Making television is notoriously fast and furious, without the generous pillow of a large film production. But what if you produced and edited a TV movie that would be the last project released during the Emmy season 2024-25, and you had less than a month to deliver a working print? For the “Sequence“Creator Jesse Armstrong’s long-awaited HBO movie” Mountainhead “, this wasn’t a” what about? “But one” must happen. “
“Our title for the show on everything over conversation sheets was” espresso “,” Emmy-winning editor and co-producer Bill Henry said with a laugh. “That kind of indicated what we were on from the beginning.” A look inside the overnight from the technical millionaire Pals Randall (Steve Carell), Soupe (Jason Schwartzman), Venis (Cory Michael Smith) and Jeffrey (Ramy Youssef), “Mountainhead” all have the characteristics of Armstrong’s infinite patois.
In the midst of an AI-driven civil war, countries are demolished around the world, make these masters in the universe disgusting cartilage, once up each other and judgments for updates on the crisis, everything from the comfort of a mansion on top of a snowy top. From the start, the movie on May 31 was the air date (the last day of Emmy authorization) was not negotiable.
“We knew (the creators) wanted that goal of Emmysso it was very much
a tough deadline, “editor Mark Davies, who worked with Armstrong at
British comedy “Peep show”, said. (Henry is a “inheritance” veterinarian.) So they simply edited in real time when the film was shot in Utah. “It was not uncommon to have a situation where they are wound (some scenes) and then a few days later the director would call us into the cutting room and we would have a first mounting of everything to go. It was difficult, because they shot quite a lot.”
Main photography wrapped the second week in April; ongoing work
Screeners were available for a few less than four weeks later. But the breaking speed did not visit Henry and Davies. “The real difference was that I was in Utah and Mark was under London,” Henry said. “And on Saturdays, because they were not shooting, we would gather in the morning (via zoom) and review everything that we had cut the week before. And it was unusual in that we typically have have to present. Constrats, It Made Much More Sense for Us To Present as We Were Going, Which Was Really Helpful, Because
Then Jesse would give us feedback on these cuts and we could implement them. “
The actors helped keep the production according to the schedule by arriving in a perfect word-perfective, despite long, complicated monologues that enabled very few
Extra takes. Here, too, previous experience served the editors well. “Jesse has always been one to avoid landing jokes (for obviously) and (prefer) have
Things feel more thrown and organic, “Henry said.” We have just attached what we got and did it in a style that I am only familiar with working with “succession”.
At the same time, they were aware of delivering the great, cinematic appearance that Armstrong wanted without sacrificing the film’s tense, claustrophobic
feeling. “Jesse actually calls it a game,” Davies said. “When we got the first congregation (of pictures) it was about two-and-three-quarters hours, quite long. But everyone involved was dedicated to making a movie for two hours, which meant losing some important pieces that may have changed the pace (including a fun hot-tube scene between Smith and Youssef).
From our interview, the picture was locked up and 16 days from the premiere at HBO. Nevertheless, the editing team said that they expected notes from the network before the average could be considered final. But when you have a tip-top team in place, everything is possible. “We were so lucky that we had the audio department, VFX and the music department on board really early, much earlier than you would normally get,” Davies said. “So it was a fantastic luxury to have.” Then, considering his words, he and Henry laugh. “Well,” said Davies, “Luxury is probably not the right word.”
This story first ran in the limited series & TV filmer edition of Thewrap’s Awards Magazine. Read more from the questionhere.
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