ISE Feb 2025 Issue Number 05 : simplebooklet.com

3ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED2HELLO AND WELCOMEThe ISE committee:Jeremy Briers, Eamonn Cleary, Jackie JarvisEoin McGuirk, Mairéad McIvor, Sarah McTeigue, Tony Kearns, Shane Woods, . to issue 5 of Assembled, ISE’s online magazine, which we hope you will enjoy reading.Thank you to Jeremy Briers for all his hard work with the production of this issue of the magazine which has a strongly international avour, reecting the work and views of people who are from, or who have worked in, Holland, Ukraine, Canada, Iran, the UK, Poland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium as well as Ireland.Thanks also to Jeremy for his interviews with Vitalii Vaschenko, a Ukrainian editor now living in Ireland and with Hamid Najarad, an Iranian editor living and working in Iran.I want to thank Clodagh McCarthy for her whole hearted enthusiasm in her interview about her life in post-production in Canada and Ireland and also Shane Woods for his excellent articles featuring an interview with Polish born, Irish raised and UK based assistant editor Patryk Czekalski and the Irish involvement in the making of Ali Abassi’s feature lm The Apprentice.We are always looking for ideas for articles and interviews for forthcoming issues so please don’t be shy! You can contact Jeremy at jayce@irishscreeneditors.comISE has had a good 2024/25 with membership increasing to 157 members - we are keen for more to join so please pass on the word - membership details are atwww.irishscreeneditors.com/membership.We would like to encourage you to use the ISE acronym in your screen credits and social media; this helps to elevate the guild’s prole which in turn enhances the perception of the craft at home and abroad. Since we started ISE in 2019 we have been working together to strengthen our community and we feel that tangible benets have been created for our members since its foundation.ISE is delighted to be associated with the relaunched Dublin Editors ‘In Conversation’ series of in-person talks with high prole editors. Organised by ISE member and former chair Eoin McDonagh and by Maura Murphy, three talks were held in the Dot Theatre screening room in autumn/winter 2024 featuring Job Ter Burg (Holland: Black Book, Elle, The Watched), Jay Prychidny (Canada: Wednesday, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) and Walter Fasano (Italy: A Bigger Splash, Call Me By Your Name). You can read an article about these three talks in this edition of Assembled.Happy reading!Tony Kearns, Chair ISE.C o n t r i b u t o r s / W r i t e r sTony KearnsShane WoodsJeremy BriersDesign & Layout Jeremy BriersIt’s been a tough year for a lot of us in post as we braved our way through ‘survive ‘til twenty ve’ and now here we are in 2025. We hope things do start to perk up in the industry this year, we could all certainly use the work.This is a magazine not just for ISEmembers but for anyone who visits ourISE website. If you are not a member butare eligible for membership I encourageyou to apply.You don't even need a Leaving Cert:-)We are always looking for contributors and ideas for articles so feel free to get in touch with any of the committee members or myself. jayce@irishscreeneditors.com.Don't be shy, I don't bite, but I have beenbittenAs usual, no bribes, no synthesisers andunfortunately no swearing.Jeremy BriersThe content in this magazine is for information purposes only.The views expressed herein do not necessarily reect those of the ISE or it’s members.

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7ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED6LONDON VIA LIMERICKAt 30, Patryk Czekalski is an assistant editor with several impressive credits to his name. His workspans both lm and television. Beginning as a trainee on ’Mrs Wilson’ and James Graham’s ‘Brexit’, Czekalski has since contributed to big-budget productions such as Jurassic World Dominion, The Witcher and Last Breath. He is currently working on Noah Baumbach’s next lm, Jay Kelly, set for release later in 2025.Having come from Gdynia in Poland, spent many years growing up in Limerick and now based in London, Do you ever wonder where you're from?It's actually a quite an interesting question to ask because I've been questioning where is my home for quite a while. I’ve spent a decade in Poland, a decade in Ireland, and now it's been eight years in the UK. So it's hard to say what I would call home but deep down I’d still feel proud to say that I’m Polish. Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and my father moved to Ireland where he got a job in Limerick testing computers for DELL, then, two years later, we joined him in Limerick. That was a massive change in my life for many reasons. Obviously growing up in a post-communist country and then moving into Ireland at age of 11 was a big change and I feel like those teenage years, they shape your personality in a way. However, I'm a weird mixture, because even though we lived in Limerick I had a lot of Polish friends, there was a huge Polish community in Limerick.How does a kid living in Limerick whose father works for DELL get interested in editing movies?Short answer is - Lord of the Rings. I would say, that lm was the biggest inuence on me. And I’ve watched the entire trilogy, maybe like, hundreds, if not a 1000 times since it came out.Patryk Czekalski My whole family loves it. I don't know if you're going to agree with me or not but what I found great about Ireland's educational system is that it will support you in your career development. If you're a person who has a very niche hobby, who wants to pursue a career in the creative industry or educate in something very specic, they will give you the support that you'll need. What was great is that, in school, we had a person targeted specically for career development. So once a week there would be a person coming in to talk to us purely about career perspectives. “Oh, and what are you interested in and here are the courses that we oer to specialise in those areas.”I thought that was very helpful. I found a course in Limerick which was called Audio and Video Production, so it had a bit of everything. It was great because each module was designed to target a specic department so you could have a go at everything.Something to mention is that I've never been particularly good at school, you have to memorise a lot of facts in order for you to pass exams so I had to force myself to learn al lot of things that I wasn't really interested in just to pass my leaving cert and that wasn't a fun process. I remember at the time my brother and I started editing YouTube videos. I used to train free running, acrobatics and things like that, and we were editing these little videos together and I remember thinking it was cool to get myself involved in the process. Editing was exactly what I wanted, because it's technical and creative and it's a visual medium so I was like, “Yeah, this is my thing.” Straight away.There are many pathways to becoming an editor nowadays, why did you choose the assisting route and how did you get from Limerick to London?Although university in Ireland was covered for me, I needed to get a loan to study in the UK. I knew that I really wanted to work on big movies or TV shows. I just thought if I really want to have a good chance of being able work regularly then probably London, of all the places in Europe, is the best place to be. So I was like okay,“How do I get into London? I've not lived in the UK. Maybe a good starting point would be to do a masters in editing.”So I started looking at dierent courses, and I found one in Bournemouth, which was a year course. It was amazing both for Avid training and building my portfolio, I was able to edit a lot of short lms as part of the course.When I graduated from Bournemouth and after doing some research, I realised there were two paths for people starting out. There's the route of trying to continue to edit short lms; with the hope of building a good relationship with the director who will end up making something bigger in the future; or the second route which was assisting. I sort of thought to myself that most of the career paths that I've looked at, when it came to big editors that I would admire, they were all assistants at some stage in their career. Some assisted for longer, some of them maybe only a few years, but generally speaking, most of them did assist starting out. And you know, the more I looked into it the more I found a lot of benets in it. There's something to say about being able to see high end workows that are put in place these days by big lm studios and VOD platforms.What I'm trying to say is that without being an assistant and seeing the process from start to nish, it might be dicult for someone with a couple of short lms under their belt to be able to manage a big feature lm. From my perspective, I always wanted to work on the big budget productions. So I was curious how this whole machine works from inside and you can’t learn that without throwing yourself into the deep end. Enthusiasm is the only thing you've got at the beginning, because you don't really have the experience or knowledge yet. I started by doing some work experience for a post production house, just around the corner from here (in London’s Soho), and they took me on for few weeks, working for free which they ended up hiring me full time later. I just basically, you know, did teas and coees for clients, the usual running duties. Most runners that I've worked with, they weren’t exactly very excited about the job itself. They hated every time the phone rang, My aim was to get out of that kitchen as soon as possible so whenever the telephone rang, I was on the move and, you know, some people found it funny that I was doing this, but I would jump for the phone get the order and do it. I didn't care, time would go by quicker and I was able to get to know more and more people everyday.It was mostly factual work they did over there but they were cutting one drama. And I remember one day I walked up to the assistant. I was like, “Would you mind if I shadowed you for a day?”And he was like, “I've not heard of anyone asking me this for years now.” And I was thinking to myself, “Well, why would anyone working as a runner *not* ask editors to see how they prep scenes to see the dailies workow?!”So I woke early morning one day, think I got there for maybe 5.30am and this was my rst sort of real experience, sitting in with a professional assistant editor and seeing how they work.I've found, from my experience, that there are assistant editors who mainly work on feature films and THOSE who mainly work in television. You've done both. Do you consider, from the point of view of the assistant editor, that there is a difference between the two?‘Jay Kelly’ is now my second feature in a row so I haven't done a TV show since The Witcher season 3. But I like to consider myself having experience in both. What I would say is a key dierence, is the fact that on a TV show, you might often have three, four or even more directors that will only get a couple of weeks for each episode, maybe four weeks with an editor By SHANE WOODS

