Funny story. It's with Stephen Frias because
he's the funniest man ever. We were in Soho in a very tiny
room. Meryl Streep, him, the producer,
everybody in the cutting room to discuss the things about the
film. Meryl has her bag on the floor
next to the table. The sushi arrive with the miso
soup and and everybody is talking about no, cut this shot,
No, cut that shot. No, no.
Anyway, Stephen gets fed up at some point and slyly push the
table because he needs to stand up.
And a big tub of miso soup literally fell like this inside
Meryl Streep's Chanel bag with a very expensive scarf that cost
probably $5000. So I found myself cleaning up
bits of miso soup from. Meryl's bag and it was
hilarious. We are.
I'm Nosovchenko. And Pierre Paolo Filomeno and
this is Editors Anonymous. A podcast about film editing
made by film editors. Like in a group therapy session,
we chat with fellow editors about how they approach a scene,
how they tune into a director's vision, whether they ever feel
afraid when starting a new project, and the tricks they've
picked up along the way. In short, we try to figure out
about how to live and survive in a job that's so subjective and
almost mysterious. Editors Anonymous started in
2021 as an Italian podcast, but now offers episodes in either
Italian or English. Check the title for the
language. Our guest today is Valerio
Bonelli. So Valerio, how did your journey
into film editing begin? When did you realize that film
editing was what you wanted to do in life?
My my journey into film editing started very early on.
I was a complete reject of Italian educational system in
the sense that I went from very poor, mediocre results in in
Litio Classico in Italy to feeling that I had to get a
diploma to, to get out and go to university.
But then I realized I don't really want to go to university.
And so my I remember being 18 year old, 19 year old probably
and my dad driving me down. I was following him on a work,
one of his work trip and my dad asking me, what do you like in
life? And I said, well, I like, I like
architectural, but I don't really want to go and study
architecture because I'm really bad in math and I really love
cinema. My parents were freaking out
about the idea that I was going to try to be an actor and they
said, Oh my God, he wants to be an actor.
And I was like, no, no, no, no, I, I want to make film.
You know, I really want to make film.
So, so at the time in 19, that was 1997, I just finished
school, I got my diploma literally with the teeth of my
skin. I basically went to this little
film school in Florence called ISCA and I applied for the
directing course, but that was full.
And instead, the organizer of the school told me, you know, if
you follow the editing course, it follows all the programme of
the directing course, but so it's a good thing.
So you can still apply this here and apply to the editing course.
And I was like, OK, I'll do that.
And, and slowly but surely, I realized that editing was
actually a more interesting dimension for me.
I was really into the technology side as well of film editing.
I did a little bit of experience celluloid, but I, I realized I
need to expand to my, my, my knowledge, my horizon.
I went to meet a see a friend in London who was studying sound
engineering. And then one thing after the
next, I met a person who was working at AVID.
He would support all the editors who would use media Composer,
which was a very early on days. He was like one of the first few
first software in the time 9899 you're talking about.
There was light works or, or, or, or, or, or media composer.
And, and so he taught me of it. And then then I met a person
who's actually an Italian film editor called Lucia Zucchetti.
She told me to go to the National Film and Television
School in, in London. And thank God I applied there
because that changed my life completely.
I remember at the same time I applied to the Chintros Prim
Itali in Rome. And so I had this choice and I
thought that England suited me best.
And that's where I met Cosmos Pender, my wife, who then became
my wife. And we, you know, we started a
collaboration. What happened was something
quite, I think about it. It was almost like winning a
lottery. The friend who introduced me to
to to Avid one day called me up and said, hey, there is Pietro
Scalia in in town and and he's working on Gladiator and this is
only his second film on Avid and he's not very experienced
because he uses lightworks and he's struggling.
He can't find an assistant who knows how to use the avid
properly. You know, those days assistant
editor were mostly on film, you know, and and Avid was very new.
So there were not, there were not many assistant able to, to,
to, to, to, to run the Avid properly and to, to know all
the, you know, tricks. And, and so I came very
recommended. I remember he called me up on
the phone and I was, I was in the bus coming back from school
and I thought it was a joke. So I, I, I said to him that, you
know, that he called me and say I'm Pietro Scalia.
And I say, yeah. And I, I'm the Pope.
