True Detective: Night Country

Editors – Mags Arnold, Brenna Rangott and Matt Chessé ACE

TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY editors Mags, Brenna and Matt had never worked together prior to uniting under showrunner Issa López for the fourth season of the HBO MAX anthology series, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to them. The camaraderie between the three and the fun they have is in stark contrast to the dark and dangerous tone of their hit show.

TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY is set in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska and follows the investigation behind the mysterious disappearance, and even more mysterious discovery, of eight men from a research station. Leading the investigation are two law enforcement officers who share a troubled past, Detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis).

MATT “CHALKY” CHESSÉ, ACE

Editor Matt Chessé, ACE often finds himself cutting with frequent collaborator, director Marc Forster. The pair have been working together since 2000 and have joined forces on such films as; MONSTER’S BALL (2001), FINDING NEVERLAND (2004), THE KITE RUNNER (2007), QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) and CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (2018). Matt also cut TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY star, Jodie Foster’s film MONEY MONSTER (2016).

MAGS ARNOLD

Mags Arnold entered the film industry in 1993 as a trainee sound editor, crossing over to picture editing as second assistant editor in 1994. She was promoted to first assistant editor in 1995, working on films such as HIGH FIDELITY (2000) and CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN (2001), both under celebrated editor Mick Audsley. Following her work as an assistant, Mags has cut shows such as WITCHER (2023) and BIG LITTLE LIES (2019).

BRENNA RANGOTT

Brenna is the lone editor on “Night Country” who has past experience with showrunner Issa López, working on the series BRITTANIA (2019) together. Despite her cheerful demeanor, Bren could often be found in the cutting rooms of horror genre projects like STARVE ACRE (2023), FATHER OF FLIES (2021) and HOST (2020).

Editing TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY

In our discussion with TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY editors Mags Arnold, Brenna Rangott and Matt Chessé, ACE, we talk about:

Fun with field trips
When the editor is the scene stealer
Keeping things light when the story’s so dark
Playing the paranormal against the practical
How “clumping” is better than cross cutting

The Credits

Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs

Check out the Frame.io blog for an enhanced transcription of The Rough Cut.

Learn all about what’s new with Avid Media Composer

Subscribe to The Rough Cut podcast and never miss an episode

Visit The Rough Cut on YouTube