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9ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED8to get their director cuts out; you’re kind of working with the editor and director to begin with, then after they leave it's the show-runner and other exec. producers that you have report back to which will often want to make changes to the edits, so you have many masters.On a feature lm, whatever the director needs, they will get, you stick by them for the whole thing; the editor knows this, and they will structure the workow based on how that director likes to work. It's a dierent beast with dierent politics I've noticed. Obviously these days some TV shows can be structured more like lms but I'm just talking from my own experience. Ultimately, in TV, I feel that lot of it is about the coverage, and in lm, most of it is about performance.It can dier how you prep dailies on a TV show versus on a feature lm, the emphasis of covering the scene is a lot greater in TV. Trying to cover every possible angle in order to make sure that you've gotten enough angles to make the scene work, and also to be able to address the notes that the editor would later get from the execs. Whereas on a feature lm because it's the director’s vision, they often know exactly what they want to shoot; especially with experienced directors; they would often already have an idea how they want to cut the scene in their head. So instead of covering it from every angle, they will pick a few setups that will push the story forward, and they will shoot takes and takes of that same angle, but trying to capture a range of performances based on what they're trying to achieve in a certain scene and later shape the character's performance in the edit. I think in television, on most shows it would be very hard to shoot 20 takes or more due to time pressure. And what that leads me to is that an assistant's job is to break down all that footage in an accessible way. In order for an editor to be able to compare the same line from every take and angle, there has to be a a system for reviewing these lines.Some editors use scriptsync, some editors use line-strings or breakdowns. It varies, but every feature lm editor that I've worked with has had some way of breaking the footage down to be able to compare and assess the lines and beats quickly. And it's also so that, when the director comes to cutting and wants to see all the versions of a specic line the editor is, within a few seconds, able to hit play on that one specic line from every take and angle that was shot for that scene.What in your experience is the difference between working on big films like Jurassic World with a big team and working on smaller projects?I started working on independent feature lms where I was the only assistant, and that was a good learning curve for me, because you could learn a lot by just trying things out; VFX temp comps, a lot of temp sound work and even a bit of music editing. It's a good learning curve, because you get to sort of experience it all and see how it works out at the end when other departments join in Post.But then you go on to something massive like Jurassic World and there's a person next door foreverything. VFX editor, VFX assistant, a sound designer, multiple assistant editors. There's a massive team of people, everyone has their very specic job and we all work together to streamline the editing process. The idea is that everyone would just focus on their specic job to minimise the errors. - if it's focusing on doing the dailies, one person would ingest, others would break lines down and another assistant would check things against the paperwork. It's a lot faster that way and less prone to error but obviously only possible on big budget jobs.Jurassic World was shot mostly on lm. There were 35mm and 65mm dailies and some digital as well. I was mostly focusing on media managing during the Covid pandemic when most of the team worked from home. It was really important for my job to make sure to ingest the media as quickly as possible for the editor to be able to assess any possible scratches or damage done to the negative. When movies are shot on lm, I think there can be quite a lot pressure to watch the footage very carefully for any technical issues. The idea is that the lab and scanning team would ag scratches or any damage done to the negative and it's important to ingest the media as fast as possible and assess how expensive it will be to x in VFX or should a re-shoot taken into consideration in an extreme case scenario. These things can be very expensive to x and the team has to work together to tackle that early on and come up with possible solution. And of course, it’s the nature of working on those big lms, you may not be able to get actors back because of their schedules, because they are going on to another movie straight after.Has there been anything else that has helped you along the way?Two things I’d like to mention. There were a couple of assistant editors that said to me,“Well, you should probably get on a Trainee Scheme.” The year that I applied to Creative Skillset (now called ScreenSkills), they had about 800 applicants, I think over 200 people got to the interview stage, and then only 80 got selected across all departments and I was really lucky to be part of that group. They don't guarantee you projects, however, they would do their best to put you forward for any productions that need trainees.And that’s how I rst met Stephen Haren. I remember, we had the interview in the BAFTA club in Piccadilly and Stephen, who's an Irish editor/ exec. producer, had seen that I had lived in Limerick and had some experience working on RTÉ shorts, so he thought he would give me a chance (I was a runner back then.)So Stephen was kind enough to trust me and helped me out for the rst couple of years in my career. And I’ve just stayed in touch with him since. And I know it’s a cliche to say, but every little thing that you do leads to another thing. Many of the jobs in this industry don't get advertised, so it's all word of mouth.I think because I've worked with certain editors who were very helpful to me, like Stephen, but also Fiona DeSouza, Tania Goding and Mark Sanger who pushed my career forward. They do their best to help you and if they are happy with your work, they will recommend you to other colleagues of theirs so I'm very grateful that I had the opportunity to work with them on those great projects.

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11ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED10Dublin Editors' In Conversation is a long running series of interviews with prominent editors. Since 2013 they have featured Irish editors such as Úna Ní Dhonghaíle, Nathan Nugent, Tony Kearns, and Emer Reynolds, and international guests such as Oscar nominees Eddie Hamilton ACE, and Mary Jo Markey ACE.The interviews were in-person events, held in front of small audiences in a screening room in Dublin. When Covid struck the interviews were moved online in a format dubbed Remote Access. This series drew regular viewers from across Europe and North America, and featured guests such as Oscar winners Tom Cross ACE and Mark Sanger ACE. The in-person format was revived in late 2024 when three events were held: Assembly.30 featuring Job Ter Burg ACE, Assembly.31 featuring Jay Prychidny CCE and Assembly.32 featuring Walter Fasano. The interviewer was Eoin McDonagh ISE, who has been an integral part of Dublin Editors since its inception. The recent events, held at the Dot Theatre, were organised by Eoin and Maura Murphy; they were presented in association with Irish Screen Editors (ISE) and generously supported by Screen Ireland.Assembly. 30Job Ter Burg ACEHollandJob was into sound when he was young and after nishing secondary school he attended a theatre course where he discovered lm editing. The 1980s had not been a great time for the Dutch lm and television industry in terms of budgets and nancial supports. However, state-developed schemes for young people had been initiated by the late 80s and tax breaks had also been introduced so it was good timing on Job’s part to graduate in the early 1990s. He stated that Holland does not have an assistant editor infrastructure similar to the UK and the US. Job did two assistant editor jobs, then went straight into editing, working on a series of Dutch lms in the early noughties, a few of which were directed by Martin Koolhoven.In 2005, Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct) directed his rst lm in his native Holland in 23 years. The lm was Black Book and it was a production on a scale that was rare in that country. A few weeks into the shoot there arose a need for a second editor: Job knew one of the producers of Black Book as they had worked together on a previous lm and this producer put Job’s name forward. Verhoeven didn’t think that there were any capable editors in Holland so the producer arranged for Job to cut a test scene from 6.5 hours of footage – Job was hired straight away as a result. A scene from the lm was then played and afterwards Job spoke about dealing with the huge amount of footage, some of which had been shot on three cameras. He approached the cut like a documentary, paring down footage to sets of selects. The second unit had shot a very large amount of footage of guns ring so he grouped types of shot together to DUBLINEDITORShelp him deal with the amount of rushes and to use the shots eectively in the scene. Since Black Book he has worked with Verhoeven on the lms Elle (2016) and Benadetta (2021).Job mentioned that he was not involved early with the script of Elle as he would be when working, for example, with Martin Koolhoven for whom he has edited seven lms. A scene from Elle was then played, a Christmas dinner scene.When asked about his process, Job replied that he is unable to slap scenes together, even at the initial stage. He thinks about the scenes from the start of the shoot and tries to keep up the with the camera with his rst cuts of scenes. Job then discussed how he cut the Elle scene. It was shot on two cameras, which gave Job more options when cutting. He found Avid’s script sync feature to be a very useful tool for organising the dialogue. Job usually adds music near or at the end of cutting a scene or sequence. To illustrate the power of choosing a good piece of music, temp or otherwise, he then played the scene with just the music, without any dialogue . He was intrigued to see that how well the music held the scene together. Job then spoke about the work involved in getting lms to length. Elle’s rst cut was too long and it took a week and a bit to trim and take out scenes to reduce its running time. Verhoeven then asked Job to put back scenes taken out taken out in the trimming process so that, in a screening, he could properly assess whether they should stay in the cut or not. He also spoke about the diculty of having to choose from a series of excellent takes, and also the diculty of working on dicult scenes of psychological, violent and psychosexual natures, the diculty of dealing with his own reaction to the scenes, on personal and technical levels. In general he tries to distance himself.Eoin then introduced Borgman (2013), a lm directed by Alex Van Warmerdam who is another director that Job has worked with more than once. Job said that he was intrigued by the script – the plot is described here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgman_(lm)Eoin then played a scene from Borgman. Job spoke about editing this scene which has almost no dialogue, cutting for economy and information, telling the story through action rather than dialogue, and nding the balance of tone through the eectiveness of the editing.Eoin then moved on to talk about the Creator (2023) directed by Gareth Edwards. Job is a friend of Joe Walker, the original main editor of the lm and Joe asked Job to be an additional editor as it was likely that Joe would have to move on to another project a few months later - Job was happy to do this while working from home. Joe Walker then moved on, and another editor came on board. Job was asked to stay on as additional editor up to the director's cut, then was asked to stay on to help with the VFX elements. It was a tough lm to edit. Gareth Edwards, the director, operated camera and shot scenes in a uid and Job Ter BurgEoin McDonaghin conversationby Tony Kearns