And I thought it was one of my friend from Italy joking because
I remember always actually admiring Pietro's work.
He was one of my heroes, you know, And I remember looking at
JFK and analyzing every single cuts and frame of JFK and
thinking how masterful the editing was, the, the narrative
of the film and the use of documentary footage.
And so anyway, I went to see him and then he got me that he, he
hired me. He at the beginning was supposed
to be just a couple of weeks. And then I ended up spending
about four months. Where I went even to Malta, so I
had, I had to interrupt the school.
The school allowed me to, to, to, to work at the same time as
studying. But it was an incredible
experience. You know, I was literally
stepping on. I remember going to the South of
London near Gatwick Airport where there was the set of the
battle scene at the beginning and, and, and suddenly seeing
Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott and, and, and about 150 soldiers all
dressed up with catapults and fire.
I mean, I thought I was like in a, in a parallel world, to be
honest with you. And you know, then Gladiator
went to become a super successful film and, and then I
started working over the years with Pietro and Gridley on many
other projects. I was very keen at the beginning
of my career as an assistant not to do it as a kind of form of
job, being as a full, most of you know, of, of income and job.
And I was always choosing the project to assist because at the
same times I wanted to keep on editing.
So I kept on editing Low budget documentaries, short films, low
budget feature film. But there's no doubt that Pietro
with Time is one of the person who has helped me the most to
give me a springboard. Then find my first feature film
to edit which was Thriller Horror film about the Hannibal
Lecter saga and it was like the prequel of the Hannibal Lecter
story with the director called Peter Webber and the producer
was the legendary Dino De Laurentiis which I I have
endless stories about him. He was one of the most
charismatic and annoying person I've ever met in my life with an
incredible personality, you know, and he's a, he, he was a,
he was like a living legend. He, he, he produced Kaberia.
He produced most of Fellini's film and, and made King Kong and
Conan the Barbarian. I mean, you named him, you know,
War and Peace. And I remember him and Harvey
Weinstein fighting on the film that I was doing for them.
So that that that was like as a kind of baptism into into
editing. My first film was like, I was,
you know, I felt in the middle of two Titans, really.
But Dina was always open. He was always excited to work
with young people. And that's why he gave me the
shot, you know, he, he allowed, you know, I something that I,
it's a film that I shared the, the credit with Pietro.
I started it. He came in for two or three
months and then I carried on. So that was my first experience
as a sole editor, you know, as a, as a on a, on a big feature
film. As you mentioned, Pedro Scalia
was an important figure in your career.
There are also others like your wife Cosima Spender.
You already mentioned it, but also Stephen Fears and Joe
Wright. It's all people you have built
with whom you have built ongoing collaborations.
You know, at the beginning of each editor's career, it's an
editor's career is defined by the by the directors you work
with. And it's very important to find
a director who think you can kind of grow together and build
your career with him. And at the beginning I was
struggling because Peter, that film wasn't very good, wasn't
very successful. So I started a period of my
career from 2005 six. I already had a little child, so
I needed to earn money as well as wanting to work.
And so I spent a period of my life where I did.
I've worked almost every year with a different director of all
up and coming very talented film maker called Jordan Scott, who
was, he's the daughter of Ridley Scott.
Then I had the luck to work with Ricky Gervais and Stephen
Merchant, who are brilliant comedians, and they were making
their first feature film after The Office.
And then I ended up doing an action movie with Bruce Willis
for a year and a half. And that was like probably the
worst experience I've ever still ever had in my career, but
taught me so much about politics and editing and how much you can
pull material right, left, up and down and manipulate footage
in many different ways to tell different type of story.
Even in a feature film, putting lines inside the inside Bruce
Willis mouth that he never said because you know.
And I remember. After that, returning to London
from Los Angeles for a long period in Los Angeles, thinking
I really need to find an established director to work
with. It's like became a mission.
So I ended up doing a film with Steve Knight, his first feature
film. And out of that film I met a
producer called Tracy Seward, who was Stephen Frias's producer
and and he was doing, was preparing a film called
Philomena. And that was like, that was my
first, I think big break, I think as a as A and, and I still
remember as one of the best experience of my life and one of
the best editing job I've ever done.
And that's when my name started to really circulate in the in
the British and American film industry because the film went
to be nominated for an Oscar. I didn't get a nomination.
