We’re so looking forward to having editor Tim Johnson join us for The UAPB Film Festival & THE BADDEST SPEECHWRITER OF ALL. In anticipation of his visit, we asked him a few questions about his work on the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film and collaborating with co-directors Ben Proudfoot and Stephen Curry.
What was the process for working with the directors on this film? Was the edit driven by a clear narrative arc from the onset or did it develop through working with the interview footage of Clarence B. Jones?
We started with our material from Clarence, which was an eight hour long interview completed over the course of a couple days. In addition to the main interview, our archival team dug up a deep library of footage from the Civil Rights Movement, and started scouring to see where we could find Clarence, ultimately yielding a few shots that even Clarence himself hadn’t seen.
The narrative arc took a while for us to crack—we knew that the heart of the story needed to be about Clarence’s relationship with Dr. King and how that changed the course of his life, but we also wanted to show Clarence’s impact on the history we’ve all come to know. Staying laser focused on these parts of the story was our biggest challenge as Clarence is such a gifted storyteller and his own life is such a grand tale. It took some experimenting and cutting several scenes that we liked to get the film where we wanted it to be.
You’ve worked with Ben Proudfoot before on FINAL COPY OF ILON SPECHT. What was similar and what was different working with him on this film?
Ben is such a thorough and dedicated filmmaker, and he puts his entire effort into every facet of each project. He’s relentless in crafting films in a bespoke way that suits each storyteller and their story.
The big difference with this one is the scope. This film, being set in such a pivotal moment in American history, required a lot of research because we felt a responsibility to get it right.
What was your collaboration with Steph Curry like? What drove the decision to include his voice in asking questions?
As you can imagine I haven’t worked with a director like Steph before. This film would not exist without him because Clarence’s mentorship of Steph was the genesis of the whole project.
I was interfacing with Ben in the office, and he would review cuts with Steph between games and while he was on the road. Steph offered notes to help us fill story holes, and also had some fun ideas regarding the animations to help bring some of these moments to life with active camera movements.
As soon as we tried a cut using Steph’s voice asking questions, we knew we had to keep it. There’s a certain intimacy that it offers from the beginning: if Steph Curry is sitting down to listen to this guy, maybe I should too.
It’s a snapshot of the whole project and how Steph is using his platform to lift up someone who inspires him.
We love animation director Daniel Bruson’s animations in the film. What was it like to work with them and how did they fit into the editorial process?
Daniel Bruson and his team of animators painted 3000 watercolor frames for this film, and our other editor Nick Wright oversaw that process.
I thought the animations gave the film an impressionistic quality that fit perfectly with the reflective nature of Clarence’s memory, and I was blown away when I saw it all together.