Often called “the invisible art”, editing can either make or break a film. As many filmmakers will attest, editing is where a story is written or, in some cases, rewritten. It is the responsibility of the editors to put the pieces of film footage together to tell the most compelling and effective story in keeping with the director’s vision, and above all, to do it seamlessly. However, the art of editing is not just the mechanical actions of assembling the film into a finished product. It involves creativity and understanding of all the layers of storytelling from performance to story and dialogue, to images and pacing. Editors find the tone of the film.
When it comes to the acclaimed Paramount television series YELLOWSTONE, starring Kevin Costner, writer/director/creator Taylor Sheridan could do no better than to have GARY ROACH and EVAN AHLGREN at the helm as his editors.
Roach began his career as an apprentice editor on Clint Eastwood’s “Absolute Power” and ultimately edited 16 films for Eastwood either as an assistant editor or editor before joining forces with Sheridan on “Wind River”. Along the way, he was the cutter for Denis Villeneuve, Robert Lorenz and Alison Eastwood. Roach’s work on Eastwood’s “Changeling” garnered him a BAFTA nomination while his work on “American Sniper” earned him an Academy Award nomination. While Roach has spent decades honing his editing skills in film, Ahlgren has been mastering the craft in television with extensive series work in a variety of genres. Be he editor or assistant editor, Ahlgren has worked on everything from “Reno 911!” to “Key & Peele” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” to dramas like “Guidance” and “The Messengers”. It was with Taylor Sheridan’s “Wind River” when Gary Roach and Evan Ahlgren joined forces when Ahlgren was brought in as an assistant editor. Understanding both the dramatic beats and the visual tonal bandwidth of Sheridan’s work, compounded with their respective experiences in film and television, Roach and Ahlgren make the perfect team for YELLOWSTONE.
Starring Oscar and Emmy award winner Kevin Costner, YELLOWSTONE boasts an exemplary ensemble cast in this modern western that retains the mores and touchstones of the Old West which are such a recognizable part of the tapestry that is America. Costner, as John Dutton is a sixth-generation homesteader and patriarch of a powerful, complicated family of ranchers. The Dutton ranch is the largest contiguous ranch in the United States but suffers from the conflicts arising from its borders – an Indian reservation, America’s first national park, and an expanding local town complete with land grabbers and corrupt politicians. In addition to Costner, other principal cast members adding to the fabric of YELLOWSTONE are Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, Brecken Merrill, Jefferson White, Danny Huston, and most notably, Gil Birmingham.
Working with Sheridan, Roach and Ahlgren have had to find an editorial balance between the beauty and vastness of the land and the Dutton ranch with the intimacy – and estrangement- of the members of the Dutton family, and the often contentious dynamics between John Dutton, developers, politicians, and Native Americans. With so many moving parts, just on the surface, editing is a large part of making YELLOWSTONE “work”. But then we get into the layers of storytelling, the metaphor of certain close-ups, mid-shots, wide shots and camera angles, the body language of characters, the timber and cadence of voices. GARY ROACH and EVAN AHLGREN master it all seamlessly.
I spoke with GARY ROACH and EVAN AHLGREN about YELLOWSTONE. Some of the only principal department heads to stay on for seasons one and two, this bodes well for continuity of editing and that all-important tone of the show. Skilled at their craft, both are animated and engaging, and clearly not only love what they do, but love working on YELLOWSTONE.
I’m so happy to be talking to both of you. It’s not often I get to talk to editors, especially ones who have the depth and breadth of experience that you have and that you bring to YELLOWSTONE. Both of you have done amazing works over the years and now to see what you’re doing with YELLOWSTONE. Wow! Editing is always such a big part of making a series work, especially, a series as vast as YELLOWSTONE with all the ground it covers. You guys are jockeying between the beauty and the vastness of Montana, the intimacy yet estrangement of a family. You’re working with closeups, mid shots. You’ve got the claustrophobia of political walls closing in. You capture all of this with your editing. So, what is the secret to this? But perhaps the bigger question is how do you not want to just have every frame as a widescreen of the gorgeous, gorgeous landscape of Montana?
