Eric Kissack Editing Last 5 Episodes of 'The Studio', Apple TV

0:00Eric KissackIt was an incredible bonding experience on season one. I got to know the crew really well. On set I'm working with Seth and Devon to make sure we get, we get all, everything I need. But I'm also just taking a lot of notes. I kind of like, you know, I'll write down a line. I'll be like, "Oh, this line is best in take 15." Everyone in this business has an ego. You know?

0:19Jawad MirOf course.

0:19Eric KissackLike, it's just, it's just the ne… the necess… and what you need.

0:31Jawad MirWelcome back everyone, yet another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast. I'm your host Jawad Mir. Today my guest is Eric Kisaak. So this is sort of a lost episode. We shot this episode last month, and for the studio show for Apple TV with Seth Rogen. And the show ended, and I wasn't sure when to use it, and if to use it at all, but I figured might as well, because Eric does talk about a lot of things about the last few episodes, about the Golden Globes. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Eric Kisaak for Apple TV Studio. Tell me about, you know, when we talked, we ta… I think when the first three or four episodes were out, we talked about a lot of, you know, editing cuts and a lot of, behind-the-scenes stuff on those particular ones. For you, between episode five and 10, what stood out the most in terms of having f… fun on the shoot, because you were present at the set, as well as, you know, cutting a scene, as less as there were essentially?

1:35Eric KissackYeah, I mean, you know, at, for the second half of the season, everyone understood more what we were doing, which is a big part of it. You know? It was sort of like, the actors got better and better at doing these long takes. The camera crew got better at moving the camera in interesting ways for these long periods, and also working with me to sort of, like, give me a little bit what I needed in terms of flexibility and that kind of thing. So everything was just kind of gelling, which meant I could, you know, not completely relax, but for more of it I could just appreciate what was happening. You know, for instance, in the Golden Globes episode eight, a lot of that was just sort of me just sitting back and just, like, marveling at what the production team was doing. I mean, we had 500 extras on set all dressed in, like, you know, awards gala fashion. The giant Technocrane moves through the Beverly Hilton ballroom, which is, you know, where they actually, hold the Golden Globes.

2:42Eric KissackI had my editing suite for that episode backstage at the Golden Globes. So I would just be, like, sitting backstage kind of like, you know, clicking pieces together, making sure everything was working. And like, you know, Seth would, like, Seth Rogen would, like, come in and, like, you know, get touched up with makeup, and it was very, it was very, like, surreal and fun to sort of be backstage at the Golden Globes while we were shooting an episode about the Golden Globes. So yeah, that was, that was super fun. I mean, Vegas was just insane. We were living and shooting in Vegas for two weeks. We all stayed at The Venetian hotel. We shot at The Venetian hotel.

3:24Jawad MirThat's what we thought. That's what we thought.

3:25Eric KissackYeah. It, you know, we had, we had limited ability to kinda close off certain areas. So we could, like, close off a, you know, like a 40-by-40-foot section of the casino floor, but then everything outside of that was completely uncontrolled. So, you know, if you're looking you can kinda see people, like, staring at us as you know, during the shots. But for the most part you can't really tell. But yeah, it was manic and crazy. You know, we were shooting at all hours of the night. It's 116 degrees outside, so, like, all the scenes outside were very hot. But, yeah, it was, it was a wild and fun ride. Go ahead.

4:16Jawad MirYeah, no, I was just gonna say in the, in the Vegas, scene, especially inside the, you know, the suite or the multiple suites, I mean, you are talking very limited space, right? Like, you have these tight hallways, room to room, and there's so many extras there. And maneuvering, we, I know, like, you know, you're, you're more on the editing side, but still…

4:36Jawad Mir... Being there physically, maneuvering through all that and in those long takes, what, from, as an editor what did you see that kind of, you know, was a jaw-dropping that how they're able to... Even though you have done all these episodes leading up to the 10, but still something that stood out in that production, and I'll get to the editing in a second…

4:58Jawad Mir... That you, that you saw as an editor and just kind of blew you away?

5:04Eric KissackI mean, by Vegas the actors and the crew had gotten so good at shooting. You know, like it, when we were in early, for the first five episodes if we did, like, a five-minute take, you know, everyone would be like, you know, "Wow, five-minute take, that's pretty good." you know, those Vegas episodes we were doing, like, 11, 12-minute takes. And you know, we're still kind of, like, combining them using different pieces.

