An interview with Amanda James, editor of Oscar winning film ‘The Long Goodbye’
The wonderfully talented Amanda James can now add ‘Oscar winning Editor’ to her impressive CV! Her film, ‘The Long Goodbye’ won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film category at last night’s 94th Academy Awards.
Created by Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia, ‘The Long Goodbye’ is a film that begins as a beautifully realistic portrait of an immigrant family in Britain, with characters preparing their home for a wedding celebration amidst laughter and warmth until a right-wing march spirals out of control and chaos erupts.
I was able to interview Amanda about the win and she shared some brilliant insight into her editing process. Enjoy!
First of all, CONGRATULATIONS!! Thanks so much for being up for answering a few questions about your amazing win and the incredible film ‘The Long Goodbye’. How does it feel to be an Oscar winning editor?
SURREAL! But I'm giddy, so happy.
How did you first get involved in the project and what was your first reaction to the script?
We were just wrapping up on Surge when Aneil & Riz first hatched a plan to make this film & they pretty much dived straight into production. I think doing it almost spontaneously like that really helped to capture their energy and the urgency with which they seemed to need to tell this story. It was unconventional in so much as we didn’t have a script, I think I just had an outline of the story and that was it. Aneil likes to let the actors live the roles so I guess a script, in this case might have stifled things a bit. The loose approach meant the rushes spoke for themselves.
The film has a dramatic tonal shift in its middle. How did you navigate this in the edit?
This was the part of the edit I laboured over the most. I had to nail that & felt a huge responsibility to get it right. This part of the film, that shift, had to feel like a bit of a punch in the guts. It's as much about the tone of the first half, being more like a slice of daily life, you're lulled into a comfortable place until the black vans arrive & then literally all hell breaks loose. To let that shift fall flat would have let the whole film down so I worked very hard, and very consciously to get it right.
The film is shot entirely hand held, what were your rushes like? Were scenes shot quite tightly or more freely to explore in the edit?
Aneil allows his actors to kind of live the roles & Stuart Bentley the wonderful DOP gets right in amongst them, so yes they tend to be quite long, free flowing takes. It makes my job a bit harder for sure, but so much more rewarding once you find the cut.
What was it like working with Director Aneil Karia and actor/ creator Riz Ahmed?
It's like a gift from the editing Gods honestly, I'm not sure what I did in a past life to deserve it, haha! But seriously, I've worked with Aneil for a long time now so have a great kind of short hand with him. And in turn he & Riz seem to have found a similar relationship. Obviously Riz gives you gold in every take. This whole experience for him I know has also been incredibly rewarding & honestly you could see in every frame of his performance how much this meant to him. So I was properly spoilt for choice in the edit.
Tell us a little about working with Riz’s music throughout the film.
This film was made in conjunction with the release of his EP of the same name. I mean the man is a genius, his words are so powerful, as you can tell from the final act of the film. We had to use a few tracks from the EP but it is by no means a music video. I was very careful not to start cutting musically, I left my 'music video head' tightly shut in its box! A couple of the tracks are used diegetically in the first half and then once the action starts, we used another track more up front, as score. It serves to pull the viewer out of the cozy world they were in and drags them literally kicking & screaming into the second act (don't want to give too much away if people haven't watched it yet).
Any other moments you’d like to share about the editing process of ‘The Long Goodbye’?
It was a wonderful experience, I don't think any of us could have dreamt it would bring us to this point, but I guess the sense of responsibility we felt to tell this story in the first place has translated into something very meaningful to a lot of people.
You can read Amanda’s career story here.
You can read Amber’s career story here.