GR: I think that every film or every show starts with the writing. And it also goes to Ben [Richardson]. It goes to how it’s shot. I believe that we were very fortunate in the fact that Taylor’s vision was to capture the beauty of Yellowstone or Montana and this area. And he did that. In cinematography, when you talk about Ben Richardson and what he was able to capture, and all of it was footage that they were able to give us, just made our job fun. And it was just a matter of taking the beauty that was shot and putting it together and putting that puzzle and part of the story and being able to use all that was absolutely fantastic.
I’m glad you mentioned Ben Richardson. Ben and I go back to “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” He is amazing. And you do have great footage to work with, to begin with, and he was part of Taylor’s “Wind River” team. But, this is also not your first time at the rodeo with Taylor [Sheridan] because you both worked on “Wind River with him. I was gobsmacked by the editing and the cinematography there with the white on white, seeing Jeremy [Renner] out, just out in the snow. Stunning, stunning, stunning visual story-telling. So, now to see you re-team with Taylor, and while we’re out of the snow, in its place we have the beautiful palettes and the intimacy of this family story. Totally different and equally as fabulous. So, I’m curious what the key is for you in this editing process of YELLOWSTONE because it is episodic. It’s not just one standalone film that goes out, and you don’t visit again. You’ve got two seasons now under your belts. So, I’m curious as to your approach and how you put together each one of these episodes into a cohesive story and follows the master storyline.
GR: Do you want to elaborate on that, Evan?
EA: Oh, sure. With season one, we approached the full entire season as a feature. So, we treated it as one long movie, a 10-hour movie and they cross-boarded every episode while they were shooting. So, Gary and I would just divvy out the scene and build from there. We just treated the first season as one 10-hour movie and that kind of helped us wrap our head around it. And sometimes we’d get so much beautiful footage, it’d be hard to choose what to use; which isn’t a bad problem. It’s a great problem!
You get into the family dynamics here. We’ve got the Duttons, then we’ve got Gil Birmingham’s character, Thoams Rainwater. We have the political situation, and you’re also finding this great synergistic balance in your tone because you guys are the ones creating the tone. I’m curious about putting those puzzle pieces together as we break it down into the episodes.
EA: I feel like a lot of the environment that they shot helps with the tone. It’s almost a character on its own, so that helps the story right there. And a lot of the stories are deep, like within the characters. There’s a lot of infinite moments, even from the villain’s point of view. They have a lot of emotions playing from both sides, from the political side, and the rancher’s perspective when it comes to Yellowstone. So, there’s sympathetic aspects with everybody which kind of draws the audience in. You’ll see the light and the dark in everybody.
I have to say that one of the characters that you really excel at editing footage of which, again, goes back to Ben’s lensing of it, is Danny Huston’s Dan Jenkins. You really showcase the good and bad sides of Danny’s character. It really impresses me and I’m curious, because this is such an ensemble piece with so many human moving parts, do you develop an affinity towards one character or the other in the editing process or for a particular story arc that you may have to reign yourself back from giving a little extra special touch to in the editing process?
GR: Yeah, I believe we do.
EA: Yeah. All the actors are top-notch and all their performances are on point. They make it easy to cut them that way. They cut together so naturally and a lot of their facial expressions gives so much emotion through the screen without words sometimes. But, yeah, you definitely get attached to some characters, cutting them. I love cutting particular characters. I’m sure Gary does, too. I’ll grab scenes with particular actors sometimes or their characters.
GR: Evan usually takes the scenes where the acting is the best. [laughing] I’m joking. And, it makes our lives so much easier and fun to have actors like Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham, Luke Grimes and Kelly Reilly. Oh my God! Kelly is so fantastic and her performances are so real. I remember, in fact, this is the episode that we’re submitting in episode five. The scene between Jamie and Beth is so, so powerful; Wes Bentley, and Kelly is so emotional and so real and they both pulled that off. That’s one of my favorite scenes in that episode. But, when you’re working with actors like that, that can give those types of performances, it’s nothing but fun to put that together and tell that story.
