CMU School of Drama


Friday, October 23, 2020

“Everyone Should Take an Editing Class, Even Actors”: Rich Newey on Killing Eleanor

Filmmaker Magazine: I first became aware of director Rich Newey’s work a few years ago when I caught his “Dreamland” episode of the sci-fi series Stitchers; working from an audacious script by Lynne E. Litt, Newey deftly juggled styles and tones with an inventiveness and confidence that led me to seek out his other episodic work on shows like Blindspot and The Fosters.

7 comments:

Jin Oh said...

Even though the context of the article was different from what I expected from its title, I am glad that I decided to continue reading this article. It took me a while to read, but I didn’t feel bored at all. How this whole project began with two persons’ collaboration (one with the editing background and one with the acting background so that they could evaluate the work in different perspectives) is awesome, but I think what makes this special is the consistent appreciation that Newey had towards the whole process of making and the team. I could feel how much affection that Newey had with this piece, and was glad to read his optimistic comments even with the COVID situations, them being required to have the premiere via virtual festival. I think, in most cases, the more you know or learn, is the better. I think Newey’s willingness to understand how the people that has different background or concentration from him created a good cycle for him, as it helped him get more desire to collaborate with others.

Rhiannnon said...

Just like Jin said, the title has NOTHING to do with the actual interview. I’m really confused why they chose that. But anyway, I really enjoyed reading about the filmmaking process. It sounded really fun because it was a small group and consisted of his wife and close friends. Like he said that work environment could backfire but in this case it was beautiful and worked really well. I think it is interesting that they don’t really rehearse. I dint know if that’s true for most movies but they basically just do read through and talk about characters and then take a bunch of takes and choose later which was better. It’s probably really effective and honestly I’m a little jealous bc The rehearsal process In theater is exhausting. I also like how he said that they stated out thinking it would be a comedy but it’s really a drama with comedy and I think that’s the way a lot of movies and shows are going. I like it because it’s truer to real life, it’s not as black and white as comedy vs drama.

Gabe M said...

Well, I have to agree with the previous comments that this article has NOTHING to do with the title it was given, which is always kind of annoying. However, this interview was very interesting to hear about how an actor and an editor can look at the same script and see two completely different movies. I suppose this alludes to the title of the article, but perhaps it needs to swing both ways. In the live event industry, there often seems to be a language barrier between the production staff and the performers. This is largely due to the fact that we are trained in vastly different areas of the same field, however, a problem due to a lack of training is relatively simple to fix. In this case, a husband and wife were able to look at a script from completely different viewpoints and bring those two views together to make something really interesting.

Nicolaus Carlson said...

I also agree with the comments. This article only has one sentence that actually might be associated with why its worth taking an editing class. Otherwise this article doesn’t talk about editing or classes for that matter, at all. Although, I will say that it was a very interesting article to read. I found Killing Eleanor and the stories behind the creation of it very fun to read. I am actually interested in watching this film. I also really enjoyed the tidbits about how their relationship compliments each other’s work. It really makes you think about the people you interact with and even in a non-romantic working relationship you can really tell how people’s personality and background compliments each other’s and especially if they complement your own. This also goes to say that differing viewpoints are a beneficial thing no matter what you do. A diverse point of view can only help the work in question.

Gabriela Fonseca Luna said...

As someone who is not very familiar with the process of how a film is made this was really interesting to me. Looking past the title of the article, the interview took me on the journey of watching the process of how a movie is made from conception to premiere and I really enjoyed it. The interview touched upon how the way things are shot matters. It matters how you capture these moments because – unlike theater – there has to be a way to immortalize the magic and let the viewer feel what is happening during the scene. Changing gears completely, the director also mentioned how the entire artistic development team was all female which I thought was really cool. It is quite apparent that Hollywood does not give women as enough working opportunities as they deserve, so I loved hearing about this small nook within the industry where the spaces were filled by women.

Allison Gerecke said...

I thought this article was really interesting, particularly because I don’t tend to see director or editor viewpoints of film theory very often. Reading this cemented both my appreciation for the technical work that goes into filmmaking, and my certainty that it’s not a job that I personally would enjoy doing. With the increased focus on virtual performances, film has started to bleed into live theatre, forcing us to worry about camera angles and continuity and matching scenes and things that the live nature of theatre tends to take care of for us. I would definitely go a little crazy dealing with editing together a film and trying to determine the best visual way to tell the story - there are just so many factors that I would prefer to not have to worry about. I wish it had gone deeper into the statement in the title, as that is what drew me in, but I still enjoyed reading the interview and thought it was useful to think about in terms of career options.

Jonah Carleton said...

This is a really interesting article, for different reasons than I thought it would be. I assumed it was going to focus on how an actor/designer/director can tailor and tweak the art they do for a film if they have more knowledge on how it will be cut together and styled. Instead of this article, however, we got a look into what it is like to produce a small indie film. The concept actually sounds really intriguing and I hope one day I can see it. The thing that surprised me the most about their process was how intimate it was. They didn’t pitch it to Netflix or Hulu (which is what I assumed everyone did). Instead they just assembled a team and made the movie themselves. I was also impressed that they managed to weave their personal and professional lives and emerge so scar free. That seems like it must be the truest test of the strength of a relationship - when you can tell someone you don’t like their idea, and they are ok with that.