But normally this kind of film don't get nominations because
editing is something invisible. It's it's an invisible art.
And often I find that maybe I say this with a little bit of
resentment, I'm sure. But often the the nominated film
for editing either are very flashy where they have very kind
of visible editing or they are film that are connected.
But but the editing is connected to directing in the sense that,
you know, if a director particularly is extraordinary,
then the editing gets recognised because of the directing side.
Or you might do a film like Baby Driver and the the editing is so
obviously in your face that you get nominated.
But for me, Philomena was an incredible experience.
And from then I from that point I kept, I kept on collaborating
with Stephen Frears for about 3-4 years up until I met Joe
Wright. He called me up to to edit an
episode of Black Mirror called Nosedive.
And then after that, we basically kept on working
together ever since, you know, I did Darkest Hour and eventually
Mussolini, M son of the century. I was stunned by the editing.
There are sequences which were really, you can see how you had
to deal with different. Also kind of footage.
No, because there are the fake archive, Bennett's archive.
But I noticed that both The Darkest Hour and M Mussolini,
because in English it's Mussolini, they both begin with
their with sequences, with real archive footage.
It's like a statement. Now this is a true story, but
but it's still so incredible now that we have to say that it's
real. How did you manage to to deal
with the research and the organization of all the archive
material? Did you do it personally?
Did you have team or your assistant?
OK, on In Darkest Hour, actually the idea to put some documentary
footage came in the editing room later in the process because Joe
during preparation showed me all this amazing footage that he
found at the Imperial War Museum about Germany's preparing for
war. And you know, there's something
amazing about war footage which I research and dug into in my
life in many other different projects.
But there's something amazing about the style of, of, of
filming because you know, you look at, you look at English
behind the lines or, or, or, or, or war footage and it's all very
handheld and realistic and you look at French and it's very
kind of still. You can see the cinema verita.
Then you went to, you go to Germany and you see German
footage and the amazing aesthetic of how even the Nazi
shot, obviously, you know, thinking about Leni Riefenstahl,
but that angle, you know, the, the aesthetic of what, how
Germany shot the, the war, it's, it's, it was unbelievable.
And then the War Museum, they had this footage.
And I said to Joe, I think we should just use it.
You know, you should, we should just have an introduction
because it's great to go straight in parliament.
But I think it would be great to see images of Germany preparing
for war because that's the backdrop of the beginning of
Darkest Tower is basically tanks, cannon and heavy
artillery gearing up, you know, invading the rest of Europe.
And he resisted at the beginning because he was very keen to
start with his own footage. And then eventually after we did
few test screenings, it came the necessity to put some.
Caption at the start. And so we put the caption and
then we said, why don't we put caption with some images?
So then we did it and he liked it and we, we, we carried on.
And particularly because he liked the style of how those
shots where, you know, it basically mirrored a bit his
style because Joe is a very aesthetic director.
With Mussolini there was always a script had an intro with Lucas
voice playing Mussolini from the future, talking about obviously
the past with images of of. Venteno.
Venteno exactly. The 20 years of fascist rule.
So there was obviously there was a deal in place with this
Tuluche. We knew that we we had to look
at a lot of footage. I had a series of assistant
helping me helping me go through.
But I remember very early on Joe used to do the screenings.
Even before shooting of of archives, he would they would go
to change the time screen it on the big screen and because to
trying to get inspiration because he knew he wanted to
blend our let's call it. Fake archive with real archives.
So that's idea where that's where the idea came from.
You know, from looking at this footage and saying, you know
what, I'm just going to put Luca.
As young Mussolini intercut. With World War.
One footage and to trying to blend the two things together.
And then the actual technical process was very interesting
because everything with Luca was shot obviously on digital.
But then I would cut it select it and cut it.
And then we sent it to a guy here in England that would film
it with a Bolex camera off a high resolution monitor.
And then he would take this this 16 millimetre film and develop
it in in his own bathtub and exposing it to a bit of light
and creating all those kind of flares naturally.
So all the kind of effect we did several tests to trying to make
it look like real old archive and but we did it organically.
I put flash frame everywhere and I created myself certain layers
and I was like building certain overlay to create that sense of
old archive. But the grain and all that that
that came from the from the process of filming it, from the
monitor with a real 60mm camera and then Telesini the negative
back and into digital again. And this was very important for
Mussolini's story because Mussolini's one of the first, I
would say maybe the first ever politician who understood the
power of the medium. He understood the meaning of
cinema as a way to influence masses.