5:28Jawad MirYeah.

5:28Eric KissackBut yeah, that was just the most impressive thing, like, just, you know, we, like, the last episode we shot in three days, which is absolutely insane.

5:38Jawad MirThe Vegas one?

5:40Eric KissackThe, well, the Vegas is a two-parter, but the s… but the second part…

5:43Jawad MirOh, right, the second part. Yeah

5:43Eric Kissack... The pres… the presentation, shot that in three days, which I literally thought was gonna be impossible. But yeah, they managed to do it because they could shoot these giant chunks. I mean, like, 11 minutes of the episode in one go. You know? And we sh… we shot it, like, 20 times, but still it was, like, a way to just take a an insane amount of pages over,.. Oh, hold on one second.

6:06Jawad MirYeah, no problem.

6:08Eric KissackDo. Oh, okay. Right back.

6:14Jawad MirIt's like…

6:14Eric KissackY… yeah, so j… I mean, y… you know, j… just watching them pull that off was amazing. Yeah, I mean, that suite was really fun to shoot in because there was sort of this main central area where the party was happening, and then on one side of the main central area, there was a suite of rooms, and that was one of the rooms where Zoe, Kravitz is sort of, like, hosted while she has her drug trip. And then there's another suite of rooms where, Bryan Cranston is, like, being dressed and taken care of and that kind of thing. And then on the other side of the main area is a suite of rooms where we were all sitting. So we had our video village there. We had our, like, you know, m… makeup and costumes there, and so it was sort of like this giant suite, where half of it was production and half of it was where we were shooting, which was really fun.

7:09Jawad MirAnd, you know, let's, let's get into a little more technical side of things, like the process of the editing. We touched upon it last time, but, you know, let's say you can take the Vegas episode, you can take the Golden Globes, or, you know, you can take that, which was my favorite, I thought. I don't know if we talked about it when we met the race one, like how we don't…

7:28Jawad Mir... Offend, and then you end up offending people because they used AI. I th… I thought that was a very, a clever, showcase of the society we live in today.

7:39Eric KissackYeah. Yeah, I agree.

7:41Jawad MirWhere somebody always gets upset. But, you know, the process of i… in any episode, like when a scene comes in with multiple takes or multiple… ... Shots, what's the stop from the time it comes to you and you in…

7:55Jawad Mir... You know, ingest it into the computer and does the Avid that you use and everything else, and your team… ... What's that like? Like, how is the flow, if you can kind of…

8:04Eric KissackYeah

8:05Jawad Mir... Talk about that?

8:06Eric KissackWell, I mean, it's... So it starts on set, and I'll just kind of briefly talk about on set. So, you know, on set I'm working with Seth and Evan to make sure we get, we get all, everything I need, but I'm also just taking a lot of notes. And so, you know, I write down everything that I like that happens and I kind of like, you know, I'll write down a line. I'll be like, "Oh, this line is best in take 15, or this line, you know, is best in take 18, and this whole section of take 16 is amazing." So I ha… kind of have a map in my notes of how I want to assemble the scene. And actually, there's a funny example in the Vegas episode. There's, in episode 10, there's this, part where they're sort of, like, getting Cranston ready for the presentation, and they get him, they sh… basically give him a little cocaine to sort of, like, wake him up. And he kind of like stumbles to the door, and the ca… and the camera pans around to find Zoe Kravitz, and she's, like, dressed and ready, and everyone's, like, excited for a second. And then Zoe Kravitz has, like, a meltdown, and we pan back to Cranston, and Cranston just, like, falls to the ground.

9:09Eric KissackHe just, like, falls to his knees and then, like, face plants. And that was take one. And, you know, we were like, "Oh, my God, that was so funny. There was a lot of things wrong with it, but let's just do it again." And Cranston kind of like, you know, took Seth and Evan aside and he was like, "I don't think I can do that fall again." You know, I mean, he's, you know, it was like a real fall, you know?

9:27Jawad MirYeah, he's old too, right? He's in his 60s. Yeah.

