Patrick Z. McGavin
Sometimes, image editors will come together by chance, sometimes through shared connections. For Andrew Buckland, Ace and Scott Morris, it’s all.
Buckland and Morris worked with director James Gray and with editor John Axelrad.
Now their lives are related to James Mangold’s “complete unknown” namely Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), an early career of Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), from his breakthrough electric performance in the village of Greenwich in 1961 to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Buckland is part of Mangold’s Ford V Ferrari (2019) Oscar-winning photo editorial team. The two recently talked about their first formal collaboration in a joint interview.
Movie: How are you different or similar to Scott’s creativity given your creative relationship with James Mangold [editors] Michael McCusker and Ace Dirk Westervelt, on Fordv. Ferrari?
Andrew Buckland: The working relationship between Jim and I was very long, which made a lot of things easier, more efficient, and everyone was relaxed and comfortable. Jim can be himself, and we can have an understanding because we have worked for Jim and what he expected for a long time. It does have conversations and lots of collaboration.
With Scott, it’s very similar to when I worked with Mike and Dirk. Jim is very willing to have these conversations and collaborations. It was a natural transition when Scott came in. Scott does have a good connection with Jim and just fits in the dynamics of the cutting room. It seems very organic, just like we used to work together.
Movie: Scott As a newcomer, how do you come back and forth to represent your creativity?
Scott Morris: Jim has developed a team of collaborators for a while and I’m very happy to be a new member of the team. Their process is new to me, such as (supervised voice editor) Don Sylvester and (supervised music editor) Ted Caplan were with us in the tailoring room as early as the shoot. When we first assembled the movie, it was incredible to have them work on music and sound. Have such a luxury. We put the scenes together and then quickly go through the turnover and then start developing the sound and music. Will return and affect image editing. It makes us more effective and able to maximize material at an early stage.
Jim shot in New Jersey, we cut in Los Angeles, but he worked during the shooting. He will work with us remotely on Evercast. He would drive all day and then at the end of the day he would work with us for about an hour. That’s amazing. When we showed the edit of the movie, I didn’t even want to call it a rally, Jim had touched more than halfway. We have perfected many scenes with Jim and are working hard to appreciate his vision. We have a compressed schedule on this project, so it does help.
Movie: How did you divide responsibilities? Do you work together on the scene or work separately and then together?
Andrew Buckland: This proves how well Scott is for the dynamic condition of the cutting room he comes in, which I guess is about four weeks or something like that. I’ve been working on the scenes so we keep this dynamic. Since I’ve been involved in a scene, they obviously shoot the daily and I’m just stuck in a very complex multi-camera airport view. I’m now locked in that scene, trying to figure it out.
So Scott will only take the next batch of daily newspapers, and we will work in this organic way, whatever it can be cut. We just have to finish it because Jim comes in, about four days after they wrap Jim.
Scott Morris: Apparently, they made a movie in an out-of-order way. So if someone works in a certain area of the movie, we think it might be a bunch of scenes that will blend together, we try to keep the sequence. Once we get into the reels and have a film editing with Jim, we know all the daily newspapers inside and outside of these sequences. Therefore, we are more reliable.
Then, eventually, all three of us gathered together to review the cuts. The way Jim navigated in the editorial room was that he would bounce between our rooms. Sometimes he would work in Andrew’s room and shout, “Scott, can you come here?” or he was in my room and asked Andrew, we would review the cut and have a conversation. This is a very exciting and fun environment.
Movie: It’s fascinating that the music in the movie is not only a formal element, but is as important as Dylan or Joan Baez.
Scott Morris: The music is fun. They are all musicians, and they communicate through music. That’s how they express themselves. For example, in the scenes of Joan (Monica Barbaro) and Bob, “Blow” is played in bed in the morning. It’s a bit like a conversation scene. There are a lot to do between characters, but they are getting there using lyrics and music. Basically, all of their duo are character-driven, so the music is there, there are repertoire, but there are a lot of character dramas going on in each scene.
Jim’s goal is to make sure that in musical performances we focus on the character arc and how these songs affect the emotions of people in this field, whether it’s our protagonist or more general ideas about the audience, or how the world is influenced by music. It’s about how these musicians communicate and influence each other emotionally through music.
Cinemontage: It seems like there are a few exceptions, and almost all numbers are played. How does this uninterrupted process form and affect the editing rhythm?
Scott Morris: I don’t believe any songs are all played, but there’s a trick in the editing process, we keep in these shots, we linger, you’ll be so rapturous that you’ll be so emotional about what’s happening to the characters that they feel like you feel you’ve got the full experience. We never want to cut it off to a point where it feels rushed or like we are covering up on track. We really try to make it feel like you live in it.
Andrew Buckland: The first moment he played the first moment of To Woody, and I think it’s close to the full length of the song, but it’s a song and we want to linger in that song because it’s the first time we’ve seen Timmy play his hero. So we wanted to experience that moment through Pete Seeger (Edward North) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) watching his eyes, just the kind of natural, primitive talent Bob does and very simple things. And then later in the movie, with the spirit of these songs, these aren’t all, but I think they are driven by the emotions of the scene.
Once you experience what this song really conveys, it really allows us to move to the next emotional beat. So we are very aware that we don’t want to linger in the process of cutting this film. We don’t want to avoid our welcome, we want to keep pace and move on to the next moment, each scene falls into the next scene with no start, middle and end. Just really bringing all these songs together.
Scott Morris: Using musical transitions, we find that in the scene we can play a song in a live performance, and then we can turn into a transitional work or a montage work. In some cases we either deprive vocals, for example in the middle party scene, when there is this duo between Edward and Timmy, it is a score piece because it transitions from the party.
Movie: The environment was in the 1960s, but before the Vietnam-era protests did gather force, it might feel different from what many people remember or imagined. Are you talking to Jim about how you want to capture the movement and rhythm of that era?
Andrew Buckland: The movie creates a motivation in this article, which is how we cut the music and how we transition and provide the idea of getting stuck in the next scene. I think the only impactful moment of the transition is obvious, we’ll jump in 1965, we cut it black and hit the title card. He is in a new era, so is Bob. He has changed. That was intentional. This is the only thing we do.
Scott Morris: The world changed dramatically in 1964 and 65. We admit, with the music and everything happening on the street. At the party you hear the Beatles mentions, Bob goes into rock, the British invasion, and later, we hear the Kinks song. There is definitely a part, and a part two, Bob has hair at night, the idol with sunglasses becomes more icons, and it will definitely be a little different between the first and second half of the movie.
Andrew Buckland: I think it’s very interesting to go back to the momentum that goes back to the movie. As time goes by, they don’t really reveal themselves. They are very subtle and subtle. We don’t know in the sense of using chyron or something like that. It’s just a natural progression. And I think those subtle transitions of time jumps will create that advancement.
Cinemontage: What is the most artistic or emotionally satisfying part of your work?
Scott Morris: For me, it’s all about collaborating, working with people like Andrew and Jim Mangold, it’s about creativity and finding the spark of a movie, and working with the performance and the actors. I love working in the office of the community environment, working closely with directors, other editors, assistants, the entire team. Making a movie is a common journey. I love the collaborative process.
Andrew Buckland: I think it’s a real back and forth collaboration that’s my best choice. It allowed me to introduce and explore and be able to have conversations and then execute Jim’s ideas. Just having conversations and collaborations is key, and what keeps me moving forward. I can’t just be in the room and can do it without contact.
Patrick Z. McGavin is a Chicago-based writer and cultural journalist. He writes the movie at https://patrickzmcgavin.substack.com/.