Then he had a lot of the ideas about, you know, he was also
inspired by films like Man with a movie Camera, which we used
very often in, in transitions and but you know, we used even
frames of Persona by Berkman in, in, in, in a certain transition.
We, we do little, you know, we did some little homage to, to,
to, to old cinema to. But like for instance all the
travelling car sequence in in Outside is basically footage
from man with a movie camera, the famous Ukrainian.
Sigavertov. Yeah, Sigavertov exactly
because, you know, he didn't want to do fake backdrop with.
Well, first of all, where do you find 1920s Rome?
It's it's impossible. Or you can build it CG, but then
it would it would look like a rye TV, you know, TV series,
historical. I mean, Joe is a very visionary
director. He thinks a lot about the frame
and the images and he's often, I think, criticised too much in
the UK for being too flamboyant in his style.
I think in Italy he found a way to actually express himself
without ever being criticised for certain choices.
That was cool that an English director did a female Mussolini.
Actually it was very fresh speaking about style and
aesthetics. So as Beppe said, the the
editing style was we were stunned and it's so visually
complex. Multi layers test is old
fashioned masks and iris, kind of kaleidoscopic pictures in
picture flashes, rapid cuts. It's to us looks like futuristic
editing which resonates with the historical avant-garde of the
time. So how did you guys develop and
working on this statics? Were you aware, conscious of of
this? And ultimately how did you work
with the music also that is composed by Chemical Brothers?
Yeah. I mean, that's obviously was
what was the intention from the start.
To, to, to. Also pay homage to the futurist
style. Joe very early on told me I'm
going to have Chemical Brothers to do the music.
And I was like, oh, OK. I was a little scared because I
knew that the approach was going to be basically that I was going
to have a lot of work to do. In the sense that when you work
with people like Tom, they give you they give you a lot of
samples and a lot of material. And then you're left in the
cutting room with all these hours of music that you kind of
have to stitch together and build ideas.
So it's a very creative job and very exciting.
And it would, it's a ping pong. It's a real ping pong between
me, Joe and Tom. And then eventually another key
figure comes in, which is in this case is a brilliant German
composer slash music editor called David Menke, who came in
the process more towards the end of the shooting to the post
production and he would take my ideas.
Tom footed Tom music and you know, building a better, more
layered score, adding extra instrumentation.
But the intention in on the from the point of view of the I mean,
I'm talking a lot about music because obviously those sequence
where the editing is visible are very much driven by the music.
There was a risk to turn it into music video because obviously
also the choice of using techno, you know, electronic music with,
with the collaboration we had with Tom Rowland of The Chemical
Brothers. But I mean, since the start it
was it was clear that it was going to be something that was
either going to be brilliant or incredibly dangerous because the
risk was to glorified or glamorized an aspect of fascism
which at least we all hated, which is the violence.
Equally. At the same time, you had to
understand the violence and understand what who were their
DT and what they were driven by and what was their motif.
You know, those were periods where violence obviously came
from right and left. I mean, I am obviously enjoys
the same. We are we are anti fascist and
we made this film with the spirit of of of being anti
fascist. But you couldn't just point the
finger. You also had to try to
understand that that sense of rebelliousness and and
excitement that some of those young, sometimes young kids that
came out of World War One were driven by.
Because I mean, the the first couple of episodes shows it that
the period was a very difficult period in Italian history.
And although Italy won the war, there was a lot of social
uprising and and disappointment from a lot of level of society.
There were some probably seeds of wanting a better world even
in the fascist movement. They did wanted a better world.
They did wanted the better jobs for a for for for in factories
and better salaries and they remove malaria.
You know, it's like you can't deny the desire.
It's just how they did it and what happened so.
I had fun. I I.
Really had a lot of fun cutting the sequence, but at the same
times I had also a lot of I also had a lot of tears into my eyes
because. My grandfather was anti fascist
and I come from an anti fascist family.
I think that basically you were all able to show the heart of
fascism, which is something that we never we never saw on a
screen. You usually see a kind of
puppeteering version of fascism. Yeah, normally in the
representation of fascism in Italian cinema, it's it's kind
of seen from from its end. So it's mostly depicted as
decadente, I would say. But the series and the book from
Scarati rather put the accent on how the fascist did seize the
power. So not with a coup.