9:29Eric KissackHe's old. Yeah. No, yeah, exactly. So we were like, "Oh, yeah, no problem." So after that, he never did the fall again, but I knew I had it in take one. So in my notes, I'm like, "Use the fall from take one and then combine..." You know, so it's like take one of the fall, take 16 of Zoe's performance, take 12 of the rest of the, you know, guys reacting. Anyway, so I have this sort of, like, chart. Footage comes in, my assistant organizes it, and we use the script tool in the Avid, which is basically a way you can link the actual words in a script, the actual text, to the footage. So I can click on any line and I can see, you know, all 20 takes lined up, and I can go, "Okay, there's the fall. There's, there's the script." You know, it says, you know, "Cranston falls." I have, I have that line, and I can click on take one, because I knew that's the only one where he did the fall really well. Slot it into place, combine it with all the other pieces. So clicking the scene together, I mean, you know, in a normal edit, like, you know, a five-minute scene could take me half a day to edit, maybe more, depending on how complicated the scene.

10:40Jawad MirYeah.

10:41Eric KissackIn the studio, because I'm just clicking these pieces together, it takes me like 10 minutes, you know?

10:46Jawad MirOf course. Yeah.

10:47Eric KissackAnd so that process of clicking... Sorry, my dog. Hold on one second.

10:53Jawad MirThat's okay. No worries.

10:58Eric KissackCharlie, shh. Shh. It's all right.

11:03Jawad MirI can't hear, I can't hear anything.

11:05Eric KissackYou can't hear? Okay, good.

11:06Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

11:07Eric KissackGood. My noise canceling is working well, I guess. So yeah. So that process of clicking together takes, you know, just a short amount of time, but then there's a lot of finessing, you know, basically making sure that the timing of all those pans has to, has to work, has to basically match. You know, sometimes we're speeding up things or slowing things down. There's a lot of au… there's a lot of audio work where I'm doing, where I'm layering in other voices and that kind of thing to make it sound, like, cacophonous and crazy. Music is a big part of it. You know, we eventually, brought in a music editor, Lorena, who's amazing and, you know, kind of made, brought everything to the next level. But in the beginning, it was sort of just me just kind of like trying to cobble together little pieces of music. And then eventually when Antonio, our composer, came on board, he would send us these, like, drum loops that I could use and sort of, you know, get it closer to the final approximation of what the music would sound like.

12:09Eric KissackBut that whole process…

12:09Jawad MirAnd…

12:09Eric KissackI mean, you know. Go ahead.

12:11Jawad MirNo, please finish. Finish that. Please.

12:13Eric KissackWell, I was gonna say that whole process of, like, editing a day's worth of footage and sort of like creating a very rough version, a very rough template, probably would take, like, two hours for a day's worth of footage, you know? So if, like, there's two hours, I'd have something, like, watchable where it had, like, music and sound effects and you could, like, w… watch everything we've done. Which is really fun for the crew because sometimes we would, we would, you know, like, when we had, like, a really hard day, you know, one of the, one of the nights we shot the noir episode, we were up all night in the Hollywood Hills and, you know, shooting stunt people rolling down the hill and, you know, shooting the car hitting the stunt person, all this crazy stuff. It was really hard. And because it took me, you know, it took me like two hours to click it all together, the next day we, like, brought a TV to set and hooked it up to a laptop and showed everyone the scene that they had stayed up all night shooting.

13:09Jawad MirYes.

13:09Eric KissackAnd it was, it was just really, I mean, and I don't think anyone... N… I'd never experienced that before. No one else on set had experienced that before of just, like, instant gratification of, like, yeah, we're, what we're doing is really hard, but look what we did, and people, like, laughed and loved it and it was, like, a huge, a huge hit. It was a really satisfying moment. So the way we shot it had some nice perks.

13:31Jawad MirThat's so cool, man. And, you know, kind of leading up to that, what you just talked about, I have two follow-ups on that. One is that, so you have your team, your assistant, the music editor. Are you guys, from a technical Avid standpoint, are you guys working on, like, a, like a team kind of a project where everybody has…

13:48Jawad Mir... Access to the footage and they're real time? I know DaVinci and Adobe you can do that. I know, I'm sure Avid you can do that, too.

13:55Eric KissackYes.

13:55Jawad MirSo I just wanna make sure that, is that the process that you guys were doing?

