Now that the road to the Creative Arts Emmy Awards is in the industry's proverbial rearview mirror, a number of insights into what turned out to be winning work can be mined from SHOOT's The Road To Emmy series of features which will culminate next week with Part 12's coverage of the primetime Emmy Awards ceremony.
Looking back, though, on the first 10 installments of The Road To Emmy provides context and backstory relative to the nature of the honored work and the collaborative relationships that went into it. Consider, for example, Sloane Klevin, who earned her first career primetime Emmy nomination and this past Sunday her first Emmy win for Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming on the basis of director/writer Alex Gibney's documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God (HBO), which exposes the abuse of power in the Catholic Church and a cover-up of clerical molestation of children that winds its way from the row houses of Milwaukee through the choirs of Ireland's churches all the way to the highest office of the Vatican. By investigating the secret crimes of a charismatic priest who abused over 200 deaf children in a school under his control, the film shows the face of evil that lurks behind the smiles and denials of authority figures and institutions who believe that because they stand for good they can do no wrong.
"To be nominated for editing such a powerful film is kind of huge for me," said Klevin back when she found out she was an Emmy nominee (The Road To Emmy, Part 4). "I have never been nominated as an editor for anything before. I do a lot of stuff where the content is so important and the story is really powerful. Sometimes reviewers have mentioned my name and how well the film is structured or how well the story is told. They recognize that a documentary is written in the edit room and the editor is kind of a co-writer on the film. When I go into a documentary, I'm not thinking about doing flashy editing. The focus is on how to take 300 hours of material and distill it down to tell a story, to make it cohesive, to make it flow and to make it understandable. You take something unscripted, with no outline, and construct a story out of it. I'm thrilled with this Emmy nomination because it's recognizing all that an editor puts into a documentary."
Mea Maxima Culpa presented its own unique set of challenges. Although Klevin is a frequent collaborator with Gibney, one challenge remains constant throughout all the projects they have teamed on. "He's always an investigative journalist," said Klevin of Gibney. "That's what drives him. He uncovers so much information through research and drawing on other journalists. He gets his hands on legal documents and so much information and we need to include as much that's relevant as possible. This starts out as a personal film about a small group of guys in Wisconsin, which leads to an overview of the entire priest pedophile crisis. Alex always has so much information that he would like to include in his work. The trick is how do you structure the film to include as much as you can without overwhelming and exhausting the audience. The information has to come in the right place and at the right time so the audience can digest it. We work on that until the day we lock picture—what's too much information? What's too little? It's a balancing act."
Add to this the fact that five of the film's most important interview subjects are deaf and do not speak. They communicate via sign language. "Figuring out how to shoot them was a challenge. Alex and the sign language interpreter were in another room that was away from the camera and soundproofed. Alex thus could hear the answers without the voice of the interpreter being on the soundtrack. We wanted to hear the sounds made by the deaf people while they were signing. We didn't want subtitles. We wanted our audience to watch their hands and performance. They act out with their faces. Cutting the sign language was really tricky. If I'm editing French, I know French and can make cuts that still make sense and retain what is being communicated. Sign language is a whole other thing. I constantly had people checking that our translations were correct."
Klevin noted that Gibney "reached out to famous actors whose voices we liked and asked them if they would lend their voices to these deaf victims. Pretty much everyone we asked immediately said yes." Those actors included John Slattery, Jamey Sheridan, Ethan Hawke and Chris Cooper.
An editor/partner at Union Editorial, Klevin has a body of work which spans features, documentaries and commercials. Her recent activity in the latter discipline includes Diet Coke's "Stay Extraordinary" (co-edited with Tim Thornton-Allan of Marshall Street) featuring Taylor Swift and directed by Fredrik Bond of MJZ for agency Droga5; a three-spot Trojan Lubricants campaign directed by Petty Sirota of Prettybird for The Joey Company; Reebok's "One Epic Day" directed by Jonathan Hyde of Boxer Films for mcgarrybowen; and a package of six commercials for Kohler directed by Raymond Bark of GARTNER for Arnold New York.
Amazingly, Klevin didn't edit a documentary until Gibney called upon her to cut the acclaimed Taxi to the Dark Side. (She later cut Gibney's portion of the documentary Freakonomics.) Gibney entrusted Klevin with Taxi to The Dark Side based on the work she did for his company cutting trailers, promos and the opening titles—as well as additional editing on the Mike Figgis-directed portion—for the PBS series The Blues (exec produced by Martin Scorsese).