Yes, of course there was the March on Rome in 1922, but they
came to power really manipulating and eroding
democratic institutions from inside this egos in a troubling
way. What's going on in the United
States today? Yeah, I mean, obviously in the
writing there is a deliberate connection in episode 4 to
what's happening to the world now when when Mussolini turns
the camera and talks and say make Italy great again.
I can reveal a little aspect which is very interesting that
in that montage at the beginning of episode 1 On paper was
supposed to finish with images of the present after pizza
laureate that was in in On paper.
Stefano and David have wrote an idea for a for for a montage of
Capitol Hill in in America and you know, people and various
other images the war in Ukraine. I put it together.
We screened it like this for the first couple of months
internally with our producers and and it just felt it was one
step too many, which you kind of, it's better to leave it
subtly in the in the film and let the audience arrive to that
conclusion without necessarily push it down the throat of the
audience from the very first moment.
So we decided to take that nod to the future out and let it
breathe through the film and through the serious.
I call it film because in the end, for me, M is the film.
It should have been distributed in the cinema.
I mean, I, I don't understand. I'm, I do a little polemic note
with Sky here that I can finally do it.
But they've been they're not being very clever in not, you
know, the the series could have been shown in the cinema and I'm
sure people would have flocked the cinemas in Italy to go and
see it. But yeah, I think, you know,
obviously the whole series. I think it's the end standard of
century from the book to the series.
I think it had the intention to trying to make people think
about the world we live in now. Exactly.
Now, you know, the the the the rising of populism, the rising
of toxic masculinity. Joe was very keen to talk about
the toxic masculinity and and what that toxic mentality can
bring to a democratic process, because as you said, this is not
like a Pinochet go coup d'etat. This is this was like a
democratic. I'll give you an example.
One, one of the best episode that represents what fascism
really is. It's episode 5 and 6, which are
the middle episode they're considering all, all often the
most boring. But when you understand how he
changed the electoral law, how he managed to take people from
the left wing parties into his own parties, then you understand
really the danger of that, of that system.
And when when we put together those episodes, there was an
early stage in the process where the producer were like, are we
going to make a film? Can you, Valerio, can you think
about the possibility of cutting Mussolini, the Ms. of the
century, down from 8 episode to a cinematic release of three
hours? And I was like, you know, we can
think about that, but it's going to become a lot less shallow as
a project. And in fact, we didn't do a
three hours version because it would have become a summary
rather than a real exploration of, of the rise of fascism.
Yeah. And it wouldn't allow characters
like Margherita Serfati to flourish.
It wouldn't allow characters like she's that she's that they
all see to to flourish. He wouldn't, you know, And even
the character of Mussolini himself, you know.
How? How?
He develops through the episode
is very it's quite, it's quite interesting considering that we
never shot really in order. It was never shot
chronologically the whole series.
Bold, bold, broadly speaking, yes, you know, I parliament was
one of the last things was shot, but obviously you went to
parliament and you started from episode 1 to the end.
So Luca had to do in five days a progression of his character in
those spaces that that that illustrates basically his the
journey of his character. So, yeah, I have an incredible
respect and admiration for Luca Marinelli.
I think he's one of the greatest actor I've ever had the pleasure
to cut performance And, and, and at the same, I mean, I, I've
been lucky in my career to to be able to cut, you know, Gary
Oldman, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench.
And for me, he's at the same level.
He's one of those actor who can turn any project around and
really give powerful performance.
Emotional in every sense. How did you deal with the
producers? How was your relationship?
Did you have a lot of interference from them or a lot
of feedbacks or did you feel free to to to work or were they
very present in the even in the editing room?
They were just as static, to be honest with you.
I mean, the, the, I think they couldn't believe their luck
because they, they, they had this incredible director
interpreting their words into beautiful, amazing images.
You know, it's like if you read the beginning of episode 2, it's
on paper says Mussolini is in a prison cell reading his article
that he will, you know, published.
On his newspaper about the socialist winning the election.
And it's just like that's that's what the script says.
