Editing The Dropout: An interview with editor Susana Benaim
The Dropout is a series based on the real life of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, the doomed biotech company that was once heralded as having the potential to revolutionise the medical world. The show follows Elizabeth’s story from before she started Theranos to the inevitable downfall of the company that put millions of people at risk all the while creating an intimate portrait of who she was as a person and what may have lead her to make the decisions she made.
We had the pleasure of asking editor Susana Benaim, some questions about editing episodes 5, ‘Flower of Life’ and 6, ‘Iron Sisters’. Enjoy the interview! *Spoilers* - this interview discusses scenes in the series The Dropout in detail.
Susy! Firstly, congratulations on doing such a fantastic job editing on the hugely successful series ‘The Dropout’. Thanks so much for being up for answering questions about your editing process. Let’s get straight into it!
You edited episodes 5 and 6 of the series, what is it like to pick up a developed set of characters and storylines from other editors?
I was able to watch some of the earlier episodes’ scenes when I started on The Dropout, but since they were block shooting, all of the storylines hadn’t been fully cut together in the episodes leading to mine, so I was initially informed more by my episodes’ scripts (beautifully written by Liz Hannah and Wei-Ning Yu) than by what had been done before me in editorial. Liz Meriwether, the show runner for The Dropout, and Katherine Pope, one of our Executive Producers, had a very detailed vision of the characters and the story, which was definitely reflected on paper and in the footage we received. I got to pick up the story where everything turns a little darker, and when we start introducing the whistleblowers, so I had more leeway in what I could do with my episodes. That being said, both Steve Welch, ACE, and David Berman (who edited the other episodes in the series) made themselves available to discuss storylines, and I am very grateful we were able to touch base throughout the season for whatever we all needed.
Tell us a bit about the first scene you cut.
The first scene I cut was for “Iron Sisters,” when Elizabeth Holmes is on stage at Stanford and she talks about imposter syndrome. It was really funny to start off with that scene since I was feeling a bit of imposter syndrome myself working on this show. The scene had a lot of moving parts: we had to balance seeing the scope of the venue and how packed the audience was, with the intimacy of that conversation. You can see how exceptional Amanda Seyfried, who played Elizabeth Holmes, is in this as she shows how Elizabeth is aware that she is an imposter, yet she manages to present this persona to the world, and we are able to track this internalization of how she is feeling throughout. Francesca Gregorini, who directed both of the episodes I edited, was able to get this nuanced performance with all its moving parts to make the whole thing work. That also included having to track Phyllis Gardner, played by Laurie Metcalf, who is watching from the audience. As the conversation on stage progresses, we present the duality Elizabeth deals with in performing the role of “young woman CEO” when she knows everything is falling apart, at the same time as we show Phyllis’ reactions to what is said on stage. I had so much fun putting it together and it ended up staying pretty close to my original version in the show!
Visual breakdown of the imposter syndrome scene at Stanford. ‘The first scene I cut was for “Iron Sisters,” when Elizabeth Holmes is on stage at Stanford and she talks about imposter syndrome.
Your episodes focus on many events that would mean ‘the beginning of the end’ of Theranos. How did you create an ongoing sense of impending doom leading to the inevitable downfall of the company?
The scripts set us up for success here, since the material was written with this darker undertone, and the episodes were directed and performed accordingly. This left me to make some really fun choices as to how much to push performances, and how much to adjust the pacing to match the darkness of the developing storylines. Another huge part of this process was honing in on the right kind of music. Anne Nikitin, our amazing composer, was eager to play with the music for these episodes as well, and came up with some fantastic pieces to really up the ante. We were trying to play with time in two ways: to slow down time for the whistleblowers, making it feel almost excruciating for them, and moving the Elizabeth Holmes’ storyline along at warpspeed. The intention, even in the way it was shot, was to feel like the train Theranos was on never stopped. Elizabeth moved, the camerawork moved, and the story moved to add this mounting stress to the shoulders of those carrying the lies.
Your episode ‘Flower of Life’ covers the suicide of biochemist Ian Gibbons. Can you tell us about the sensitivity in which you edited the portrayal of this tragic event.
Being that this is based on a real story, we had to deliver a performance that was as heartbreaking as what happened to Ian Gibbons. The episodes leading up to “Flower of Life” really set up Ian, played by Stephen Fry, as the loving biochemist that we’re all rooting for. My job was to show the natural lead up to the decision Ian makes. This meant that we had to build up Ian’s anxiety and depression, and how his choices were getting more and more grim. We even created scenes that weren’t scripted out of pieces from other episodes to do this. For example, there's a tiny scene where Ian is drinking on his couch and humming an opera - we stole those takes from another episode and added ADR for his humming to create this building sense of hopelessness. Our north star through developing his story was the fact that Ian truly loved being a biochemist, and that his passion and his work were taken away from him. So every added pressure, whether it was needing his health insurance, the lawsuit, or wanting to tell the truth for the safety of others, just continued to drill home this sense of hopelessness and lack of purpose. To show how Ian’s death has this ripple effect over those who were close to him, we cut a montage that kept building on that heartbreak. Even though Vissi d’arte from Puccini’s Tosca was written into the script, we landed Maria Callas’ version thanks to Maggie Phillips, our fantastic music supervisor. That version elevated the sequence and helped us illustrate the tragedy and loss that was felt after Ian was gone.