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13ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED12unpredictable style which can be chaotic and makes scenes dicult to cut due to continuity and performance discrepancies. He also tended to shoot tons of footage so there were a lot of rushes to wade through. Job also spoke of the diculties of cutting such a VFX heavy lm and not getting confused by all the elements. A scene from The Creator was then played.Eoin moved on to The Watched AKA The Watchers (2024) and he asked Job about working with a rst time director, in this case Ishana Night Shyamalan. Job said that he gives the debutant director time and room to nd themselves, to nd their feet and he found that Ishana was a young but very mature and capable person. He quoted Alex Van Warmerdam when he said that one is constantly nding one's way in the edit and at some point the lm will talk back to you, the task then is to listen to what the lm is saying to you. Each lm is a path of discovery. Job really enjoyed working on the Watched, which was lmed in Ireland. He was in Ireland while it was being shot and he declared that it was one of the best professional experiences of his life. A scene from the lm was played and the interview was wrapped up with a short Q&A session.Job Ter Burg IMDb linkAssembly. 31Jay PrychidnyCanadaJay loved lm from an early stage and he went to lm school where he knew he wanted to edit. He fooled around using video cassette machines and then did small editing jobs. Progressing slowly, he endeavoured to make a living from editing. His rst real job was working for a TV show in Toronto called Sex TV, which produced documentaries exploring a diverse range of topics related to human sexuality and gender. In this, his rst proper editing job, he was very focused and work driven, learning on the job, honing his craft while working on fast turnaround projects. After a couple of years, he left Sex TV and became a freelance editor. Eoin then showed a clip from the reality show Canada's Next Top Model which was Jay’s second freelance job. Jay spoke about the experience of working on reality TV with their short schedules, constantly looking for the bits to t into the format with no time to look at all the footage. While editing reality TV programmes he always sought to add extra drama to any mundane event or sequence in each programme. Jay wanted to go from project to project, regardless of genre, and wanted to jump around a lot to keep himself interested. However, it ended up as a more linear progression from reality shows to scripted as he was advised to leverage his reality TV experience by meeting producers from production companies who did both reality TV and scripted TV. He then was oered a kids scripted show pretty much straightaway; he ended up worked on a reality show ‘Canada's Top Chef’ during the day, and on the kids comedy drama show ‘Wingin’ It’ at night.He got a big career boost when he became an editor on season two of Orphan Black, a very highly regarded show which was his rst adult level drama series. Jay watched previous episodes of Orphan Black before he started to mould himself into the style of the series, to fold himself in, and then he looked for moments to make his mark within the formula to break out stylistically, paying homage to what went before, but adding his own mark. He added heightened, emotional moments to fast paced procedural storytelling to shake it up, a style which became accepted as part of the show from then on. Eoin then played a scene from Orphan Black and afterwards Jay explained how the scene was shot, featuring the same actor playing two parts in the scene. The story of is of a woman who meets clones of herself, sometimes using a motion control camera rig to shoot takes featuring both characters in shot, shooting the actor in the rst position and then selecting master takes to shoot with the woman as the opposite clone character. The ashback element in the scene was not scripted and Jay used this very eectively to create strong emotional parallels. He went on to become a producer during seasons four and ve of Orphan Black.Jay advised the audience to know the story you want to want to tell, and nd the elements to tell it well. He said that he adapted the way he worked on reality TV to working on scripted drama. This means that he sits down and starts cutting straight away rather than watching all the footage rst. He nds that his rst cut of scenes is generally close to the nal cut, as he discovers beats as he goes through the sequence or scene. He tries to solve problems ahead of the ne cut to help cope with tight deadlines and to avoid anxiety on the part of directors and producers, and he puts a lot of energy into the rst cut to help everybody feel better during the edit.He then went on to work on a series called Snowpiercer as editor and, from season 2, also as producer. He was on this series from the beginning and once he was a producer he had oversight of all editing, sound, grading and post production generally. Jay developed a style of fast paced, discontinuous cutting. Eoin played a scene from Snowpiercer and afterwards Jay said it was a tricky scene to edit, to make it tense, dramatic and more interesting from less than exciting footage. He emphasised the importance of sound in editing as lot of sound work went on in the oine to make these scenes better. The $20 million pilot for Snowpiercer had been junked so there was a lot of anxiety during the making of the series. As a result the sound became an important element to help allay anxiety.Jay has edited all eight of Tim Burton's episodes of Wednesday. He said that Tim Burton is very visual in his approach to lming and it’s important for Tim to be on top of the editing while he is shooting as this informs his directing process. This folds in with Jay’s desire to get scenes as polished as soon as possible. Eoin then played a clip from Wednesday.Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was Jay’s second feature lm, the rst being Scream IV. He said that the dierence between editing episodic drama and a lm, one movie rather than a bunch of episodes, is that on a lm there is a lot more pressure from producers and executive producers, there is more anxiety, more emphasis on tests and screenings. The rst preview of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was not as good as Scream IV’s preview (which was very good) and a bad reaction ensued, despite a respectable response. He felt that once people get nervous, the editor will get a lot of weird feedback and notes.However Tim Burton was a nal cut director on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice which helped to deal with the situation. Jay was in the middle between the director and nervous executive producers who looked to him to try and x things, even if Tim didn't necessarily want them xed. Jay made a series of minor changes to the cut and the second preview was more successful, in fact a total turnaround, and he observed that such little changes had a palpable eect on the lm. Eoin played a scene from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and afterwards Jay explained that Tim made a last minute decision, before shooting, to replace the dialogue in the scene with the lyrics of the song Jay Prychidny

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15ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED14MacArthur Park. Dance sequences are one of Jay's favourite things to cut and Tim gave him total license in how he chose to cut the scene. This scene became an social media hit as a result of the dance sequence. Jay said that the editing style was more in the background, with quite a bit of trickery to make the moves swing more.Jay Prychidny IMDb linkAssembly.32Walter FasanoItalyWalter is from a time when cinema was a very prominent part of media and culture in Italy. When he was young he developed a love for lm, seeing at least two movies a week. He felt that the only place to learn about lms at that time was in books or in cinemas and that the inuence of sequences in movies played into his editing styles and interests later in his career. He started out in law school in Bari which he quit and ended up studying lm theory and criticism in Bologna. He applied for the editing class in another course, where he studied French Nouvelle Vague lms from the 1960s which broke the rules and conventions of both lming and editing. He studied under master editor Roberto Perpignani, who had been an editor for Bernardo Bertolucci.There was a crisis in the Italian lm industry in the 1980s with television taking over from cinema. In the meantime, Walter learned to edit by cutting on lm, and he then made the switch to digital, non-linear editing systems, and then to digital lm from analogue lm. He observed that Dogme lms were the rst lms shot on digital formats to be entered into major lm festivals. Walter met the director Luca Guadagnino while they were at college. Luca invited Walter to cut his rst short lm which had a very sexually explicit theme, and this was the start of their relationship. Walter went on to cut Luca’s rst feature lm, The Protagonists (1999) which starred Tilda Swinton who went on to star in four more of Luca’s lms. They then went on to make a documentary about Bernardo Bertolucci. Walter spoke about the two of them attending a Bernardo Bertolucci master class, and Luca’s idea was to make a documentary using footage of this master class. In addition, Walter was given around 300 hours of interviews with Bertolucci, and he instinctively thought he wouldn't use the master class footage or old Bernardo Bertolucci lms in the documentary, much to Luca’s puzzlement. However, Walter proved his point when he presented a 20 minute rough cut. Eoin then showed a clip from the documentary and afterwards Walter spoke about nding structure through gut feeling, and about knowing that he had a start and end in mind. Walter discovered that Bernardo Bertolucci had a strong performative side, that he was like an actor in his interviews, and that he repeated his stories many times in a similar style in dierent interviews over the years, so Walter could use footage from the dierent ages of Bertolucci telling the same story in one uid sequence. Walter wanted to use the existing footage as If it was raw rushes for a ctional lm, using the edits in a dramatic way, trying disparate elements and adding sound eects to add to the storytelling. He is very much into soundtracks, and he particularly loves the work of the composer Jerry Goldsmith. He used music scored by Jerry Goldsmith for the lm Aliens in the Bertolucci documentary. Interestingly, Aliens was about subconscious awakening and one instruction from Luca about the editing process is to use it to nd the subconscious.Walter considers drama editing to have more creative freedom than genre lms, the latter having to succeed within the established rules of each genre. Put simply, comedies have to be funny and horror lms have to be scary. As his career progressed Walter stopped discussing editing at length in the cutting room and just got visual feature. He extolled the embracing of visual accidents and explained that the lm’s production team wanted to reshoot the scene because of the fogging but Walter persuaded them not to do this.Walter spoke about attending and supervising sound mixes on Luca’s behalf and his love of this part of the post production pipeline. He works a lot on the sound in the edit, especially on the dialogue. He spoke about his work on Luca’s lm Suspiria, particularly a dicult scene that took four weeks to edit because of its challenging choreography and its strong element of body horror. He sought, in the edit, to manage audience anxiety levels throughout the three minute scene. This was borne out when the scene was played.Walter was commissioned to write and direct a documentary, Pino (2021), about the artist, sculptor and set designer Pino Pascali. Pino Pascali was from Walter’s home town of Bari and he died in 1968 at the age of 32. Walter described the process of making the documentary using lm and video archive and a lot of commissioned and archive photography. He asked Suzanne Vega to do the voice over and he enjoyed using sound track music for the score as it was his own project. However, Walter missed having the extra person in the cutting room since he was the editor and director on the documentary and he said that he would prefer to work with an editor on future directing projects. Walter said that working in radio and as a club DJ early in his career has helped him in his desire to know when to help things happen in the edit, to know the right moment to cut. Editing is the power to create structure, to create the code of storytelling structure, and to understand the structure. Walter is strongly inuenced by other forms of art and culture and the decoding of their structures.A big lesson learned from his career is to take fresh air breaks regularly. He also feels that an editor should always interrogate their own work and re-examine sequences constantly and that they should not fall too much in love with their own work; he also extols the benet of constructive criticism. Walter likes to put cuts into lms that tells the audience that the editor is in control and he uses glitches as a fun element.Walter Fasano IMDb linkWalter Fasanoon with the editing with few words spoken. He also emphasized the need to avoid having a depressed director in the cutting room. Luca wanted Walter to start cutting A Bigger Splash after the shoot had nished. The rst cut had a running time of four hours and it was a long process to ‘nd’ the lm and cut it down to two hours. Luca stated that he wanted to be in the room the whole time of the edit, but ended up staying away most of the time.Eoin played a scene from A Bigger Splash with Ralph Fiennes dancing to the song Emotional Rescue by The Rolling Stones. Walter expressed his need and desire to watch all the footage to nd the best shots to shape the lm. Luca didn't want it to be cut like a music video, he wanted fewer edits, thus relying more on Fiennes’s performance. Walter himself sought to have a dynamic tension in the editing to make sequences a little more edgy and tense. Eoin moved on to the lm Call Me By Your Name. Walter edited this lm during the shoot and did the rst ne cut in ve days after the end of the lming. This was due to how well it was shot and the fact that it was mostly shot in sequence. Walter said it takes time to get into the rhythm of the lm. From the start Luca and Walter were tuned into the lms that inuenced this lm, for example, French lms of the 1980s by Eric Rohmer. While editing Walter would watch shots, but without his hands on the mouse and keyboard, so that he didn't feel compelled to stop to make a cut. This was a technique intended to see what he would discover from each shot by letting it run longer. Eoin then played a clip from Call Me By Your Name. Walter said that he used a Sufjan Stevens track as the score and that he incorporated accidental fogging of the lm stock as a beautiful