13:58Eric KissackYeah. So we, so Avid has this thing called the Unity, which basically, you know, everyone can log onto the same footage and be working and prepping and editing together. Our team kinda, like, started off small, but grew a little bit as we went on. By the end it was me and three assistants, a music editor, and a VFX editor. That was the whole team, and we were all just working on the same footage and the same project the whole time. Just, everyone chipping in and doing what they needed to do.

14:32Jawad MirSweet. And then the next part is, like, so, you know, one of the things that you talked about that normally to edit a scene would take you half a day or a full day. Depending on the coverage, maybe even longer. Obviously it's a rough cut.

14:45Jawad MirAnd this year was, like, you know, 10 minutes or two hours. What, and I know this, so maybe that, you know, when you, when, w… when you're young, like when you're in your 20s…... The idea of cutting stuff, like, if you're an editor and if you really love doing that, you want to cut, right? Because it…... There's that thing that I am, I'm being involved in it and…

15:06Eric KissackYes

15:07Jawad Mir... I wonder if you had gotten this opportunity in your early 20s where you're just putting together a few clips for the lack of argument, would have been, would it have been that gratifying to you think?

15:20Eric KissackIt's definitely different. Yeah, no, I mean, I thought about that a lot. Y… yeah, I think, I think everyone in this business has an ego, you know?

15:31Jawad MirOf course.

15:31Eric KissackLike, it's just, it's just the ne… the necess… what you need in order to survive and get your voice out there.

15:38Jawad MirYep.

15:38Eric KissackAnd I think as I've gotten older, I've become more secure, and so I need less, ego gratification. But, you know, at the same time, I mean, it d… it never goes away, you know? Like…

15:54Jawad MirNo. No

15:54Eric Kissack... Part of, you know, this whole process of, like, of, like, talking to you and that kind of thing, you know, is, like, it's, like, a way of me sh… telling the world what I did, you know, which is not at all obvious, and, you know, I think is important. But, like, i… if, like, the average layperson that just has no idea what an editor does on this show, you know? But it's funny, when I, when Seth first called me up and said, told me how he wanted to make the show, these long cuts and, these long takes rather, and very little cutting, you know, the first thing I said to him was, "So you're telling me I'm not gonna get nominated for an Emmy?"

16:40Jawad MirOh, man. Well, at least you're honest about it. That's pretty cool.

16:43Eric KissackBut he laughed. And, you know, I mean, I think that, I think that... Look, I mean, I think that, I think that a young version of me would've been excited regardless because it's, it's an incredible show to be a part of. But yes, I think that there is, you know, like, I, like, w… we were just talking about Mission Impossible

17:01Jawad MirYeah

17:01Eric Kissack... And Eddie Hamiltion, who's an amazing editor, you know, like, you are very aware of his work when you're watching that movie because it's so exciting, it's so dynamic, and that there's just so many cuts, you know? And so I think that, like, you know, on a certain level, there is a definite association between, like, number of cuts and, like, the skill of the editor. But I, then this experience has, you know, definitely helped me realize that's not the only metric…

17:29Jawad MirWhat it is. Yeah

17:30Eric Kissack... To judge what an editor is doing.

17:33Jawad MirYeah. No, I completely agree. And to add to that c… you know, part of the ego, I think the way we are built as human beings, not just in our business, maybe more so, but in general, people are attracted to other people that show a little bit of ego. I think that's just…

17:50Jawad Mir... Like, you know, 'cause if somebody said, "Oh, I'm, I'm just like that," like, nobody's gonna care. Like, unless you just, you have to boost about yourself a little bit just to… ... Kind of, you know, it's, it's just a human trait, so nothing wrong…

18:01Eric KissackYeah

18:01Jawad Mir... With that. Of course, it can go crazy…

18:03Eric KissackIt's

18:03Jawad Mir... If you, if you become completely egocentric and it's just you, then it's another different story.

18:08Eric KissackThere's a balance. There's gotta be a balance, like in all things.

18:12Jawad Mir100%, 100%. And, you know, just to kind of wrap up the part on the studio, now you mentioned that season two has been, approved by Apple.

18:26Eric KissackThat's right.

18:27Jawad MirWhat's the, what's the... If there is yet, I know it's way too early, is it next year launch date, the year after? Is there any kind of conversation that you're able to share about, like, in terms of pre-production?