"Alex met me as a commercials and trailers editor," said Klevin. "He knew I cut features and that I hadn't done a documentary." Still, based on what he saw of her as an editor and the creative rapport they developed, he asked her to cut a documentary but her scheduling and commitments got in the way. Such was the case, she recalled with Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Finally the fifth time over the years he asked her to cut a documentary, Klevin said yes, thinking "I can't say no. He'll never ask me again." But it was more than that which prompted her to take on Taxi to the Dark Side. "I got chills when Alex told me the story. I remember thinking that if we don't screw this up, this will win the Oscar [which it did for Best Feature Documentary]."
For Klevin, the learning experience of working with Gibney (who is represented by Chelsea as a director for commercials and branded content) was profound. "He's making multiple films so he's not around much in the edit room. After long conversations about what he's trying to achieve, parts he would like to include, he disappears for a long stretch to work on his next project. You have a lot of creative freedom. You're thrown into a room with 200 to 300 hours of footage and six months later you have the first assembly of a movie. He comes in and out and when you need his help, you have his notes and he's responsive through the whole process. He has a great sense of humor and is incredibly smart. But the bottom line is that his editors get to spread their wings. It's scary and exciting. Luckily I had done a lot of narrative films and had strong narrative instincts. Because he threw me into that film and sort of left town, I learned how to edit a documentary."
Mea Maxima Culpa won three Emmys at the Creative Arts ceremony—the other two being Gibney for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming, and an Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking juried awards.
House of Cards
House of Cards, which helped to establish Netflix as a force in original programming, won two Creative Arts Emmys—Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series and Outstanding Cinematography for a Single Camera Series. The latter winner was DP Eigil Bryld for "Chapter 1" of the series which was directed by David Fincher. Beau Willimon, showrunner/executive producer/ writer-creator of House of Cards, provided some perspective on Bryld (The Road To Emmy, Part 1).
Willimon related that Bryld "mostly worked with the directors using a visual language he created with Fincher that was consistent throughout the series. Our interaction was about discussing the feeling of given scenes, and sometimes practical problem-solving if we were short on time or had to switch a location unexpectedly. Or talking about ways to shoot a recurring location or set differently to keep it fresh."
In terms of Bryld's impact on him as a writer, Willimon said, "At a certain point you start to see the way Eigil would light it and shoot it as you write. You get a sense of his frame, his mood. It informs the writing because you start to think cinematically…Eigil has a deep, expert sense of craft but more importantly, he brings a creative vision to it that elevates the drama. He is nimble and adaptable when necessary. He never thought of this as a 'TV show.' He thought about it in terms of cinema."
That cinematic approach dovetailed perfectly with that of Fincher. Bryld told SHOOT, "David Fincher and Beau Willimon are great collaborators. David has very strong ideas. I like working with directors who are straight forward and not convoluted. He's very hands on. He was used to shooting less than a page a day. All of a sudden we had to shoot four, five pages a day. We did that while staying true to crafting it all like a movie. I had 10 weeks of prep with Fincher in Baltimore which helped us to craft the lighting in an ambient manner while adding what was required for specific scenes. The prep helped us to be efficient with our setups, how to best use two cameras—we always used two cameras—and capture well-choreographed and composed images.
"With Beau, it was all about getting the drama across," continued Bryld. "We never did anything fancy with the camera other than telling the story. We didn't use long lenses. We wanted to have a sense of space. Inherently the whole show is about people in offices, in homes and they're talking. We wanted to help create a sense of drama using the space, showing people in relation to each other and their space. Shadows were a major player. Everything in House of Cards has an undercurrent to it, something hiding in the shadows, always another motive. Space can heighten that feeling, add volume and enhance the dramatic feeling. Beau was very good with the entire cast, very good at collaborating with the way we blocked the scenes, using iconic framings in each scene that sort of expressed power and drama."
House of Cards deployed two customized RED Epics. "Fincher has worked with RED for quite some time and has a strong relationship with RED," said Bryld. "We didn't want to work through a certain technology. We wanted the technology to work for us. We kept things simple and close-knit. We never had more than 25 crew members on the floor. We landed in a sweet spot where we could operate and pull off most things, being able to adjust to every curveball."
Bryld was accustomed to high-profile TV prior to House of Cards. He earned an Emmy nomination for Best Cinematography in a Miniseries or Movie in 2010 for HBO's You Don't Know Jack directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino as Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
ryld's work also extends into commercials and features. On the spotmaking score, he has lensed for such directors as Levinson, Ivan Zacharias, Bill Bruce and Henry-Alex Rubin.
On the theatrical film front, Bryld's credits include: Not Fade Away, the feature directorial debut of David Chase, creator of The Sopranos; In Bruges directed by Martin McDonagh; and The King directed by James Marsh (for whom Bryld earlier shot Wisconsin Death Trip, in the process earning a BAFTA Television Award for Best Photography).