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ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED16 17Imagine your world turning upside down. That's what happened to Vitalii Vashchenko. We connect over a Zoom call, his face a blend of determination and a quiet weariness. This isn't just a lmmaker talking; it's someone who's rebuilding their life, brick by brick, in a place far from home.In the once vibrant world of Ukrainian television, Vitalii carved out a name for himself. He was a creator of bold, captivating stories: a director, writer, and editor with nearly two decades of experience. His productions often redened what was possible in a ercely competitive industry. “I wasn’t just editing; I was directing, writing, sometimes producing,” he explains. “Mostly TV dramas, but also a few features and documentaries.” One of his crowning achievements was the TV drama "The Tank," a project that set records with an astonishing 29.7% market share, becoming the most successful television drama in Ukrainian history.Hailing from Kyiv, Vitalii grew up with a deep passion for storytelling. From the age of nine, he knew he wanted to work in lm and television, immersing himself in the art of crafting narratives that could resonate across cultures and languages. His career began in the early 2000s, during a time when Ukraine’s entertainment industry was deeply intertwined with the Russian market. “We shared a common mentality, and it made economic sense to cater to both audiences,” he explains. “Back then, we were still struggling with our own identity.”That collaboration began to unravel in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and escalating tensions between Ukraine and Russia. “The storytelling mentality was shared, but after 2014, everything started to fall apart,” Vitalii recalls. “Ukraine was on a path to nding its own identity, and that included redening its lm and television industry.” For Vitalii, this period marked both an exciting creative challenge and a foreboding shift in stability. Even as his dramas achieved record-breaking viewership, he sensed an eventual need to leave. “I started learning English in 2008, preparing myself,” he shares.When Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, the world Vitalii had built collapsed. “I moved my ex-wife and daughter to the U.S., but I stayed behind, trying to help,” he says. “I volunteered, even produced comedy sketches for YouTube to lift people’s spirits. But eventually, I felt useless. I had to leave.”Following a friend to Ireland, Vitalii initially settled in Sligo, far from the bustling creative hub of Dublin. It was a quiet, reective time, but also one of isolation. “Professionally, I struggled,”he admits. “Living in Sligo made it dicult to access opportunities in Ireland’s lm and television industry. Most of the work happens in Dublin, and without proximity, I couldn’t make meaningful connections.”After months of searching for opportunities and navigating Ireland’s challenging housing market, Vitalii nally managed to secure accommodation in Dublin. Almost immediately, doors began to open. “I spent eight months trying to nd accommodation in Dublin,” he recalls. “Once I did, I immediately got my rst job. It made all the dierence.”Despite his signicant experience, Vitalii found himself starting from scratch in a highly competitive and unfamiliar market. “I’ve gotten jobs in major post-production houses, but just as an assistant editor. It’s a good entry point, but it’s tough starting over.” He’d gone from directing and producing high-prole projects in Ukraine to working as an assistant. “It was humbling,” he reects. “But it’s not the job title that matters to me; it’s the path forward.”Adapting to Ireland’s industry has been both a challenge and an opportunity. The country’s supportive environment for newcomers has helped ease his transition, but he’s acutely aware of the uphill battle he faces. “In a new country, you’re no one,” he says. “No one knows you, and you have to prove yourself all over again.”The technical aspects of his profession have oered a small but signicant advantage. Frustrated by the ineciencies of syncing footage in Final Cut Pro, he developed his own plugin to streamline the process. The tool, now available on the Mac App Store, has become a valuable resource for editors, allowing them to sync large batches of footage in seconds. “It wasn’t something I developed as a business venture,” he says modestly. “It was just a solution to a problem I encountered. But seeing others use it successfully has been rewarding.”Yet, Vitalii’s heart remains rmly rooted in storytelling. Editing, while an essential part of his journey, is only a stepping stone. His ultimate goal is to return to directing, a role where he can shape narratives from inception to completion. “I’ve been doing Vitalii's JourneyChaos and ResilienceMade by Vitalii Vashchenko and available in the Apple App Storethis since the early 2000s. It’s what I’m good at, and it’s what I love,” he says.Despite the challenges, Vitalii’s determination remains unshaken. “I’ve lost everything before, and I’ve rebuilt,” he says. “Starting over doesn’t scare me. It’s just another story to tell.”As Vitalii looks to the future, he’s contemplating making his rst short lm in Ireland. The project is still in its infancy, hindered by the practicalities of daily life, but the idea excites him. “Short lms are a great way to get back into directing,” he says. “But for now, I need to regain my footing. Once I’m on solid ground, I’ll have the space to create again.”Vitalii’s story is far from over. It’s a story of hope, resilience, and the unyielding pursuit of a dream. It’s a testament to the fact that even in the face of immense adversity, the human spirit, driven by passion, can rebuild and thrive.“I’ve been through too much to give up now,” he says with conviction. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a child. Why would I give up now?”

