EDITING
Ellie is looking at sheep and she makes a baaing noise at them,” says Mendez. “That was only on one take, but I’d marked it, because these little details build character. “The Last of Us was one of my
favourite games, I played it years before,” she continues. “I was still pulling that knowledge while working on it. When little things came up during our editors’ cut stage, I would mention to Tim that it felt like the game, or it might be a good thing to incorporate.” After cutting the show on Avid, the
editors would work with each director on their cut, before it moved to Mazin. With subsequent reshoots sometimes coming months later, the editors might be juggling seven episodes at the same time.
“Luckily, we had two editors to help
us, Mark Hartzell and Cindy Naldo, who did two episodes, one at the beginning and one near the end,” Good says. “Those two episodes are fantastic, incredible television, we couldn’t have done it without them.”
CAST OF THOUSANDS Despite the show being set in a vicious hellscape, Mazin didn’t want to show violence as a spectacle, but rather seeing how characters experience that violence. This might have posed problems for a huge battle in Kansas City, which Good sees as his most complicated sequence. “It was a mountain of material,” he recalls. “I created selects reels for every shot, every angle, and then I would create super selects of each select reel, all so that I could understand what was available to me. “Once I put it all together, Craig and I
“EMILY AND I HAVE THIS WONDERFUL PROCESS WHERE WE WATCH EVERY
SINGLE TAKE BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THE GOLD IS.”
TIMOTHY GOOD ACE EDITOR
decided that the best way to showcase action is through character. Looking at it that way, it’s basically a two person scene – Joel and Ellie. We had Ellie’s point of view of her own safety and Joel’s point of view of Ellie; every single thing hinged on that interaction. Once it was distilled to that element, it became easy to cut - in a strange way – because it was literally a two-person scene with a thousand extras.”
SILENCE IS GOLDEN There’s a lot left unsaid in this series; several significant cuts feature silent
looks and pregnant pauses that add a lot of meaning. Referring to this use of ‘negative space’,
Good says: “It allows the audience to connect with the emotion of a character because they’re not concentrating on the dialogue at the same time. You’re able to study the face of the character that has said something or is reacting to something; you’re not simultaneously processing something else.” Episode 3, ‘Long, Long Time’, features
a few prime examples. Directed by Peter Hoar, it’s taken up for the most part by the relationship between prepper/survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) and wandering survivor Frank (Murray Bartlett). Bill and Frank’s initial lunch together
couldn’t be edited in such a way that they talk over each other, because as Good says, “number one, they don’t know each other. Number two, they’re suspicious of each other. And number three, Frank’s suspecting that this guy’s really in the closet, and he is wondering how to figure this out.” “I love editing for people who are
making decisions, because I think the audience then connects with the emotion of that character,” he continues. “After pauses, and even after someone says a line, I love to hold on them. I’m constantly sensing the energy of the performer. How long I hold on them is based on how long that energy stays at maximum, and how I feel the audience should be interpreting that pause.”
Summer 2023
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