they cut out too soon on the delivery, there's hang times that you want to keep before you switch shots that feels like part of the joke." He adds: "It's a to- tal feel thing, a comedic feel thing." Lynch had crowd shots for coverage but decided, convenient as they are, not to use them. "You're making that decision, are you a person standing in the aisle, looking at the crowd and then looking over to the stage, or do you want to feel like you're in a seat in the crowd?" One camera was stashed in the light- ing booth, looking down at a miniaturized Silverman on the stage. Compared to crowd shots, it felt original and right. The show he was directing, after all, was called A Speck of Dust. ®