by Nancy Jundi as originally published by CinemaEditor Magazine
The days of “Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest” may be long gone, but there’s a new guilty pleasure in town and it rivals some of television history’s most far out story lines. Lucy Spiller, played by Courtney Cox (who also produces the show with husband David Arquette), is the editor of Dirt Now, a tabloid with credibility enough to rival other publications like People magazine. What I’ve come to refer to as the darker version of “Entourage” is wildly engrossing with everything from your run of the mill Hollywood sex tape scandal to outlandish exposés on decapitated rap stars. Tirsa Hackshaw, one of the editors cutting on “Dirt” was happy to dish about this innovative new show.
Having been picked up for next season, I was excited to discuss its possibilities and the amazing marketing campaign that helped it reach such a wide viewership. In the age of DVR and downloading episodes from the internet, commercials are beginning to prove less than effective. “Dirt” used an amazing amount of product placement which never interfered with the creativity or seemed out of place. From Lucy’s Pontiac Solstice to her larger than life Dell LCD, all of her spoils are believable and enviable while aiding the show’s budget. Shows like TBS’s “My Boys” are also wising up to the idea of fewer commercials – they are sponsored by Match.com, a brilliant move considering the show appeals to both men and women with its never ending sports references aligned with a coed “Sex and the City” banter. “Dirt” is availing itself of that same genius target marketing. The never ending fascination that comes with celebrity life is fed by this shows underbelly feel and expensive bobbles.
Additionally, “Dirt” has some of the most undeniable forward thinking editing practices. With a principal character afflicted with schizophrenia there were a lot of opportunities to really show the editors contribution to the masses. What’s predominantly the invisible art on any project, “Dirt” brought an amazing in-your-face quality to the audience.
There is a great deal of marketing in this show. How did that help budget matters/network leniency, if at all?
Tirsa Hackshaw: I came on later in the series, but having the pilot presented without commercial interruption by Pontiac was a huge luxury and the show’s producers were all really grateful.
“Dirt” is a risky show, even for FX, on a number of levels. A lot of sex, violence and strong language – what kind of notes would you get from the network? Was there any backlash from the entertainment community?
TH: I’m not aware of any “entertainment community” backlash, but I was occasionally surprised by the network standards notes. The “Sexxx Issue” episode in particular had to go through several re-cuts because of the splooshing cake gag. It was a constant battle of how much we could see of the actress lowering herself onto Don’s birthday cake and whether or not she could climax on it. The rule of thumb over at FX was if there was precedence—in other words, if another show had already shown splooshing or whatever was in question—then we were ok, but apparently we were breaking new television ground there, proudly going where no birthday cake had gone before.
There are a lot of graphics used on the show; did they ever affect your cuts or timing?
TH: Not really. I mean obviously you cut with them in mind but it’s not a gimmick heavy show or anything so the timing is based on the natural rhythms of the story.
Don Conkey’s character is a schizophrenic that relies heavily on creative editing and camera work. What is it like crafting a storyline like that?
TH: The Don storyline was awesome and one of my favorite parts of working on the show. It’s rare that you get such freedom to really try to push the editorial envelope in standard network dramas anymore. I mean a lot of shows develop their “signature” visual feel; the “CSI” bullet breaking bone shot, the “24” real time split screens, but, editorially speaking, most network shows aren’t taking a lot of chances. You don’t see a lot of jump cuts or speed ramps or, for lack of a better term, “art house techniques” used in a regular scene. You see them in montage pieces or action spots but not in the dramatic meat of the show. I don’t know why, but I think a lot of producers are frightened by them—think they’re too “edgy” and audiences will be confused or bored even. I actually had a post super on another show tell me “you can’t have a jump cut without changing axis. Otherwise people will think the film broke” And I thought, ‘Wow, I guess somebody better tell Dede Allen.’ Thankfully, though, the team at “Dirt” really embraced and encouraged creativity. Getting into Don’s head provided countless ways of bringing some of those ideas to the small screen.
What I really loved, though, was that Ian Hart (Don) was such a strong actor that it wasn’t like we were relying on tricks to convey to the audience Don’s illness. I believed Don in his raw dailies and I cut him based on his performances, but after that it’s all about how I could enhance his talent even more. How can we make the world he “sees” convincing? How do we make the audience see it as well? Don is such a powerfully emotional character that it wasn’t only his schizophrenic “vision” scenes that allowed us to be creative. For example; in episode 11 “Pap Smeared”, Don chooses to get a picture rather than help a friend who ends up being severely beaten. We also learn that Don had a younger brother who he was powerless to protect. In one scene Don “sees” his abusive stepmother and explodes into anger. When I reviewed Ian’s 2 phenomenal takes, there was no way I was going to pick one over the other so I jump cut between the two which not only showcased the most intense moments, but felt incredibly organic and correct. In such a passionate moment I don’t think time works in a linear fashion, things overlap, break, and repeat. To cut that scene in a traditional manner I feel would have been a disservice to the performance. The mental illness aspect of the scene is further underscored, not by any post effect laid over the actress playing his stepmother, but rather in the reverse wide shot where we, the audience, see that Don is screaming at a completely empty room and we just hear the stepmother’s laughter echoing. Later, when Don kneels over the body of his beaten friend, it all comes full circle. He was also unable to protect his younger brother and so instead of your standard cutaways of Don’s reactions, I jump cut and jumbled up all of his reactions. It’s an echo of all the emotion we saw before, but all the anger is gone. Now it’s just sadness, pain and remorse. The frenetic pace of the cuts really puts the audience in his shoes and conveys his confusion, hurt and fear in a palpable way.