18:40Eric KissackAll that I'm really able to share is that the goal is to air season two next year.

18:47Jawad MirOkay. So right off the bat. Awesome. That's exciting.

18:52Eric KissackWe'll see.

18:53Jawad MirWonderful. Wonderful. And, I don't know if you are... Did we talk about this on the last podcast? I don't think so. I know we talked about it when we met, the next project that you're working on. You, we did…

19:06Jawad Mir... Talk about it, right?

19:07Eric KissackOh, God, I don't remember. But

19:10Jawad MirBut I don't know if it's something you can. Can you?

19:12Eric KissackYeah, of course. I'm, I'm…

19:14Jawad MirOkay. So let's…

19:14Eric KissackYeah

19:14Jawad Mir... Let's talk about that.

19:16Eric KissackYeah. Yeah. So I'm working on a, on a project, based in the Spider-Man universe, called Spider Noir. It's based on the s… the noir, Spider-Man, probably best known from the Into the Spider-Verse movies. It's, in the, in the movies it's a black and white noir detective version of Spider-Man voiced by Nicolas Cage. And so in this project, it's a, it's an eight-episode TV show starring Nicolas Cage. It's, black and white, set in 1933 New York. It's basically a mashup of, like, a classic noir movie and Spider-Man. And, it's really fun and ambitious, and really beautiful. And it comes out next year.

20:09Jawad MirI'm really excited about that. I think the selling point for me was, the 1933 and the noir and all, and black and white, so I'm really excited about that. I mean, there's a lot of great stuff coming out in, you know, recently. I don't know if you've seen the trailer of Killer of the Killers. It's like the…

20:26Eric KissackNo

20:26Jawad Mir... The Predator series. It's

20:29Eric KissackOh.

20:30Jawad MirYeah.

20:30Eric KissackOh, it's the animated thing?

20:31Jawad MirYeah.

20:32Eric KissackOkay. Okay, cool.

20:33Jawad MirYeah.

20:34Eric KissackYeah, that looks really cool.

20:35Jawad MirYeah, that does. And there's another one coming later this fall. I forget what it was. Was it a s… prequel to Predator or... I can't remember.

20:45Eric KissackThe Badlands one, you mean?

20:45Jawad MirThe Badlands one, yes.

20:46Eric KissackYeah.

20:47Jawad MirYes. Yeah.

20:48Eric KissackYeah.

20:48Jawad MirThat.

20:48Eric KissackThat looks very cool.

20:48Jawad MirSo there's some cool stuff come… yeah, there's some cool stuff coming. Eric, what is it, that one thing that you want to do that you haven't done yet in this, in this business?

20:59Eric KissackThat's a good question. I mean, I love science fiction. I've loved it since I was a kid. I've, you know, since, like, reading the Foundation, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, when I was a kid, started devel… devouring a lot of sci-fi. I love sci-fi movies. I've never worked on a sci-fi project, so that would be super fun. I think it's a really, it's a really fun genre, you know, both in the terms of, like, a beautiful... Often they're very beautiful renditions of world, future technology, all that stuff, but also just a way to say something about our current society. It's, it's always a fun... The good ones at least. So I'd love to do a sci-fi film. Hold on one second. Let my dog out, one second.

21:44Jawad MirSure.

21:50Eric KissackDog is out.

21:52Jawad MirDog is a, dog is a terror. What's his name?

21:56Eric KissackYeah, so I, Charlie.

21:57Jawad MirCharlie, okay.

21:58Eric KissackYeah, so I'd lo… I'd, I'd love to do a sci-fi project, a film or TV show.

22:04Jawad MirAnd does that... I know in, you know, in our business a lot of the stuff, that work that we get is, you know, through a referral or somebody mentions you… ... Somebody else you work with. But is there a, an actual, sort of initi… initiative from you trying to find something or you're just waiting for it to land on your lap?