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19ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED18withPostSupervisorClodaghMcCarthySo Clodagh, please tell us how you got interested in lm and TV, what you did in college, your early career, and your time in Canada?I was quite fascinated by make believe from an early age, but also by outlandish things, and by history and archaeology in a big way. When I was trying to gure out what I was going to do as a teenager, the world was still quite small compared to nowadays. The internet was still in its infancy and we didn't have access to knowledge about international career paths. I remember sitting down with my transition year guidance counsellor, and she said to me, ‘Well, do you want to be a teacher or a nurse or a librarian?’. I thought to myself, what year are we in at all? I was only 15 at the time, and I had more awareness than she did that there were all sorts of adventures to be found out there in the world. So from a very early age, I was dying to get out of my hometown. I loved lm and TV, but nobody at any point in my life ever mentioned the fact that you could have a career in lm and TV, so it wasn’t on my radar at all. I ended up studying Egyptian archaeology in Liverpool because I was fascinated with ancient Egypt and with hieroglyphs. Let's be honest, I thought I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I actually wanted to make Indiana Jones lms but it wasn't till I was about 20 that I realized that. So I graduated from university and was feeling a bit lost in the world, and the way I dealt with it was I spent about nine months in my bedroom watching director commentaries of lms and TV shows that I loved, in particular the special features on the Lord of the Rings DVDs, which have about 400 hours of content. I consider the Lord of the Rings special features to be my lm school, I learned so much from them. Over the course of those nine to twelve months, I realized there are people out there who do this for a living and that there is a way to get into this world. Bring back the director commentaries and special features I say!I transitioned through a variety of careers in my early 20s all the while thinking, how do I break into the lm industry? Eventually I decided to get on a plane to Canada in 2009 and luckily enough, my brother started dating somebody who worked in the industry. This created a little bit of a connection with some communities there that I wouldn't have had access to otherwise - let’s call it what it is, nepotism! I was oered a full time unpaid internship in CTV, which is one of the Canadian national broadcasters and I worked there for about six months in their newsroom. During the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010, I worked with them in a variety of dierent roles, and that’s how I got I my start in the industry. I was very lucky; I met someone on my rst day who could see how hungry I was, somebody who had connections and decided he wanted to help me on my way. I ended up working lots of freebies; I'd work my full time job during the week in a ve star retirement community doing marketing and sales and then on the weekend, I would work lm jobs for free to gain some experience. I did runner jobs, costume, art department and props. I loved working in the art department and props, but eventually I ended up being oered an opportunity as a full-time post-production assistant for an NBC Universal pilot. This essentially meant giving up my quite well paid sales and marketing executive job at the age of 28 and starting at the bottom again but I jumped at it! When I started in post it just seemed to be this perfect blend of the technical and creative. It t in my mindset really well and I was very quick to pick up the concepts involved, the workows and processes. I had the benet of working under Kerry McDowall, an incredible Post Supervisor in Vancouver, and now my sister-in-law to boot!From there I worked as a post coordinator on a 10 part series and then I was head hunted by a post facility to manage their business and operations, so within the space of about a year, I went from being brand new to post production to running a small boutique post facility called Side Street Post. In this job every single day was a challenge, but I embraced it and worked my hardest, talking to everybody around me and soaking up as much knowledge as I possibly could on the job. I worked there for about three years and over the course of that time we produced about 35 movies of the week (as they're called in in the US and Canada) for US networks, as well as maybe ten TV series, a variety of drama and reality and lifestyle programming. Over time I had developed an incredible community of people who worked in post and in various other lm & TV sectors and that was where I worked right up until I decided I was going to come back to Ireland in 2016.You returned home in 2016 to Ireland. How did you nd your feet here after moving from Canada and how did your career develop from this time onwards?When I came back in 2016 it was a mixture of personal reasons and family reasons. My dad was unwell at the time, so I knew he needed a little bit of support, but I also got married in early 2016 when I was in Canada, and my husband had never been to Ireland, so it seemed like a logical time for us to come here. When we rst got back, we bought a camper van instead of going on a honeymoon and travelled around Ireland and Europe for about 6 months so it wasn't exactly a career focused return initially. After about nine months, we had run out of money and both needed to get jobs. We settled in Dublin and I got a role with Windmill Lane as a senior post producer, working there for a number of years in their lm and TV department. While I was there, there were a number of maternity leave periods for other members of the producing team, so I brought in some younger team members and trained them up. I was trained in the US and Canadian model, which has a lot of structure and resources, very high expectations and a great deal of challenges, but obviously bigger budgets to deal with those expectations and challenges so it was a bit of a transition coming back to Ireland - the industry in Ireland is very dierent. Obviously, it's much smaller in comparison and it's a lot more friendly and connected in terms of the crews and the people working in it. But also there's a little bit of a tendency to not dig into the details as much as I was used to in Canada, a bit of the ‘ah sure it’ll be grand’ culture. So there was some adjustments there, in terms of my own expectation of my work and the people around me, and just adapting to how things were done a little bit dierently in the Irish market. I’ll be honest, I did miss some of those structures and processes that I had learned on the other side of the Atlantic which helped to inuence my decision to go freelance when Covid hit. Initially I worked on a couple of productions as a production manager, and then moved back into post, after which the work just snowballed, thankfully. I got to the point where I was being oered more work than I could feasibly complete by myself, and I was faced with the choice of either saying no to the jobs I couldn’t do or to expand by bringing team members on board, training people up and mentoring the next generation of post supervisors. I was very aware of the fact that in the Irish lm & TV industry, there isn't a tradition of budgeting for post production supervisors on projects. Traditionally speaking, the line producer might ll that role to some degree, or more often, the producer on the project would do so. And while that can work in some instances, there is a depth of knowledge, understanding and experience that a post producer or post supervisor brings to the table that a producer wouldn’t have unless they come from a post-production background. In the past, the budgets weren't there to support the post supervisor role, and the people who did have the experience were forced to take on more projects than was possible to do well, just to be able to make a decent living. Unfortunately, to

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21ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED20some degree, the role was devalued in the eyes of producers and line producers so we were caught in this cycle; it's dicult to justify why you should budget for the role when you've paid for it in the past, and it hasn't necessarily worked out the way you expected it to. There was also a lack of understanding from producers and line producers of the workload involved to do it properly – post supervisors can’t be part-time throughout a whole project and do the job well, there are periods in the schedule that you must be full-time; in America and Canada they’re budgeted to be full-time for the entirety of a project so we had a gulf to close between here and there. There was also a lack of protections in place for post production crews – most of us are not in a union or even a guild and producers and directors who would agonise about whether they could go into overtime with a shooting crew won’t think twice about grading or mixing until 10pm at night, or later!I was keen to try and improve things for crews working in post in Ireland, but also manage producers expectations and help people understand what the role of post supervisor entailed. At the same time, there was a real wealth of work coming our way from the streamers, and when I say coming our way, I mean to England and Ireland in a way that didn’t happen in the rst few years of streamers’ existence when they were producing mostly in the US. I think some of the streamers struggled with some of their projects in post-production, so they started to host seminars in the UK for their producing partners to explain the importance of the post supervision role and to insist that producers budgeted for that role at the inception of a project, so that projects were getting delivered on time, on budget, and in a manner that was acceptable to the streamers. All of a sudden, there was a bit of a push from the industry itself to promote and support the role of post supervisor and to increase the number of post supervisors working in the industry so all the stars aligned for me; I decided it was time to expand, it was time to start training people. In 2021 I brought on one team member, Rachel Walshe, who had a very brief background in post but was just an all-round smart and capable person. Four years later she is now post supervising her own shows under the banner of my company, Mumha Media, so that's a success story in itself. Shortly after Rachel joined, Saibh McCarey joined the team from a post facility background, and in record time she was post supervising her own shows. Over the course of the next couple of years, as more and more work was coming our way, we had to continue to crew up and train. Almost two years ago, Lisa Higgins joined the team from an animation background and has really hit the ground running. She’s coordinating on projects with me now, as well as our post production assistant Inna Pavliuk who recently moved from Ukraine to Ireland. She is the most passionate cinephile of us all and she was looking for a way to break into the industry – luckily I found and nabbed her! Recently, we were very lucky to hire Aaron Carroll who had been Head of Film and TV in Windmill Lane as a senior post supervisor; he is now running his own projects and helping to mentor the other team members. I also have an exclusive scoop for Assembled - I’m very excited to announce that from March 2025 Maura Murphy, currently the Post Production Executive at Element Pictures, will be joining the Mumha Media team! Over the course of four years, I've gone from being a lone wolf to having a team of seven skilled and dedicated people, capable of handling a slate of between ve and fteen projects at a time and providing our producers, co-producing partners, studios and networks, with the assurance that their jobs will be properly managed from a post standpoint from the moment the camera starts rolling right through to the nal delivery. We’re gaining traction in terms of a role that is properly budgeted for in pre-production and ultimately, I think we've come a long way. We’ve always had a depth of resources and talent in terms of the creative processes for post-production, the only thing we were missing was a depth of resources talent and experience in the post management sector. We only had a handful of professional post supervisors working in Ireland when I moved back home so I'm delighted to say that we've added to the ranks of skilled and experienced post producers, supervisors, coordinators and assistants in the Irish lm and TV industry.Our readers will be interested in nding out about your approach to projects, your involvement with production, scripts, hiring staff and then the management of the post production process.Post production is often seen as the process that happens after production, which is misleading. Post production needs to be prepped for in the same way and time frame as production does, and so the earlier I can be engaged with the project, the earlier I can be looking at scripts and have an overview of what the creative intent is, the more I can bring to a project in terms of creativity, structure and savings. In Ireland you'll often get a call a week before going to camera to say, we just need someone to manage the post and you know, we'll deal with all that after the shoot but of course, post production is a vital component of workow design and editorial needs to begin D01 of the shoot. We need to work backwards from the nal delivery list and date to ensure that you're meeting all the targets and building time into the schedule for creativity. You're looking at scripts. You're doing script breakdowns, just like every other department would, and those script breakdowns would include noting VFX work or any particularly challenging things from a post-production standpoint, for instance, large crowd scenes that might have ADR ramications. The earlier you can identify what the potential pitfalls in a project are going to be, the better you're going to be able to plan for them, and the better you'll be able to budget and schedule for them.So ideally, a post producer/supervisor is involved early in the pre-production process, but more often than not, it's a matter of weeks before going to camera that I'm rst having conversations. With returning clients, that tends to change, because they do start to see the value of engaging you earlier and they understand what you can bring to the post production process as a result. That's the ideal scenario, when you're speaking very closely to producers, to directors, getting an understanding of the types of teams needed, and the talent that people are going to be looking to engage for the project. At that point you'll start trying to identify the right potential editor for the project in question, who would potentially be a good t for the sound design? Are there specic composers that feel like they're the right tone? What colourist will work best with the DOP? That's where all your industry-specic knowledge comes in, your knowledge of the networks and your knowledge of various dierent post facilities. As a post producer, you will usually be engaged earlier and be involved in getting quotes from facilities, identifying what dierent services they're oering, identifying the teams that they'll be bringing to the table, and ultimately identifying the best t for the project, which obviously comes down to talent rst and foremost, but also budget, availability and all of those dierent moving parts. At the end of the day, the way I approach a project is that I always want to be working for the best interests of the project itself. Yes, I answer to producers. Yes, I answer to directors. But sometimes the best interests of the project mean that you need to say no to those people, and that's a part of the role that can be very challenging, but it's very important that you're informing them about the parameters and impacts of their decision making. In terms of the hiring process, of course, there's my own team to think about. I have such an incredible wealth of talent around me now that it's very easy for me to identify who's going to be a right t for a job but then you need to run things by producers and directors because a lot of this decision making comes down to personality. Once the project kicks o, you're going to be doing workow prep and design in advance of that, speaking to DITs, to colourists etc. to ensure that you have a colour pipeline that is going to keep the director, DOP and execs happy and a DI, audio and VFX workow that allows for exibility in post. Once you get into the shoot, of course, you're also assembling the scenes - you need to make sure that your editor and assistant have everything they require, that the footage is owing quickly, eciently and correctly to the places it needs to go, and communicate any relevant information back to production from post. ClodaghMcCarthyLisaHigginsRubyAaronCarrollInnaPavliukMauraMurphy SaibhMcCareyRachelWalshe