Then Joe in scouting, he found this location with water falling
from the sky and and it was like, you know, oh, this is
going to be a room where all the prisoners are walking in their
in the you know, one hour break and Mussolini is going to read
it there with the rain falling down.
So his his freedom to be to interpret it the page and then
stage it with his imagination was had was wild.
And I think this is probably, I don't mind saying it, but
because he was very well respected by the producers and
because in Italy there's a lot more kind of reverence and
there's a lot of respect was the vision of a director.
He was allowed to do things that, to be honest with you, I
don't think in the. UK with a with.
AUK or American line producer would have allowed and we had
very little interference from from Sky.
They sent us notes. Joe accepted the notes he liked
and rejected the one he didn't like.
And that was brilliant because there was very.
Little contamination of his vision.
So as you mentioned you studied and working in the angular Saxon
film industry. I'm still curious about some
other differences, especially because you work it with the
some big studio production. So how are the timelines, the
the pressures that are different?
I don't know if you ever experienced this.
I imagine, yes, this previous screenings in the United States
with figures and number, how did they work and what was your
experience? I actually lived through the
period of where the previous screening where the most
important process in post production.
Nowadays, because cinema tickets it's not the main source of
income for for films, this this whole system is slightly
changed. My experience with previous
screenings has been terrifying and at the same time exciting,
because it's a real moment where you can sit.
Finally, after many months of editing, you can I, I always
place myself in the middle, in the middle of the theatre with
the audience. And you can finally see the film
with their eyes. You know, you can actually feel
the film with the, from the point of view of an audience and
the, the numbers and the stats that they give you later.
It's up to you to interpret it and to filter them with your
intelligence to, you know, of course the, these companies,
they, they give you, try to give you a solution.
Oh, you know, the audience doesn't like this and that maybe
if you do this, they will like that.
And you know, it's up to the film makers and the producers to
accept this as suggestions or to realise where where an issue
might be. But the way to address the
issue, it's not it's never in in the solution that they give you.
Or sometimes you just have to forget about a certain comment
because obviously it depends what film you're making.
You know, if it's a highly commercial film like that film I
was mentioning before the call light of day, then obviously
that film is a popcorn movie that is meant to make money at
the first box office weekend. So you are if you when you do a
preview the numbers, it's important.
If you score a low numbers, which I did with we did with
that film, you're, you're in trouble.
You're in trouble and and your life will be hell for several
months. The same has happened to to
films like Woman in the Window that I did with Joe.
We did a preview, the numbers were low, the studio decided to
not only rewrite but reshoot 1/3 of the movie.
And then we did a new preview. And guess how many points we
got? More.
Just one, and it was ridiculous. They spent an extra $10 million
to reshoot, rewrite to then not really improve anything.
It's a model that it's based on, on trying to turn an art form
into a science. You can test the numbers and see
and test the audience and see. And then there's a company who
can give you a cert of formulas. It's the eternal battle between
creativity and commercial success.
I think in this new panorama of film making of of the world we
live in, where distribution has changed and streamers have taken
over, a lot of things are reshuffling and it's it's
different. I think then there is a bit more
freedom now. But at the same time, I can tell
you I slightly miss some time to have a preview because I did
like the experience of sitting in a big cinema and and to
experience random people watching the work that you've
done. Because then you would go back
to your editing room knowing where maybe to extend a little
reaction shot or of get a better reaction to get a better laugh
or a better emotional impact on, on on because you know as
editors, you know you can't get things right all the time.
The the worst enemy of an editor is to is to be pretentious is to
be presumptuous is to think that you know how to do things.
You're first thing, things sometimes are good, but then
working the material and testing it helps to understand how to
make it possibly better. I cut normally I this is one
thing that it's probably very different from from the way both
film and televisions have worked in, in Europe, or I mean, now
I'm saying Europe because UK it's out of the Europe, I'm
afraid. But anyway, the in the in the
British and American school of film making, the editor starts
on the first day of shoot. And I grew up with that
mentality obviously in Europe, in French cinema, in, I think
even in Italian cinema, there's a different approach.
Editors starts to work later with the directors in the room.
They discovered the film together, and that's also a
beautiful process. I mean, the director I'm working
with now, Noah Baumbach, that's the way he does it.
And you have to respect that way of working.
But with Joe, for instance, I've always started on the first day
of the shoot with Stephen Frears.