22:29Eric KissackYeah, I mean, basically, like, genre ho… genre hopping is one of the more challenging things to do in this business. You know, the, there's two ways to do it eventually. You can work on something very small like a, you know, if I... I'm, I'm known mostly as a comedy editor, you know, so if I wanted to do a science fiction project, I could tell my rep, tell everyone I know, like, "Hey, if you hear about a tiny little low budget sci-fi film that looks, that sounds cool, sign me up." And so, you know, that would... And hopefully, and if it turns out to be good, then that's a way to kind of get into that genre. And then the other way is just to work with someone. You know, I mean, Seth Rogen has a lot of different interests. He, at some point, I know he wants to do thrillers. I know, you know, he... I don't know, we've never talked about sci-fi, but if he wants to do a sci-fi, that would be a great way for me to jump in. So yeah. So it's either, like, kind of starting, you know, working on something small, that you could kind of hop on and then hopefully build up from there, or working with a director that you've worked with before who wants to hop on one of those themselves.

23:35Jawad MirGalaxy Quest would've been a nice combo for you.

23:41Eric KissackYeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, like, I mean, I love Galaxy Quest. Galaxy Quest…

23:44Jawad MirYeah

23:44Eric Kissack... Is amazing.

23:46Jawad MirRight.

23:46Eric KissackI feel like, you know, there, like, these days a lot of genres use comedy. You know, I mean, like, Marvel films have a ton of comedy in them. A lot of, a lot of action movies use comedy, and so there is opportunities to sort of like... That's, I guess, that's a third way to do it, is that, like, sometimes they'll, they'll have a, they'll have a big movie and they'll bring on one action editor and one comedy editor. And then, and then that's a way to sort of like get your name on something that is a little bit outside of your comfort zone.

24:22Jawad MirSure.

24:23Eric KissackSo that's, that's another option.

24:26Jawad MirNice. Lastly, man, what is... I mean, when did the pro… pre-production for the studio start? T… a year ago or two years ago?

24:36Eric KissackYou know, it's a hard question to answer because, originally it was gonna shoot before the strikes, the strikes in 2022.

24:46Jawad MirOkay. Okay. So it's been a while.

24:49Eric KissackSo yeah, it's kinda, it was like start and stop a little bit, but, I think pr… pre-production started probably in earnest, I wanna say in like January 2023 is probably when pre-production started.

25:08Jawad MirOkay. So almost a year and a half.

25:11Eric KissackYeah.

25:11Jawad MirYeah, there about.

25:11Eric KissackShoot… shooting started in March 2023, doing wraps in the end of June 2023. And then we actually delivered all the episodes, October 2023. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think all the years wrong.

25:29Jawad MirYou're talking about '24, 2024. Yeah.

25:31Eric KissackLet me see. Yeah.

25:32Jawad MirYeah.

25:32Eric KissackYeah, 2024.

25:35Jawad MirSo between, you know, we, everything that we do every single day, whether it's work or personal, we are always learning something, right? But especially to be on a project, and to be on a project for that long, you know, a year, including pre-production and up until a launch date, what is, what are the three things that you have learned about, maybe about your, not necessarily about your skill set, but about the industry, about yourself and your skill set, or one of each, you know? What is that you have learned that you can sort of take it on next project or you're already working on next, or maybe season two?

26:10Eric KissackYeah. Yeah. That's a great question. I mean, something I've learned is that people are just... I mean, I've kinda known this, but it's good to always relearn it, is that people are just always hunting for something that feels new and fresh, you know? And the studio, I think because of the way we shot it, just felt different, and people got excited about that. You know, we all, it's, it's, so we, Hollywood tends to, you know, sort of famously work on formulas, and the formulas are there for a reason because it is a business. You need to make money. But it's important to realize that, you know, you also need new ideas and freshness and creativity. So that'd be one lesson. I mean, another lesson for me is just, you know, like I, for a long time I'd kind of, I'd been pursuing directing, and I've, I have directed, and I've enjoyed it, but I've never been on set for so long for 60 days, and sort of, you know, seeing that process, from beginning to end and, you know, it sort of made me realize that it's probably not the life for me.

27:25Eric KissackI mean, it's, it's, you know, like editing is a, is a very,.. We're very lucky in many ways, a… as editors, you know, we get to work in this fun business, but we have a more regular lifestyle where, you know, it's not quite 9:00 to 5:00 but, you know, we show up in an office and we're not, we're not shooting in the Hollywood Hills at 3:00 in the morning. And so, you know, from a pure lifestyle perspective and from a, just an ability to kind of like think and be, and be, you know, deeply thoughtful, editing is I think where I belong and, you know, I'm not gonna like put my nose up at any directing offers. But, I'm, I'm much happier now as an editor than I was before I began this process 'cause I re… you know, I've just realized how good we have it. And what's the third thing I've learned?