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23ASSEMBLEDASSEMBLED22Once the shoot is wrapped, the focus turns very swiftly to the edit; editorial really is the make or break of the project, once you're in that edit suite, you have to work with what was shot and not what was scripted. There may need to be a refocus of energies and a re-estimation of how the nal piece is going to shape up from the directors and producers. That's where the incredibly talented editors come into play, and I like to let good people get on with good work. Now you’ll start to focus on nishing; have you got the right sound team engaged for the project, is your composer on board, is everyone aware of when things are going to be hitting their plate and what their deadlines are. That is one of the most crucial parts of the post producer or supervisor role, constantly keeping information owing between dierent departments, keeping everybody updated on changes in the project that will impact them. Editorial is the cheapest place to make your project better. Once you move into full post production, where you've brought your project out of the cutting room and into ve or six dierent post departments, such as sound (foley, sound eects, dialogue editing) and picture (VFX, grading, online), music (music editor, composer, source tracks), it gets expensive and complex to make changes. The golden rule I was taught when I was being trained is don't start any nishing until picture lock is nal but let's be honest; that's no longer the world we live in. We're constantly being thrown curve balls requesting edit changes long after picture lock which means that we have to make sure all of the departments are keeping pace with these changes and do our best to manage project overages. That’s when things can really start to kick o. From a post supervision standpoint, you are the connective tissue between the teams, and it is so important that you have an understanding of the technical processes that every individual department is undertaking to be able to anticipate the impacts of certain decisions.I think that can be the thing that sets people apart in the post world, when they have a hunger for the technical knowledge entailed in each post department. Not just the people management knowledge, not just the project management knowledge, but also being able to understand the technical and creative challenges that each individual team member is facing, the timelines that would be normal for the work they're doing, and being able to support or troubleshoot with them when they come across issues that need to be resolved. It is a real mixture of project management, people management, and ultimately, resource and technical management. The best post producers bring all of those things to the table, along with being easy to work with, because at the end of the day, you should be oiling the wheels for every dierent process and not putting any stumbling blocks in place. You attend all of the key creatives meetings and sessions, and that's where all of the pressure cooker moments will occur. When you need to sign things o and make nal decisions, every little decision that was low on the priority list earlier in the schedule is going to come to bear, so that's a very intense time for everybody involved in the job, particularly the director. They need to start making nal decisions and letting go of certain elements and you need to be cognizant and supportive of how dicult that can be.It’s a time when you're doing an awful lot of logistical work in the background, a lot of admin work. You have to have a very thorough and detailed understanding of what your deliverables are, and make sure that every team member within the facility has the same depth of understanding, and you will have questions ying at you from every single department that's working on the project at this stage of the process. Once you've completed the post production sessions and you've signed o the nal mix, you've signed o the nal grade, you've signed o all of the nal VFX, and you've signed o in the online which is where you bring all of those nal elements together for the very rst time, you still have a lot of work to do, but it's very unsexy stu. It's quality control (QC) processes, it's mastering processes, it's deliverables checklists, it's very boring Excel sheets but ultimately it is the bread and butter of delivering that lm or TV series to the distributor that needs to distribute it worldwide, and it's a part of the process that is often overlooked in terms of timelines. It's actually a very involved and lengthy process, and increasingly, we're being asked to complete it in two or four weeks, which is just not realistic. But that's the point in the process when really all of the technical knowledge, plus all of the knowledge that you've gained about that job in particular will come to fruition. Ultimately, the goal is that you're delivering the project on time, on budget, and you've managed to help bring the creative vision of the director, producer and the various HODs to the screen in the best possible way. Please tell us more about the nancial and technical aspects of your role and the knowledge and experience you have to have as a post supervisor/producer. Well, I think the main thing about post production is you've never nished learning as the industry is changing at such a pace, and the way we do things is changing at such a pace that anyone who tells you they know everything about post is a liar, it's not possible. If you're not staying at the forefront of the technological curve, and are not eager to understand what new tools are coming to the market and adopt them, then you will fall behind, you will become less ecient, and you will ultimately not be able to compete in the same way as other teams or other producers would. I think that's a really key part of the process. I love working with people who are hungry for knowledge and I nd that the best teams creatively are also the teams that look to the tech to support that creative work. Technology is a tool through which creativity can ow, and if we're using old tools, then the ow will not be as ecient and we will have less creative options available to us. It's a constant adaptation, it's a constant development of the way we work, and you have to be unafraid of that. You have to be unafraid of exploring new ways of doing things, taking a little bit of extra time now to save yourself time in the future. That's a big part of why I love post, it doesn't stay still.From a nancial standpoint, you know, I've worked on every type of project we have in Ireland, from micro budgets in the thousands all the way up to budgets in the tens of millions. And the reality is, you will never have enough time, and you'll never have enough money because the expectations will swell to ll the budget and schedule you are presented with. Every single job has a pinch point, and you need to work towards building in contingencies, which is a little bit of a dirty word in the budgeting world, and certainly in post-production, because if there was a contingency at the start of production, you will more than likely nd it's gone by the time you get to post production! So I have had to develop methods of budgeting in a way that allows for some sort of exibility when you're in the crunch in post, without putting other departments into a position where they have not got the funds that they require, and ultimately, you are at the end of the line in post-production. We have the old saying, we’ll x it in post, which is the bane of our lives. You will still nd problems and issues at various points in the post process that could have been headed o in production with a couple of minutes of thought or care.On the other hand, for anyone who's worked on set, it's very clear that sometimes you just can't solve those problems in that moment so you need to be willing to roll with the punches in post. If you're not willing to deal with the unexpected and pick up other people's problems and run with them, then it probably isn't the area of the industry for you. So ultimately, just like production, just like any other project, the key to success is in the prep, and continuity of knowledge is crucial throughout the project. Sometimes that is dicult to ght for when there's a budget crunch but it will be easier to x it in post and we will save the production money overall if we are engaged early and have an oversight of the decisions that are being made and why, from start to nish.

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ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED24 25For Iranian lm editor Hamid Najarad, editing isn't just a profession; it's a deeply ingrained passion, a creative lifeline that has shaped his journey. Even across the digital divide of our Zoom call, his enthusiasm was palpable. Joined by editing colleague Hadi Sheibani, who served as translator, technical support, and general facilitator for our online conversation, Hamid shared his experiences, challenges, and perspectives on post-production, shedding light on the intricacies of the craft and the unique struggles faced by lmmakers in Iran.Hamid’s journey into lm began with acting. As a teenager, he immersed himself in school plays, and was captivated by the expressive power of cinema. Two major inuences shaped his early years: Dariush Mehrjui’s Hamoun (1989) and Hollywood action lms. Additionally, his father’s passion for recording everyday life on a video camera introduced him to the concept of lmmaking."Owning a video camera in Iran back then was uncommon. Inspired by my father, I started recording family moments and experimenting with in-camera editing. Looking back, that was my rst real encounter with editing."A number of years later while studying at the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS), Hamid was rst exposed to non-linear editing (NLE) software. The editing suite was a revelation, a place where he felt the raw power of storytelling come to life—he found himself entranced by the power to manipulate and transform a story. Although he initially aspired to become a director, his experience in the editing room reshaped his ambitions."Editing opened up a world of creativity I hadn’t imagined. It became my calling," he says. "I still dream of directing a feature lm, but editing remains my true passion. It’s more than a profession—it’s a way to think, create, and connect with storytelling, to shape emotions and rhythms with every cut."Despite his unwavering passion, Hamid faced signicant hurdles in his pursuit of an editing career. Coming from a traditional family, he struggled to explain the intricacies of lm editing to his parents, who initially did not support his choice. To gain industry experience, he worked as an assistant in an advertising agency before relocating to Tehran, where opportunities in cinema were more abundant."Explaining what a lm editor does to my family wasn’t easy, they only saw how passionately I threw myself into it and only really began to understand my work when I started winning awards and working with well-known directors. Now, my parents are my biggest supporters. They’re always curious about my projects, proud of the journey I’ve taken from recording family moments to editing lms that reach audiences far and wide."For nearly fteen years, Hamid’s focus was primarily on editing documentaries. Over time he transitioned into feature ction lms. However, that transition from documentary to feature lm editing was not easy. In Iran, short lms and documentaries are often undervalued compared to feature ction lms, making it dicult for editors to gain recognition. Hamid persevered, refusing to let industry stereotypes dene his career."To me, the value of any project lies in the creative experience it oers, not its budget or length. Each project, whether short or feature-length, brings its own lessons."One of the biggest obstacles Iranian editors face is the lack of educational resources. When Hamid began his career, there were no formal training programs for digital non-linear editing. Learning had to be self-directed, watching lms, analysing cuts, and understanding rhythm through observation."It wasn’t an organised learning process. I absorbed whatever I could, wherever I could. Even today, continuous learning denes my growth as an editor."This struggle extends beyond education to software and online learning accessibility. Due to political and economic sanctions, Iranian lmmakers are unable to purchase legitimate software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Avid Media Composer. They are forced to rely on cracked versions, making updates and technical support nearly impossible. Added to this, online learning platforms are often o limits, due to location restrictions, and even if they are available, the devalued currency makes them too expensive.The lack of industry structure in Iran creates signicant nancial instability for lm editors. Unlike in Western countries, where production companies oer long-term contracts, most Iranian editors, including Hamid, work freelance. This instability forces editors to take on multiple projects simultaneously, preventing them from fully dedicating themselves to a single lm.Beyond nancial struggles, censorship presents another challenge. Filmmakers must submit scripts to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Hamid Najafirad

