Who wouldn’t love to get to peer inside the mind of J.J. Abrams? In a recent Master Class at the Los Angeles Film Festival, we did the next best thing: we did a deep dive into the creative process of two key members of his brain trust: editors Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey. The duo has been with Abrams since Alias, and Markey has edited all of his TV series, including Felicity and Lost, which won her an Emmy.

As part of the discussion moderated by Michael Tronick, the pair showed clips from one of their recent collaborations with Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness. To illustrate how editing choices can add real emotional weight to a story line, the clips were of differently edited versions of the same pivotal scenes.

For instance, they showed the editing changes Markey made in the scene where Uhura approaches the Klingons. Markey said, “I remember at one point J.J. saying we really needed to make Uhura feel more real—as anyone would going into a situation like that. We really try to give these characters a real interior life, even though it’s sci-fi and it’s Star Trek, we do our best to make them live in a real psychological and emotional sense. As she’s making that long walk across the expanse. We showed her face more and we changed to a take where she really stopped and steeled herself. She closed her eyes for a second before she exited the trade ship and walked across. I was able to get in all the characters’ heads better before the battle.”

“For a second there, she seemed vulnerable,” said Tronick of the scene’s final version. “In any kind of huge action sequence, unless you have something invested in the characters who are participating, it can look great visually, but still be a little empty.”

In other example, from one of Brandon’s scenes, they showed a clip of the pivotal sequence in when Kirk has the U.S.S. Enterprise taken from him by Pike for violating inviolable principle of not interfering with indigenous life. In the first version of the clip, Captain Pike is the one who makes the decision to demote Kirk to First Officer and reassign Spock. In the second, the move to push Kirk out of the Captain’s chair is decreed from above, and it’s Pike who convinces them to at least keep Kirk on the Enterprise by making him First Officer.

In the rewrite, rather than being Kirk’s punisher, Pike is his savior—and his father figure. “If anybody deserves a second chance, it’s Jim Kirk,” Pike tells him in a scene created to clarify the father-son dynamic. In it Pike finds Kirk at a bar, drowning his sorrows after his demotion, and reassures him.

(Spoiler alert!) The new scenes were the result of a collaborative effort to solve a problem identified in the editing room. Emotionally, the scene as written and shot wasn’t landing. The new dialogue helped set up Kirk’s loss in the following scene when Pike gets killed by Khan. “Kirk is devastated and it was never quite working and we realized it wasn’t working because Pike has just fired him, taken his ship and now, in the new and improved writing, we realized if it was out of Pike’s hands and he’s in a bar and he’s a father figure Kirk never had and he believes in him. He says, literally, ‘I believe in you, son.’ Their relationship is much more developed that it ever could be in original scene I had.”

“I have this theory personally, and I think we both agree,” said Brandon, “better before you kill a character to have them at the height of their respect and admiration for each other and love, and then they go out and get killed and you’re devastated, than to have them be, ‘I’m mad at you and you did this horrible thing to me.’”

The rewrites were a group effort and the very end result of a lot of trial and error—mostly error “we reshot that scene in the chair a million ways.” Brandon said. By the way, it was all done in a very tiny theater at J.J.’s company Bad Robot. They noted how efficiently they pulled off the reshoots. “It’s amazing what you can do with a camera and some interns,” she said.

“The rest of the film, Kirk is driven by his need for revenge of his ‘father’s’ death, so to speak,” she said. “We had to get it right. It affected everything.”

“I don’t know what’s more difficult, sometimes the nuance of performance in dialogue scene can be more difficult than a huge action scene and vise versa,” said Tronick.

“There’s nothing to cover up your problems with,” Brandon said. “No explosions.” That said, she pointed out that the approach is the same. “You want to establish the character. You want to establish where the scene is going from there.”

Someone in the audience asked how music plays into their editing process. “There’s a rhythm to editing and cutting at a certain pace and usually the music matches that pace and when you put music in you start to understand that combination, that rhythm has to be there or the music won’t work,” said Brandon. “Of course you don’t want to depend on music to shape a scene. If it doesn’t work without music, it won’t work with music.”

Another attendee wanted to know how they keep their minds and eyes fresh during those crucial days in the homestretch when so many critical decisions have to be made. While that can be a challenge, Markey noted that as the project advances through its various are always new collaborators coming into the process and bringing fresh perspectives.

Someone else asked how the secrecy that Abrams famously demands at his production company Bad Robot affects the creative process. Both women said that they rely on trusted inner circle advisors, particularly their assistants. And, added Markey “frankly, there is enough talk, enough ideas, enough notes to keep me satisfied.”

Of course the conversation couldn’t end without a question about Star Wars The Force Awakens, which Markey and Brandon are working on at moment. “What of the original, which to me seems to be the iconic… did you guys study the movies, in terms of what worked? Tronick asked.

“Until last summer, I had never seen Star Wars before,” Markey revealed. “And of course I confessed all of this to J.J. and his first answer was, ‘That’s great! And I don’t want you to watch them either, so that way you’ll be completely virgin territory.’ But I went in to read the first outline of the first script. And I had no idea. I was so lost. I said this is never gonna work. I’m going to have no clue who anybody is. Of course I knew who Han and Lei were because it’s iconic, it’s part of the culture…”

Brandon, on the other hand is a huge, life-long Star Wars fan. “I will say this, this film is very true to the original. J.J. has gone out of his way to photograph it and keep the characters alive. We have real creatures just like in the first one. We had a full on creature shop. Seeing the Falcon, being able to walk on the Falcon, seeing the creatures and the droids, it is phenomenal, and you all have a real treat ahead of you.”

“And it opens… ?” asked Tronick.

“December 18,” said Brandon.

“And this afternoon [Sunday] you are… ?”

“Going back to work.”

Pamela Miller / Website & Grants Manager