Editor – Greg O’Bryant
Tuner editor Greg O’Bryant returns to the podcast to discuss cutting a film that is part crime thriller, part romance, part character study, part music movie and part very compelling argument for keeping your ears covered in New York City.
Directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher, Tuner stars Leo Woodall as Niki, a gifted piano tuner whose hypersensitive hearing makes every day sound almost unbearable. That same extraordinary hearing also gives Niki an unexpected talent for cracking safes, pulling him from a quiet life of tuning pianos into an increasingly dangerous criminal world. The film also stars Dustin Hoffman as Harry, Niki’s mentor, Havana Rose Liu as Ruthie, a young composer, along with Lior Raz, Jean Reno and Tovah Feldshuh.
One of the biggest challenges on Tuner was the sheer amount of footage. Roher shot a large volume of material over a short production schedule, giving Greg and his assistant a mountain of performances, musical material, safe-cracking details and improvisation to shape into the final film. Greg discusses how he approached that process by focusing on subjectivity — using the edit to put the audience inside Niki’s experience rather than simply moving through the plot.
Sound was another major topic of conversation. Because Niki experiences the world through hyper-sensitive hearing, the editorial and sound teams had to build a language for when the audience enters his point of view. Which meant figuring out how much of that experience to hear, and how to make the effect clear without making it punishing. O’Bryant also talks about working with sound designer Johnnie Burn, composer Will Bates and executive music producer Marius de Vries to balance the film’s sound design, live music and score.
GREG O’BRYANT
Greg O’Bryant is an editor whose credits include the feature film The Report, as well as the television series Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Extrapolations and Brand New Cherry Flavor. A frequent collaborator with filmmakers including Scott Z. Burns and Nick Antosca, Greg’s work often explores stories with complex tone, subjective experience and ambitious sound and visual design.
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Hear Greg discuss his work on BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR.
Listen to Greg detail his experience cutting the Apple TV+ series EXTRAPOLATIONS.
Hear Greg talk about cutting the Amazon Prime Video series MR. AND MRS. SMITH.
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