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Economic Conditions: Iran's economy is characterised by a large public sector and is heavily inuenced by its hydrocarbon industries. Economic challenges, including sanctions and ination, have impacted various sectors, including cinema. These economic conditions often lead lmmakers to work with constrained budgets, relying on resourcefulness and creativity to bring their projects to fruition.Funding Sources: Due to economic sanctions and limited access to international nancing, Iranian lmmakers often depend on domestic funding sources. These include government grants, private investors, and cultural foundations. The reliance on such sources can inuence the types of lms produced, with a tendency towards content that aligns with cultural and governmental guidelines.Budget Estimates: While exact gures are not publicly disclosed, it is understood that Iranian lm budgets are modest compared to international standards. The emphasis is often on storytelling and artistic expression rather than high-cost productions. This approach has led to a distinctive style that prioritises narrative depth and character development.27ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED26Guidance before receiving production approval. Even after shooting, lms undergo another round of scrutiny to ensure compliance. Deviating from the approved script can result in severe penalties, including permanent bans from the industry. Hamid recalls a chilling example, his voice dropping slightly as he recounts the story."A friend of mine had his feature lm shut down because he started lming a few days earlier than the approved date. Authorities seized the footage, and the project was never completed. It leaves a heavy feeling, a constant worry that hangs over every project."The past decade has seen signicant shifts in Iranian cinema. Independent lmmakers continue to push boundaries, earning international recognition at festivals like Cannes and Berlin. Directors such as Asghar Farhadi have brought Iranian cinema to the global stage, while younger lmmakers experiment with new styles, blending realism with poetic storytelling.However, these advancements come with increasing restrictions. The government’s tightening grip on content has made it more dicult for lmmakers to explore controversial themes. Streaming platforms, which once oered an alternative distribution channel, are now facing censorship as well. The economic crisis has also aected production quality, with many lmmakers struggling to secure funding. Yet, despite these hurdles, Iranian cinema remains resilient, nding ways to adapt and evolve.One of Hamid’s key aspirations is to bridge the gap between Iranian and international editors. He hopes to collaborate with organisations like the Irish Screen Editors (ISE) to create opportunities for knowledge exchange."If groups like ISE could organise workshops, not only on technical skills, but also on the art of storytelling, and the ethical considerations of documentary editing, or share mentorship resources, it would make a tremendous dierence. Young Iranian editors need guidance to build sustainable careers." He is particularly interested in exploring how dierent cultures approach war and conict in cinema, believing that cross-cultural collaborations can lead to richer storytelling."Every culture brings its own perspective to universal themes. Imagine an Iranian editor working on an Irish lm, or vice versa—it would create something entirely new and meaningful.”Despite the hardships, his passion for editing remains unshaken. His journey, from experimenting with a video camera as a child to becoming a respected lm editor, is a testament to the resilience and creativity of Iranian lmmakers. "Film is a universal language, and editors are its architects. No matter where we are in the world, we share the same goal: to tell powerful stories that resonate with audiences."As the global lm industry continues to evolve, Hamid remains hopeful that greater collaboration and support will open doors for Iranian editors. He hopes that in the future, the barriers that he and his peers face, will be lowered. Until then, he continues to shape stories, one cut at a time.Over the past decade, Iranian cinema has experienced notable developments, both in the number of lms produced and the nancial aspects of lmmaking.While precise annual production gures and detailed budget breakdowns are not readily available due to limited public data, several trends and contextual factors oer insight into the industry's trajectory. Iran's lm industry has maintained a consistent output, with numerous lms produced annually. The Fajr Film Festival, Iran's premier cinematic event, continues to showcase a diverse range of lms each year, reecting the industry's vitality. However, specic statistics detailing the exact number of lms produced annually from 2015 to 2024 are scarce. This lack of data can be attributed to the decentralised nature of lm production in Iran and the absence of a centralised reporting system.The nancial landscape of Iranian lmmaking is shaped by several unique factors:Iranian lmmakers face several challenges that inuence production budgets and the overall lmmaking process:Despite economic constraints and regulatory challenges, Iranian cinema continues to thrive, producing lms that garner international acclaim. The industry's resilience is a testament to the dedication of its lmmakers, who navigate nancial and logistical hurdles to tell compelling stories that resonate both domestically and globally.I am grateful to Hadi Sheibani for his assistance in getting this article done and dusted. Hadi was instrumental in setting up this interview and facilitated the Zoom call as well as acted as translator and transcriber of the interview. Without him this would not have been possible. Hadi is an editor and director living and working in Iran and also has several lms to his credit.Censorship and Regulatory Hurdles: Filmmakers must navigate a complex landscape of censorship and obtain necessary approvals from cultural authorities. This process can aect both the content and the nancial aspects of lm production, as revisions and delays may lead to increased costs.Technological Access: Access to the latest lmmaking technology and software is often limited due to sanctions and import restrictions. This limitation requires lmmakers to be innovative, utilising available resources eectively to achieve their creative visions.Hadi Sheibani

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29ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED28As half of the founding partnership behind Tailored Films, Julianne Forde has produced feature lms and TV series for over a decade. As a producer, she’s no stranger to criticism—but she’s never before been called “human scum,”least of all by a president of the United States of America.On 14th October last year, Donald Trump tweeted about “A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie” calling it “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job.”The lm in question is *The Apprentice*, which chronicles Trump’s evolution in the 1970s and 1980s from an ambitious young real estate heir to a prominent gure in New York’s business scene. Central to this transformation is his relationshipwith lawyer Roy Cohn, whose aggressive tactics signicantly inuenced Trump’s future character.While *The Apprentice* doesn’t seem at rst glance like a natural t for Irish involvement, it is one of a growing number of acclaimed productions—like *Poor Things*, *Shōgun*, *Evil Dead Rise*, and *Rick and Morty*—that have benetted from Irish involvement and nancing.From grading and mixing to a signicant portion of the visual eects, *The Apprentice* owes much of its success to Irish production expertise.“We didn’t develop the script,” says Forde. “The reason it became a three-way international co-production between Canada, Ireland, and Denmark is because they couldn’t nance it in the United States.” Written by *New Yorker* and *Vanity Fair* journalist Gabe Sherman, the lm originated from his curiosity about how a gure like Trump came to be. Sherman’s research into Trump’s relationship with the infamous Roy Cohn revealed traits of Cohn reected in Trump.Julianne Forde and her Tailored Films co- founder, Ruth Treacy, joined the project relatively late in the process. “We were actually the last partner in the co-production structure,” says Forde. “Ali Abbasi, the director, is based in Denmark, so it was a Danish setup, lmed in Canada to represent New York. We met Daniel Beckerman, the Canadian producer, when they were seeking a third co-production partner.We connected at Cannes in May 2023, so it was an incredibly fast turnaround.We were particularly excited to work with Ali, by Shane Woodswhich is why we pitched so hard to be part of the project.”Tailored Films has grown considerably since Forde and Treacy set it up after studying together in Dún Laoghaire. Initially focused on corporate videos, short lms, and summer lmmaking courses, Tailored Films is now one of Ireland’s most exciting independent production companies. In 2024, alongside *The Apprentice*, they released *Bring Them Down* (starring Barry Keoghan and Colm Meaney) and the YA series *Louise Lives Large* for RTÉ .As with many Irish productions, parts of these projects were completed in Ireland, with other elements handled abroad.“It’s all about the budget,” Forde explains. “You *can* do everything in Ireland, but when you need to hit a higher budget level, that’s where co-productions come in. They bring in additional nancing. These projects use what’s called ‘jigsaw nancing,’ with many small pieces coming together. These decisions impact what parts of the production happen in Ireland versus abroad. For example with *Bring Them Down*, we were involved in the development and looked after the entire shoot. When it came to post production, and of course we fed in with notes and review, but it was lovely to be able to hand it over to the Belgium and the UK and say “hey, you guys run with it now.”On Louise Lives Large, we had Canada, Belgium and Ireland. So the shoot was in Ireland, and it made more sense to take crew from Belgium rather than Canada. This determined that the post production had to happen in Canada.For *The Apprentice*, much of the Irish contribution was in VFX, grade and nal mix. The lm was shot in Toronto in December 23/ January 24, with its streets doubling for New York in the 1970s and 1980s.Director Abbasi and cinematographer Kasper Tuxen chose a distinct visual approach: distressed 16mm lm aesthetics for the 1970s evolving into VHS and Betacam for the 1980s. They also integrated archival footage to reect the era’s urban decline authentically. The production faced a tight deadline.“We initially planned for a nine-month post- production schedule,” says Forde. “But when the opportunity to apply for Cannes emerged, we couldn’t say no.”“The initial plan was to edit with only one editor and that was also how we started out,” says post-production supervisor Christina Jæger, who managed the edit in Copenhagen.“During the shoot Olivia (Neergaard-Holm) simultaneously did an assembly cut but if the lm were to premiere in Cannes the whole post production would basically need to be done in half the time. The obvious solution was to continue editing with two editors to speed up the process. Though it’s not given that double the manpower equals double work speed. Jacob Jarek, the Danish producer, asked me to start looking into nding a suitable and available editor. It was of course in close collaboration with Olivia, who should also be given the credit for being open minded to the new schedule and co-editing plan. Olivia and editor Olivier Bugge Coutté had previously talked about doing a project together and suddenly now was the time. So a few weeks before the shoot ended Olivier joined the editing team.”Ali moved back to Copenhagen at the start of February 2024 with the accelerated timeline requiring locking the lm by April 20th, leaving just one month for visual eects, grading, and music before Cannes. “The editors and Ali divided the scenes between Olivia and Olivier,” notes Jæger “There would be days where Ali was with the editors one on one and other days where they all sat together watching and discussing the next step. Occasionally they also swapped scenes to use each others strengths and creative diversity. We also had assistant editors who at times helped lling gaps in ascene or whatever Olivia and Olivier would nd helpful.”CANNES DOHow an Irish Co-Production Helped Get Trump into CannesJulianne FordeChristina JægerRuth Treacy