This the same Stephen Frears, for instance, would call me, He
would never watch rushes, never come to watch any edit during
the shoot. But he would call me every day
asking me how's the how's the footage?
How's the footage I shot yesterday?
Did the scene work? And it sounds like a simple
question, but it's a terrifying question because he's, he's on
to something. He wants to know if he has
delivered the, the scene. He wants to know, did I get the
scene right? Did I tell the story?
And because as the editor is the first person who is the, you
know, the first audience of the, of the, you know, of the film
that is still not being cut, but you're kind of assembling it
together. You have you have the
responsibility and and that's that was a great.
Training for me. Because I was basically helping
him to either direct better or in a scene that is shot over two
or three days to go back and say, hey, you need to redo that
because that didn't work. You need to redo that close up.
And that happened a lot on Darkest Hours, for instance.
I I like. This way of working it's how I
did it and it's how I did it even in documentaries somehow.
Speaking about documentary, you have a question about another
successful series. You got sample directed by your
wife Cosima Spenner. My I'm curious about how did you
build dramaturgy in a documentary series.
Of course, it all revolves around the figure of the
protagonist mutually and how it is perceived by the audience.
It's, it's a, it's a bit like Mussolini, some, some of the
century. It's about a man who wants to do
something good. But then he kind of.
Plays with fire. And, and he becomes a real, you
know, he has, he has a trip down for Lita Grande, you know, and,
and, and this, it becomes bigger than him.
It's a very saintly story. You know, it's about a man who
becomes a guru, a St. a saviour. When you help people, you become
a hero. And that's a hero's journey.
So the narrative of this, of Sampa was always kind of clear
from the start. But in documentaries you you,
you have to rely on sources and footage, on archives and then
obviously on interview. And Kozma never made a film with
interviews. Her style is very observational,
so for her was a bit of a struggle.
To suddenly go into this format with sitting people sitting down
in A room. Yeah, she, she, she embraced it.
She did it. She did it even with a very
distinct style. And obviously there was like
what we call in Italian Scalita, there was like a a board, a
grid. Yeah, there was a kind of grid.
I would call it the grid of what the structure was, but that was
loose. And then in the edit, we started
building different timelines of narrative stories of the
character that were interviewed. And a lot of things, a lot of
turning points narratively came in the edit room so Cosima could
go back and reshoot. And then we used a lot of
footage, Super 8 footage from this amazing archive place
called the Home Movies that basically collects Super 8
footage of Italian families from, you know, just people who
finds Super 8 in an old box in a, in a, in a cellar.
And instead of tracking it, they give it to this company who then
digitize it and turn and allowed film makers like Cosima and me
and, and to, to use it as a kind of narrative device.
It's wonderful. I mean, I really it's a it's a
doing documentaries is a wonderful.
It's a wonderful expression for, for the for the editors, because
you are becoming the writer of the film often not recognised,
but you know, it is. It is a very satisfying a job,
particularly I think editing documentaries, because the
contribution an editor gives is immense, I think.
We we discovered you are represented by an agency as an
editor and it's something that in Italy it's very rare or I
think nobody because it's something that maybe belongs to
the Angus Angus action, the British or American word, maybe
no. So we wanted to know if you can
tell how does it work? Do they, do you apply?
It's like here for directors that you apply and they decide
if you they represent you or not.
Do they handle your job requests or job offers?
They negotiate. Yeah, that I, I, I noticed since
the beginning that, that that was one other big difference
between the Anglo Sax, you know, the, the, the, the Anglo
American way of doing business was that both all the below the
line key figures in film making like director of photography,
the editors, production designer, they would all be
represented by an agent in the UK and in America.
So since graduating from film school, the director of
photography would be able to find an agent pretty easily
because the director of photography has show reel to
show because you know, the the work of an of of a director of
photography is is visible. The work of a music composer is
hearable. The work of an editor is
invisible. So I remember making show reels
of my work to trying to find an agent just after film school and
finding it really hard because in the end, a show reel is just
showing bits of my films. That is the collection of my
films, but it's not showing my skill as an editor.
It's obvious that to find a job as an editor, you need to create
a network of people that know you and know your work and know
your potential. And it's about word of mouth and
people who can recommend you. So I was struggling in the
beginning to find an agent. And then I found an agent.