Visual breakdown of the montage after Ian Gibbon’s death - ‘To show how Ian’s death has this ripple effect over those who were close to him, we cut a montage that kept building on that heartbreak.’
Tell us about balancing the parallels of what Elizabeth was projecting to the outside world and what was really happening within Theranos.
From the beginning, Elizabeth Holmes is set up as someone who presents a persona to others. Whether it’s in a sorority house or in a board meeting, there’s this code switching that intensifies as the show goes on. By the time we get to “Iron Sisters,” she tries to record pieces of the Theranos ad against a white background, and it’s apparent that everything is not what it seems since she continuously stumbles through her lines to camera. Part of the question we were looking to answer with the show is how much did Elizabeth drink her own Kool-Aid (or green juice), and believe that what she was doing was for the greater good. The Dropout shows us every time Elizabeth has the opportunity to change course and doesn’t. Failure is not an option for her, not when her whole identity is intertwined with Theranos succeeding. So we show her continuing to code switch into this public personality exuding success even as things are falling apart behind closed doors.
Which character did you connect with most (if any!) and why?
Probably Phyllis Gardner, because what was always so fascinating to me is the impact this had on women both during Holmes’ rise and fall from grace. Phyllis eloquently lays out the problem multiple times - it’s not just about Elizabeth, it’s about the women that come after. If she failed, what was to happen to the woman who was next in line for another CEO position? How would they be scrutinized or questioned? Phyllis is conscious of her actions and how her decisions affect others. I’m in a place in my life where I am more in a position of power than ever before - I hire my assistants, co-chair committees, and mentor upcoming editors. I am very conscious of how my actions affect the women who later work with the same directors, producers, sound mixers, colorists, studios, etc. And I hope I’m making the path easier, not harder for the women that come after me.
Were there any aspects of the episodes that you cut that evolved into something different from the initial script?
During the Elizabeth Holmes’ trial, news came out that Elizabeth was accusing Sunny Balwani of sexual and emotional abuse - which allegedly affected Elizabeth’s ability to think clearly during the time of the crimes she was being charged for. We were already working with Liz and Katherine on my episodes, and they wanted to adjust the cuts to nod to the possibility of the accusations being true. The problem was, the episodes were not written or shot with that in mind. Sunny, played by Naveen Andrews, had an erratic and aggressive performance in the Theranos scenes already – that information was public when they wrote the show – but for the more intimate scenes between Sunny and Elizabeth, we had to go in with a fine toothed comb and leave the question open on whether abuse may have occurred. For example, in the post-coital scene in “Iron Sisters,” we used to have performances with more excitement for the house Sunny buys for them. We switched those moments for more awkward performances where our characters tip-toed in response to one another, and it created this feeling that there may be something happening off-camera that the audience watching the show can only guess at. I’d never had something like this come up in my career, so it was pretty memorable!
Technical question… how do you organise your bins?
I like my bins organized in order of setups in tile view. So, say scene 33, I’d have the top of the bin include takes 33-1, 33-2, 33-3, and then they’re followed by 33A-1, 33A-2, 33B-1, etc. I only have this order switched when it’s an action sequence. If so, I have my assistant editor put the takes in order of the lined script. This way, the takes are in order of the action that happens in the scene. If there are multiple cameras for the setup, I like to only see the group and add a “Grp” at the end of the name, like “33B-1 Grp” (and not 33B-1a and 33B-1b). If there are resets within the take, I also like to add the number of resets in the name, like “33B-1 Grp x3.” If the take didn’t roll I add a NR (no roll) at the end of name, and if the take starts later in the scene I add PU (pickup) at the end of the name. I also like to have the tiles show representative frames of the action in the scene.
The story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes’ downfall has been widely publicised, what is it like editing a series with such a topical subject matter.
It’s been a little surreal, honestly. I’m so lucky to have worked with fantastic creatives that wanted to truly represent the story. We were deep into editorial as the Elizabeth Holmes trial happened, so we were all keeping up with it in case new information came up. And once the show aired, we heard they were having trouble finding jurors for the Sunny Balwani trial because many people had watched the show. I honestly never thought something I had worked on would have an impact like that. I’m so proud to be part of the team that brought this story to life, and I hope that the dancing green juice scene outlives us all.
Anything else you’d like to share about working ‘The Dropout’?
The whole thing was a team effort, so I would be remiss not to mention my amazing assistant editor on The Dropout, Olivia Eliseo, who is now also an editor! Olivia was so amazing at keeping up with all the sound, split screens, comps, and anything else that was needed. We had a symbiotic work relationship given that we had worked together on several shows beforehand. As I finished an act when working with Francesca or the producers, I gave it to Olivia in a transfer bin with my notes in markers. Then, I could move on to the next portion of the episode while she worked on those. So by the time I’d circle back to the top, she had already gotten ADR in and mixed, cut in new music, and finessed any VFX that got messy as we were cutting. She definitely went above and beyond, and I am so proud that she is cutting now!