After we had the first cut of the show we took the whole “coming full circle” motif to the next level by adding the opening prologue where we basically started the show in the last shot of episode and then literally did a high speed rewind through the whole episode to get us back to the beginning so we could see how Don ended up there.
What was really great about the show was that it wasn’t only Don’s illness that “allowed” us to get creative. The season finale has multiple examples of how we tried to do new and different things with the editing. Just like Don’s breakdown, I felt the breakup between
Holt and Julia was too emotional and passionate a scene to cut in a linear traditional way so not only did I jumble and jump it up- playing lines on slop hands packing suitcases, feet, stolen glances—on anything but their faces. In such a moment everything is broken and I wanted the audience to feel Julia’s desperation, but also I had been experimenting a lot with sound during this episode, in particular the sound of a heartbeat and all it could represent. So halfway through Julia’s pleas, when she launches a last ditch effort to keep Holt by kissing him, I dialed out all of the sound except for a heartbeat, which slows down and eventually stops. I laid this over the desperate jumps of Julia trying to force Holt to love her back and it all just really made sense. What better way to show the moment when a person stops loving another person then for a heart to stop beating for another? There are no words at such a time, just Holt’s look and that awful silence. Not just the tone of a quiet room, but an actual vacuum of sound. Later, after the cliffhanger stabbing scene (which was also tremendous fun to cut) where Lucy stumbles out of the house badly injured, we could have done a traditional fade to black but instead I brought back the heartbeat motif and this time bounced a visual fade in time with the beats. As the heartbeats slowed down, the fades got longer and darker, until she passes out and we fade to black. It’s a really visceral way to convey someone’s “final seconds“, but then, in the black, we hear Don yelling her name and a flashbulb wakes her up, which is the complete nature of her life, so it fits perfectly.
It was such a great opportunity to bring these types of techniques to the forefront and explore more creative cutting patterns. I really loved that about the show.
The season finale was quite a loose end. Without a guaranteed pick up, was the ending discussed for a possible cancellation or given an alternate ending in case of a DVD release post mortem?
TH: No, Matthew (Carnahan, writer/director/producer of “Dirt”) stayed true to his script and vision throughout the entire process. If the show had been cancelled there wouldn’t have been any alternate DVD endings that wrapped it all up. Nothing further was shot. The cliffhanger knife fight was exactly that. I still don’t know if Lucy and/or Julia survived.
Was there a decent sized music budget to work with?
TH: I don’t know what the budget was, but we had a terrific music supervisor, Kevin Edelman, who got us a ton of unsigned or young bands that were available to us in a giant bin that we could pick from for needle drops. I’m a big fan of “scorce” as opposed to traditional score as well so I was in heaven. Then our music editor Steve Griffen and composer Rick Ziegler would spot around the songs and weave in and out of them beautifully to form episodic themes.
After successes with “Rescue Me”, “The Shield” and “Nip/Tuck”, what was the feeling with this show? Was it a little more relaxed or just as nerve wracking as any first season?
TH: Typical first season insanity… just like one really long, unending pilot. It’s tough because not only are you still laying pipe but you’re trying to “find your style”, etc. Originally they only had 2 editors and had gotten backed up by show 9 so I was brought in to lighten up the load, but my style really clicked with them and I ended up doing the last few. As I said, the creative team was really awesome and the whole post department ruled. When I was brought in the other editor Chris Cibelli was awesome and totally took me under his wing, which made me comfortable. We had two great assistants, Jimmy Gadd and Brian Cavanaugh, not to mention a really supportive post super Joe DeOliviera. It was great, too, because we were cutting next to the stages so the directors & producers could pop in at lunch and check out early roughs. Even though everything was at a breakneck pace there was great camaraderie in the cutting rooms, an overall ‘everybody helps out’ feel, so if I was suddenly swamped between dailies and notes on a prior show and Chris was free he would jump in to help and vice versa. We watched each other’s cuts and gave suggestions. It was very supportive and collaborative.
With the advantage of longer run times, was that extra time always a scripted matter or did it come in handy when making decisions in the edit room?
TH: Actually it was a really nice change. On my first day I was told we didn’t have any hard target time so I really never felt constricted or had to rush the rhythms of a scene. Of course we trimmed down for time here and there, but it was really more about tightening up pacing for dramatic reasons rather than hitting an arbitrary run time number.
What was your average turn around per episode?
TH: It went from 7 to 9 days depending on the show.
How hands on were your directors and producers?
TH: Very, but not in a micro-managing, evil way. They are all incredibly talented people so they obviously have a strong vision going in, but they really encouraged you to be creative in your cut. They would drop by during lunch sometimes while they were shooting which was great because you could give them a quick peek at early scenes and get instant feedback as to whether you were heading in the right direction or not. The network execs were also very supportive and had excellent notes sessions.
With a confirmed pick up, we’ll be hearing more “Dirt” from Tirsa later this year on FX. Hands down this is my new “pajamas and ice cream” guilty pleasure each week.