I’ll see anything that Wes does and I really love the way that you’ve edited the pieces of Wes so far through season one. I can’t wait to see what you do with him in season two!
EA: Oh, it just gets better!
I’ve got to ask you guys, who likes editing the horses the most?
EA: Horses aren’t very good actors. They just do whatever they want. They don’t realize that we like continuity and we really don’t like mismatches. But yet, some days they have their heads up and then down. And they don’t really understand. [laughing]
Darn those horses! Once you’re in the editing process, how long would you say it takes you to get to your final edit? You’ve got your rough cut. Taylor comes in, gives you notes. You’ve got producers giving you notes. How long does it take for you to edit one episode of YELLOWSTONE, the editor’s cut
GR: You know what, that’s an extremely tough question to answer. I’ll give you an idea. In season one you have all of the cross-boarding. In most cases, not YELLOWSTONE’s, that’s usually two weeks. On YELLOWSTONE, I feel like it was a little bit longer than that. I think that Taylor probably has a lot more to say and is very passionate about what he wants. So, we spend a couple weeks with Taylor. The network always gets a chance to see it when he’s done and they will give notes. Which will then make Taylor think of more things that he wants to do. So, I think the process of YELLOWSTONE, especially in season one, was longer than most. I would say it was three weeks or a month. Evan, do you agree with that?
EA: Yeah. I 100% agree.
Do you like the luxury of having more time because as you mentioned, it gives everybody a chance to come up with more notes and more notes and more notes? Or do you prefer it where you get in, you get out? Editor’s cut is done, director’s cut comes back with a couple notes and you get it done and you move on. Is it a luxury or is it more of a hindrance the more time you have to finish up the process?
EA: I look it like a blessing and a curse at the same time because sometimes you can overthink things and it can change something that was great. But in this instance, I feel like it worked out very well for the show.
GR: Yeah. I think that we were able to dial into the story and tell the story that much better and find and eliminate the moments that were unnecessary. I feel like I have to agree with Evan. At this stage, it was a good thing.
How much footage ends up “on the cutting room floor” with YELLOWSTONE?
GR: You know, quite a bit. In season one, luckily, I think the original time they wanted was 42 minutes. That went up when episodes started being an hour and six minutes. They upped that time to 46 almost 47 minutes. 46 minutes 55 seconds. But I would say most episodes, first editor’s cut was at least an hour or some cases, an hour and 10 minutes, an hour and 15. So we did have to lose quite a bit to accommodate television.
And I bet that was a painstaking cutting process.
EA: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of good content that you fall in love with but you have to let go of.
What editing system do you guys use?
EA: The Avid.
What is it about the Avid that you personally as editors like?
EA: I wouldn’t ever want to work on any other system. I like the speed of Avid. I like being able to have effect. It’s literally, not every effect has to be rendered in order to play it. Some do, but not all of them. And even if you have to render them, it’s very quick. It just continues to get better and better for me.
GR: It’s just a solid program.
Does it make a difference to you whether you’re cutting television or film? Evan, I know you’ve got a deeper breadth with television editing. Gary, you’ve really got the film, the cinematic,editing down. So I’m curious if the Avid makes a difference for the particular mediums?
GR: No. I find them very similar in the way I work. And luckily for me, most of the television shows that I have done, especially YELLOWSTONE, it’s more like a feature film to me than television. So, I really just look at them as the same.
And what about you, Evan?
EA: Yeah, the same. It kind of just goes to how your editing style is, not really what platform or system you’re using. I like my TV shows to feel like movies as well. So that’s what I love so much about YELLOWSTONE.
That’s one of the first things with episode one that made me fall in love with the show. It’s very cinematic and the editing is not traditional “television editing.” And it’s because of you guys that we get this great cinematic experience with YELLOWSTONE.
GR: Thank you so much!
EA: Thank you!
Anything special that I can look for in season two of YELLOWSTONE? Editing wise?
EA: Oh my God! Yeah. It’s full of real surprises!
GR: There’s new characters in season two that bring a whole new element to this show. But, beware!
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 04/03/2019