Behind the Candelabra
HBO's Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra led the way at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards competition with eight statuettes—Casting, Picture Editing, Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Non-Prosthetic Makeup, Prosthetic Makeup, Costumes, Cinematography, and Art Direction. The strong showing could prove to be historic as the most Emmy wins by any program in a single year was the 13 earned by the HBO miniseries John Adams in 2008. Behind the Candelabra has seven more nominations in the running at this coming Sunday's primetime Emmy Awards ceremony.
The Art Direction Emmy for Behind the Candelabra went to a team consisting of production designer Howard Cummings, art director Patrick M. Sullivan Jr. and set decorator Barbara Munch. SHOOT earlier connected with Cummings (The Road To Emmy, Part 7) who observed, "Working for Steven Soderbergh, none of the projects are the same."
Cummings went from the feature film Side Effects to Behind the Candelabra, both directed by Soderbergh and underscoring the dramatic differences between the filmmaker's projects. "As a production designer, I had to make every effort to be minimalistic visually," said Cummings of Side Effects, which starred Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum. "The background was abstract with the focus being on people in the foreground. Furniture was positioned in front of windows, out of focus.
"By contrast," continued Cummings, "for the Liberace movie [with Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist/entertainer], we were doing beauty shots of the interior—supporting the feeling of this kid [Liberace's young lover portrayed by Matt Damon] being sucked into this lavish world."
Cummings first teamed with Soderbergh on the feature film The Underneath, which was released in 1995. It wasn't until recent years that they again got together with Soderbergh reaching out to the production designer for Behind the Candelabra. "The problem was we couldn't do the Liberace film right away as we didn't know about the financing—then HBO came into the picture and made the project doable."
But the wait until the HBO breakthrough was lengthy—so much so that in the interim Cummings served as production designer on four Soderbergh features: Contagion, Haywire, Magic Mike, and Side Effects. And that collaborative relationship continues well after Behind The Candelabra garnered 15 Emmy nominations, including for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie, Outstanding Directing (Soderbergh), Cinematography (Soderbergh, aka Peter Andrews), Editing (Soderbergh under the moniker Mary Ann Bernard), Writing (Richard LaGravenese), and two Lead Actor noms (for Douglas and Damon).
Cummings is currently serving as production designer on the Soderbergh-directed The Knick, a miniseries for Cinemax. "I've gone from the late 1970s' excessiveness of Liberace to a period piece about a surgeon in 1900 in a hospital on the Lower East Side. Steven's projects are so different from one another. But there is often a connection when you look at the main characters. Steven seems to have an interest in damaged people who are incredibly talented."
As for the biggest challenge Behind the Candelabra posed to him as a production designer, Cummings related, "Liberace had a motto, 'Too much of a good thing is wonderful.' In character, Michael Douglas says this and my job was to try to sustain that level, to keep that spirit going through everything, reaching the level of the density of luxury Liberace maintained in his life. Barbara [Munch] as the set decorator did a fantastic job, creating the sense that every piece is layered—layer upon layer of luxury."
Cummings said that the opportunity to work on Behind the Candelabra was "a divine gift for a production designer. And then to get recognition with an Emmy nomination is just icing on the cake."
"The way Steven [Soderbergh] works is continuous," shared Cummings. "He's working on one movie but also prepping the next and doing additional shooting on the last one you did. There have been times when we've worked on three projects at once, in three different countries at one point. It's a great ride."
Having a firm handle on the project and one's role in it is essential to working with Soderbergh, assessed Cummings. "It's up to me to bring my best game to the table, to come to a project with a point of view that will help Steven achieve what he's trying to get."
Game of Thrones
Earning two Emmy Awards at the Creative Arts ceremony was HBO's Game of Thrones—for Makeup for a Single Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic), and for Special Visual Effects.
The latter was for the "Valar Dohaeris" episode which entailed effects work by Pixomondo, Spin VFX and Gradient FX. Sven Martin, a VFX supervisor at Pixomondo's Frankfurt, Germany studio, and credited as lead animation supervisor on "Valar Dohaeris," said that this latest season of Game of Thrones has seen the characters progress and develop from the prior season for which he and his Pixomondo compatriots also won the Emmy. In comparing the past two years on the HBO series, Martin related (in The Road To Emmy, Part 3), "We spent much more time on the design this time around. We worked in very close collaboration with Joe Bauer, the production supervisor from HBO, to help define what the dragons would look like, how their new expressive features should appear and what those features should be. We played around with ideas, different images and features, paintings, sculptings. At one point we were playing around with an inner glowing light feature but ultimately we didn't like that. It was all a process through which we got closer to and then arrived at the final design for the dragons."