You know, when I did my first film with, with Dino De
Laurentiis and Hannibal Rising, I didn't have an agent.
My deal was kind of done by by Pietra's agent.
So after I finished that film, I finally had my first credit and
I was going and shopping around London and a lot of agency
actually told me, no, we're not interested to take you because
we already have too many people we can't represent, blah, blah,
blah. Then I found a really wonderful
woman who was called Sarah Pritchard, who was working at an
agency called Casa Rato in London.
They still exist. It was just an we, we, we
personally clicked and we got along and we, we like he.
She liked me. She liked my energy and the fact
that I was very eager and, and kind of had good connection.
She knew she could help me and she, she, she did help me at the
beginning. She got me through the door to
get meetings with the projects and producer that I could have
never got through the door project that I wasn't offered.
But still it's was a good opportunity to go through the
door. I think.
Is it necessary to have an agent?
In the UK? It is.
In the US it is. But once you then start your
career, not necessarily It's the agent who gets you the job.
It's your reputation, the agents really at some point in your in,
in my career, what they've done really good is that they, you
know, obviously it's the first port of call.
People call the agency to try to see if I'm available or not.
But obviously now I've established A reputation, so
people check on my availability. But ultimately it's still, you
know, it's still the word of mouth.
You know, even in the job I'm doing now with Noah Baumbach, he
called, he called several people who knew me, and then I got
recommended by them. So it's still, even if if you're
established, it's still one of those jobs that the people who,
you know, director or producer, they tend to get, yeah, to
listen to the agent. But ultimately they listened
more to other colleagues and the agents help you.
To get a good rate, a good. Contract good money and it's a
side that I've always been very bad at.
So I you, you have to give them a percentage and that's OK,
because whatever percentage they get you, it's always a
percentage that I would have never managed to get myself.
Let's switch the topic for a moment.
I would like to come back actually to a person.
You mentioned it earlier in our conversation on the famous
producer Dino De Laurentiis, because you said that you have
100 of stories about him. And now you got me really
curious. Can you share?
I don't know one of these stories.
Dina was an extraordinary larger than life character, you know.
He would be. Annoying and crazy.
He would turn up at 9:00 AM in the morning.
I mean, you know, a workaholic to the point of being very
annoying but very passionate. And I remember we were
struggling to find a composer. And I was temping the film with
a lot of music from this amazing Japanese composer called Sugero
Yuumi Bayashi, who did the music for In the Mood for Love.
And so Dino said he speaks with a very voice like this.
I like this music, Valerio, what is this music?
And I said, well, is this guy from Japan?
Find me his number. So I go on IMDb and I found IMDb
Pro and I find him the phone number of this manager that
represents him in represents this man in Japan.
I said, Dino, you're never going to find it.
No, let's call him. You know, that's the phone
number. An answer machine comes up
because it's, you know, we were in the afternoon.
So in Tokyo, it's like middle of the night.
Say hello. I am Dino De Laurentiis, the
famous producers who produced King Kong and Hannibal Lecter.
I want to work with you. Call me.
This is my number. And he said the number, you
wouldn't believe it, but this man was in London with us in the
room 2 days later. Well, he literally called him
back immediately, took a plane and he came and he did the film
score for Hannibal Rising. And we've been friends ever
since with this man. He's an extraordinary film
composer. And that's, that's how Dina was.
Dina was like that. He was just like when he wanted
something, he just got it. He just called up.
Let's go for our our classical last question.
What would you have become if you didn't become an editor?
I was, I, I've always been a visual person, a musical person.
As a little kid, I used to add a wild fantasy and I would go to
my mum's office on a Saturday in Florence in Piazza San Marco and
go to my local record shop and, and buy a records.
And I really, and I love the classical music a lot.
I used to as a child, I used to only listen to classical music.
I liked Verdi, I like Rossini, I liked Beethoven, Mozart,
Tchaikovsky. And I used to buy a record every
week. And I remember putting a record
up in my room and sitting on a kind of chair and dreaming to be
an orchestra conductor. So maybe that's what I would
have liked to do, is to be to do music.
Thank you very much, Valerio. Thanks, Valerio.
Editor Synonymous is a podcast by Pierpaolo Filomeno, Beppe
Lonetti and Arma Savchenko. Music by Isakokyav If you enjoy
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