It’s Emmy Awards season and FYC campaigns are kicking into high gear which means interviews with some hot contenders, starting with this exclusive interview with Editor CHAD GALSTER talking Season 5-Part One of YELLOWSTONE.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past five years and haven’t experienced or heard of the phenomena of YELLOWSTONE, here’s a quick rundown for you:
Created by Taylor Sheridan, YELLOWSTONE follows the Dutton family, owners of the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch located in Montana. With six generations behind him, it now falls to patriarch John Dutton and his children, Beth, Kayce, and Jamie (eldest son Lee was killed in Season One) to protect and preserve the ranch from those that would try to take it from the Duttons. As if being the center of battles with Broken Rock Indian Reservation, Yellowstone National Park, and an endless onslaught of developers trying to take the land from the Duttons isn’t enough, it’s the family in-fighting and drama that often takes center stage, particularly when it comes to what is pure hatred between Beth and Jamie.
YELLOWSTONE stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton along with Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, and Wes Bentley as his children. Kelsey Asbille and Brecken Merrill comprise Kayce’s family. Finn Little joined the cast in Season 4 as Carter and is now an integral part of the Duttons. The Bunkhouse Boys are led by Cole Hauser as fan favorite Rip Wheeler, with Forrie J. Smith, Jefferson White, Denim Richards, Ian Bohen, Jen Landon, Ryan Bingham and Jake Ream, to name a few. Gil Birmingham stars as Thomas Rainwater, leader of the Broken Rock Reservation who also finds his position and the reservation being challenged much as John Dutton and the Yellowstone.
Season Five has been broken into two parts with Part Two hopefully airing at the end of 2023, which will also mark the series end.
For Emmy consideration, there are eight episodes of high drama that have taken YELLOWSTONE to new heights as John Dutton has begrudgingly entered politics and is elected governor, putting him in a position to hopefully preserve the land he loves and to prevent Jamie from his own political ambitions, save for being the State’s Attorney General. John has appointed Beth as his Chief of Staff which now finds her spending quite a bit of time away from her husband (finally!) and true love, ranch foreman Rip Wheeler. With John spending so much time at the Capitol, the care of the ranch has fallen to Rip along with Kayce and his family. But, as always, there are new snakes in the grass and environmental issues at the fore which are causing more than their fair share of trouble for John and for the Yellowstone.
Season Five Part One saw heartache for Kayce and Monica, a maturing of his son Tate along with Beth and Rip’s quasi-son Carter, and an escalating battle between Beth and Jamie that now looks like one if not both may find themselves at “the train station” by the series end. And the Bunkhouse Boys are being split up thanks to a brucellosis outbreak among the bison at Yellowstone National Park, something fatal to the Dutton cattle, and we see the cattle being hauled to the 6666 Ranch in Texas to wait it out. (This should also serve as the lead-in to “6666”, another “Yellowstone” spin-off.) Along the way, we also get a catfight between Beth and Summer Higgins (an environmentalist “involved” with John much to the chagrin of Beth) to rival that of Alexis and Crystal in “Dynasty” so many years ago. But there’s been some joy along the way and none more so than in episodes 5 and 6 with the celebration of the annual cattle drive, followed by a beautiful, fun-filled afternoon and evening at the County Fair before Rip and some of the boys haul the cattle to the 6666 in the morning. And there is always the incomparable beauty of the landscape that is celebrated in interstitial transitions.
Wrangling all of this action and emotion falls to editor CHAD GALSTER and his team. Chad has been working with Taylor Sheridan on YELLOWSTONE since Season One serving either as sole editor of episodes or overseeing the editing and giving them that “final touch”. In a series like YELLOWSTONE, the editor is indispensable to the storytelling process and maintaining the cogency of the multiple plotlines and characters over the years.
With YELLOWSTONE, from the land to politics to horses and cattle to the seething hatred between Beth and Jamie, it’s Chad and his team who find the balance that builds the tension, celebrates the romance of Rip and Beth, showcases the land, and keep us on the edge of our seats wanting more.
In this exclusive interview CHAD GALSTER and I go deep discussing the editing of YELLOWSTONE Season 5 Part One with the various eight episodes complete with some editing challenges and opportunities thanks to cattle, branding events, live concerts, and the optics of John Dutton as governor, as well as interstitial transitions, aerials and montages of the landscape, and the contrast and opportunities presented with the introduction of the 6666 Ranch in Texas, including, but not imited to:
- a nod to prior seasons, particularly the opening of Season 4, and the evolution of the show
- seeing Season 5 expand beyond the Yellowstone Ranch
- interstitial transitional montages and the importance of obtaining new footage to keep them fresh; sharing Montana with the audience
- defining the heart of the show
- different vantage points from which to look at the story
- finding the rhythm and pacing when editing
- the challenges and heartbreaks of editing, particularly with scenes such as herding 2000 head of cattle across the land and having a community branding party or quiet moments with a hidden lake and the quiet of nature
- the importance of the score and needledrops to the show and with the editing
- the benefit of having a large library of editing cues from the prior four seasons and implementing them in Season Five
- “live event” editing in Season Five
- looking for opportunities to let the characters’ faces tell the story
- the addition of the 6666 Ranch and visual and emotional tonal differences with the Yellowstone Ranch, i.e., Texas vs Montana
- how early Chad gets the scripts and then the shooting footage in order to start editing
- cross-boarding and cross-cutting
- the most important thing Chad has brought to the storytelling for these first eight episodes of Season 5
- and more!
TAKE A LISTEN. . .
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 05/31/2023