This work of course centered on the large and aggressive hero dragon, Drogon—he of the black scales with blood red horns and wings.
"He was where our focus was and from his look we adapted, making slight changes in texture and shape—and through animation were able to refurbish the hero dragon and from that create the different looks of the other dragons," shared Martin. Pixomondo's studios in Stuttgart and London were also involved in Game of Thrones, more though on the matte painting front.
Tally
The Creative Arts Emmy tally was led by Behind the Candelabra with eight, followed by Boardwalk Empire (HBO) and the 66th Annual Tony Awards with four Emmys apiece. Three programs—Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God (HBO), Saturday Night Live (NBC), and Disney Mickey Mouse Croissant de Triomphe (Disney.com)—each garnered three Emmys.
Eleven programs won two Emmys apiece: The 55th Annual Grammy Awards (CBS), American Masters (PBS), Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (CNN), The Big Bang Theory (CBS), Da Vinci's Demons (HBO), Deadliest Catch (Discovery), Game of Thrones (HBO), House Of Cards (Netflix), How I Met Your Mother (CBS), The Kennedy Center Honors (CBS) and The Men Who Built America (History).
HBO won the most Emmys at the Creative Arts ceremony, registering a total of 20, followed by CBS with 15 and NBC with eight. Tied with three apiece were Cartoon Network, Disney.com, Nickelodeon, PBS and Showtime. And taking two each were CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, FOX, FX Networks, History, Netflix and Starz.
Grey breaks through
Canon's "Inspired" won the best primetime commercial Emmy during the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony. Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ for Grey New York, "Inspired" broke a run of four straight years that Wieden+Kennedy won the spot Emmy.
"Inspired" depicts the lengths people will go in order to take a special photograph. A man leans precariously over the side of a home's snowy rooftop, with camera in hand to capture a scene we cannot see. A woman frantically flees from a fast charging giraffe yet still manages to get off some shots of the animal with a camera held at different awkward angles. A guy shoots seafood on ice at an outdoor Chinese market only to be shooed away by the proprietor. A man climbs a huge reef with camera at the ready. A mom looks to snap the perfect shot of her daughter blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Another man finds himself running helter skelter away from swarming bats who were presumably riled up when his flash lit up their dwelling. A guy has his head nearly submerged in a lake but holds his camera up high enough to get a shot of something or someone out of our view. A man has a badly scraped knee, a wound evidently suffered while trying to get his camera someplace it shouldn't have been. And a young gent with skates on his feet and a skateboard under his back swoops down a steep street to follow a tire on fire rolling down the thoroughfare.
A super then appears on screen which simply reads: "Long live imagination."
All these earnest photographers are introduced to us with the musical accompaniment of a specially arranged rendition of the song "Beautiful Dreamer" as vocalized by Rachel Fannan of Only You. Her performance also is the aural backdrop to a series of still photos we next see that were shot in action by these photographers who dared to pursue their dream shots. It turns out, for example, that the man on the snowy rooftop was shooting a friend luxuriating in a backyard pool surrounded by snow and ice.
A voiceover concludes, "What will you imagine with the new Rebel EOS T4i from Canon?"
The Grey NY creative team on "Inspired" included chief creative officer Tor Myhren, executive creative directors Ari Halper and Steve Krauss, creative directors Stu Mair and Dave Cuccinello, broadcast producer Topher Lorette, photography producer Jen Pugliese, music producer Zach Pollakoff and director of music Josh Rabinowitz.
Linus Sandgren was the DP.
Editor was Neil Smith of Work Editorial.
Music house was Black Iris Music with Rob Barbato serving as arranger.
Sound designer was Bill Chesley of henryboy.
Audio post mixer was Keith Reynaud of Heard City.
"Inspired" topped a field of 2013 Emmy nominations that also consisted of Grey Poupon's "The Chase" directed by Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man for Crispin Porter+Bogusky; Google Chrome's "Jess Time" helmed by Nanette Burstein for Google's Creative Lab; and Nike's "Jogger" directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures for Wieden+Kennedy.
This is the 11th installment in a 12-part series that will explore the field of Emmy nominees and winners spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, editing, production design, animation, VFX and design. The series will run right through the primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on Sept. 22 when Emmys in 26 other categories will be presented. The Emmy ceremony at the NOKIA Theatre L.A. Live will be on CBS at 8 EDT/5 PDT.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 1.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 2.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 3.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 4.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 5.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 6.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 7.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 8.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 9.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 10.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 12.