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31ASSEMBLED ASSEMBLED30The tight schedule also involved makingmany decisions often earmarked for later in the post production process, much earlier than usual, so managing Ali’s time became a key factor for Jæger “Managing Ali’s time was crucial in meeting the Cannes deadline. Since the post production period had been compressed so heavily all post departments had started earlier than rst planned for and also before we had a locked cut. All post departments needed time with Ali to be briefed or to show him things for feedback and approval. And at the same time he was super busy juggling two editors to nalise the edit. Without a locked cut there would be no Cannes so time in editorial had high priority. The short timeline, however, undermined the usual post workow and decisions you would normally make later needed to be taken sooner, so there were a lot of calls to be made time for. I was at the same oce as the editors and Ali so often I became the gatekeeper of Ali’s time. Ali and I would talk about when during the day and week he could be available for calls. In this position exibility was a necessity. No matter how much we planned there would be delays and urgent issues popping up that would change the plan.”Visual eects work began unusually early, even before the directors cut was complete. “The biggest challenge in having such a compressed post schedule was having to start music and VFX before picture lock, which is just ludicrous and unheard of and ill advised, basically.” Forde emphasised.“While ideally lms and series are locked before the material is turned over to VFX,” says Drew Banerjee, MD of Egg VFX "the vagaries of deliveries and deadlines for broadcasters, streamers and festivals is such that often this isn't possible. The issue is time and money- and no one wants to pay for work, or for crews to spend time working on, shots that aren't needed for the nal lm. It should be said that if the work needs to be done before lock these outcomes are inevitable. When starting work before lock we work with our clients to prioritise sequences, scenes and shots that are unlikely to change too much and/or big set pieces that require a lot of time to get right. It takes a lot of talking between creative and producer teams to identify what can and cannot be turned over.” The workload was divided among six vendors; in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, with Dublin-based EggVFX handling the majority of the work. “We usually work in a multi- vendor universe- so on titles like Bad Sisters, Good Omens 2 and The Woman King- we are one of many VFX vendors- often spread out across the world.Typically each studio works on standalone scenes and shots- but we have also worked alongside other vendors to deliver dierent elements of particular shots/ scenes. So we are very well rehearsed in working alongside other vendors. The tricky thing on The Apprentice was who was doing what work was decided quite late in the process- not because anyone did anything wrong- but as a result of the extremely tight timelines the production was working to.” Although unusual for a lm of this size, Forde’s prior experience coordinating multiple vendors on much smaller lms like *Let the Wrong One In* proved invaluable in being able to divide shots and play to multiple visual eects vendors strengths. “Alan Foley, for example, was somebody I brought on because I'd worked with him and his merry band of freelancers a lot on *Let the Wrong One In* and I really like working with them. They’re small and fast and can turn things around. It helps that I'd got so many bids to begin with, and kind of knew the value of what we were asking for.” The key challenge for Banerjee and EGG VFX was the clarity of creative briefs. “The shoot, edit, post and VFX were all carried out on accelerated schedules across many countries. As such the vision for scenes, sequences and shots was evolving as the cuts developed. Add into the mix producer and nancier notes, all while the car was being built while it was driving", and it was hard for everyone involved in the process to achieve clarity of what was in and out of the cut, but also what the ambition of those shots, sequences and scenes might be. All things that are completely normal for any production- it is just that The Apprentice was moving at double speed.”As the Cannes Cut locked, all eyes moved to Dublin’s Screen Scene and Ardmore Sound for the lm to grade and mix. Once again, Ali’s time and focus was key to getting the lm ready for the festival “No doubt there were massive demands on Ali’s time to meet the schedule. He was the one saying ‘Yeah, let’s go for it’ but then again it’s one thing to say it but when you’re in the middle of it it’s another thing entirely.”Forde is condent in Ireland’s ability to complete with anywhere else in the world “I work in acompany of seven people. We’re nimble. If we decide to change our policy tomorrow, we can. The bigger a company gets, the less responsive it can be. And I think in Ireland, because it is a smaller industry, there's the ability, like a smaller company, to be kind of more nimble and responsive in terms of the way we're doing things. Sometimes, in my experience with the industry in Canada or in the UK, because it’s more built up, there’s an inexibility when it comes to the way things are done. And actually that was something Ali really agreed with as well. In Denmark, that mentality exists also. Whereas when you go to Canada, it’s just a massive industry. You might as well be in a factory makingboots.”Everyone’s hard work paid o. The nal DCP was produced by Screen Scene on 17th May and handed to Forde, who personally transported it to Cannes for the Premiere on 20th May. The lm was well received in Cannes, with the lmmakers receiving an eight minute standing ovation.Despite this positive reception, securing U.S. distribution was challenging. Major studios, streaming platforms, and distributors were hesitant to back such a politically charged lm during an election year. Additionally, a public dispute arose between the producers and a nancial backer, threatened to shelve the lm indenitely. Fortunately, these issues were resolved, and the lm was released in October 2024.Since its release, the lm has garnered nominations for Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Oscars and had enough interest to garner a re-release in February. However, it has remained highly controversial, facing threats from Donald Trump and his associates. Hollywood has been reluctant to embrace the lm entirely, fearing reprisals from the new president. Sebastian Stan revealed recently that he was invited to participate in Variety's "Actors on Actors" series but couldn't nd another actor willing tojoin him. "We couldn't get past the publicists or the people representing them, because [they were] too afraid to talk about this movie."Despite the many constraints, Forde is proud of what was achieved. “Sometimes breaking thestructure can lead to extraordinary results. We hit an insane deadline and proved what’s possible. That said, I wouldn’t want to do it this way too often.” For Christina Jæger, it was a rearmation that she loved her job, “I think this project reminded me of what I already knew, excuse the clichés – the importance of exibility, communication and collaboration.Personally I’m proud of my work on this lm and also what we all accomplished together. And absolutely yes, I would love to work on a similar project, and also to work with Ali and everyone else on this lm again.”From a technical sense, the work that EGG VFX did wasn’t anything that they hadn’t done already on their other projects, but Drew is most proud of this team in how quickly they were able to turn the shots around. “It was a privilege to be able to work with such a talented, dynamic and experienced director in Ali Abassi. In addition the VFX Supervisor, Matt Whelan is an EMMY Award winner, and we don't get to work with them everyday. We were also very lucky to be able to welcome Aled Rhys-Jones back to EGG VFX as our in-house supervisor- Aled has decades of award winning experience- and we were delighted he was available to work on the project for us. But it should be said it wouldn't have been possible to complete the lm without the amazing eorts of the Irish producers, Tailored Films, and especially the herculean eorts of Julianne Forde. We only had to worry about the VFX in our shots- while Julianne and Ruth were managing everything, across picture, sound, music and VFX- and got it all over the line. It should also not go unmentioned that our partners in Irish Post and VFX- Screen Scene, Windmill Lane, Piranha Bar and Alan Foley and his team of Flame artists- were, as always, great to work with and alongside. We would love to do it all again- "Apprentice 2 - Just when you thought it was safe to go into the polling booth...".Drew Bannerjee

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ISE Feb 2025 Issue Number 05

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