28:28Eric KissackI mean, I think, I think like, you know, I think like something that I was thinking when I went, when I first started the project, I was, I was, my biggest fear was that we would, that this would be boring. You know?

28:47Eric KissackThis project would be boring because, you know, as an editor, oftentimes when you watch a rough cut, an assembly, you know, it's not very exciting. You're like, "Oh, God, this is like slow and not that interesting." And so you start like tightening and making, taking out air and taking out jokes that aren't working. And then it gets more fun and more watchable. So on set, knowing that I've had very limited ability to do that, once I got to the editing room, I was sort of obsessed with like, "Faster, more, go," you know? And to a certain extent that worked well. The show has this great energy. But there are moments when I, when I, you know, realize that, oh, it's actually important to take a breath. You know? It's actually important. And, you know, as an editor, you know that always.

29:33Jawad MirYou know, yeah.

29:33Eric KissackThere's always, you know, you get to a point where you're like, "Oh, I've tightened it too much. I gotta put some air back in," or, "I've gotta like, you know, slow things down here." But seeing it on set, seeing the moments where we could, allow it to breathe a little bit just helped dial all that in. It just sort of helped dial in, you know, I got to see the process because I don't know, seeing it live somehow made me, made me see the whole thing a lot more clearly, and see where the val… the peaks and the valleys could be and should be. So I think it's just helped me see, like holistically, like the rhythms of a, of an, of an episode or a, or a, you know, a even like a filmed experience better.

30:17Jawad MirYeah, no, it's interesting you talk about the breathing room because even sometimes, I remember, during COVID I was editing, my doc and, just before I passed it on to the next editor, I did a lot of like, because of the speed, like go just to keep the audience engaged, I got rid of a lot of ums and uhs.

30:37Jawad MirAnd I re… after like a w… week I watched, I'm like, okay, this is like... A… it's just amazing how those little ums and uhs create the audience to absorb the information. And as an editor we're always looking at, oh, you know, let's chop it here…

30:52Eric KissackYeah

30:52Jawad Mir... Let's chop it, reduce time or, you know, p… the pacing and all that. But it's, it's good that you mention that. Now, you me… you talked about being on the set so many times, and you said you don't wanna direct, but what if Seth Rogen asks you to direct an episode next season?

31:04Eric KissackOh, yeah, I would do it. Oh, sorry. Mind your thing. Yeah, no, I'm... Sorry.

31:13Jawad MirThat's okay

31:14Eric Kissack... I, yeah, no, I mean, this, it, you know, it, this show is different, partially just because, you know, like it was an incredible bonding experience on season one. I got to know the crew really well. I got to really love working with them. So I feel very comfortable with them and I feel comfortable with the cast and it's, it's, it's different. And because, you know, because I'm on set anyway, like it's sort of like, yeah, why not? It would sort of be a no-brainer.

31:46Jawad MirI was gonna say that it's a no-brainer, so I hope you do get to direct at least one, if not…

31:49Eric KissackYeah

31:49Jawad Mir... Maybe two.

31:51Eric KissackYeah, no, I think, I think the, I think the goal is definitely for them to direct all of them again, but if for whatever reason that doesn't happen, if they want a break, I'll put my hand up.

32:02Jawad MirGood stuff, man. Yeah, never say never.

32:05Eric KissackExactly.

32:06Jawad MirAwesome, man. Well, thank you so much, buddy. Anything else you wanna add? I mean, it's been a pleasure again talking to you. I can't wait to talk to you about Spider-Man when it comes out, and of course…

32:14Eric KissackYeah

32:14Jawad Mir... Season two.

32:15Eric KissackYeah, no, I mean, I feel like I said it all, but yeah, I'm excited, I'm excited to make more and talk about more when they come out.

32:25Jawad MirWonderful, man. Pleasure having you as always.

32:27Eric KissackYeah.

32:28Jawad MirThank you, sir.

32:29Eric KissackThanks so much.

32:30Jawad MirTake care. Bye.

32:31Eric KissackBye.