Cutting 'Nuremberg', Editor Tom Eagles, Starring Russell Crowe

0:00Jawad MirThe hanging scene, the tension in the rope, the sound of that rope was more disturbing to hear and see than if you had shown the actual

0:09Tom EaglesI'm so glad that you noticed that because that was a real discovery for me in the dailies. I mean, Jamie shot so much footage for this movie. There were always… almost always four cameras rolling in any big scene like that, the courtroom scenes. You know, there are all of these details. But I saw that one shot that's behind the rope looking back on the audience who are all lined up there to witness this execution, and it had such kind of violence and power. And so that was something I pitched really early on. I sent it to Jamie while he was shooting, and I had a little trepidation because we'd not worked together before. I thought, "Is this, you know… I'm cutting out ninety percent of the footage that he's shot for this scene."

0:57Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast, The Making of Stories. Today, my guest is film editor Tom Eagles, who worked on the most recent Russell Crowe and Rami Malek's film, Nuremberg. It is a fantastic film, a World War II film, a courtroom film. But what leads up to that courtroom, the character development, the story about two different men from opposite ends and how their story converges. As usual, a fun conversation. We talked about a lot of technical aspects. We talked about what to cut, what not to cut, and so on and so forth. So without further ado, here's my conversation with film editor Tom Eagles for the film Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek. I just finished watching Nuremberg and phenomenal film, just instant reaction right now. I'm a huge fan of World War II films, military films, just my father was in military. But the way this film was executed in every bit of the way is the type of cinema that I like to make, where you're trying to understand every single character despite whoever the heck they are.

2:04Tom EaglesRight.

2:04Jawad MirAnd it really, it really hit me home. So thank you so much.

2:08Tom EaglesOh, wow. I'm glad that it, that it worked for you. I appreciate that.

2:12Jawad MirAnd it's a shame that it didn't get nominated for anything. I was shocked to see that. I mean, it's got Academy Awards written all over it, but I don't know why.

2:22Tom EaglesWell, that's a whole machine, you know, unless you're throwing a lot of money at it. Yeah, I get a lot of invites for a lot of movies, but I did not get any invites for this movie.

2:33Jawad MirYeah.

2:33Tom EaglesIt's, it's an industry, that whole business.

2:36Jawad MirHundred percent. Are you, are you from New Zealand?

2:39Tom EaglesYeah. I'm from Aotearoa originally. I live in LA now…

2:42Jawad MirOkay

2:42Tom Eagles... As of the last sort of four or five years.

2:45Jawad MirAnd how are you liking the change? I mean, you have James Cameron who left LA to New Zealand, and you decided to come over to LA.

2:50Tom EaglesI know. I know. He probably knows something that I don't. I love it. I mean, I love, I love them both.

2:57Jawad MirYeah

2:58Tom Eagles... It's just this is where the work is at. But I do really love the city as well. It's quite a, you know… I've really embraced the madness and chaos of LA, the kind of, freak fest of it. And I love the weather and yeah, what's not to love?

3:13Jawad MirYeah. I agree with you. I'm in LA every two months or so, and I truly enjoy… I'm only there for four or five days just for meetings, and then every time I'm leaving, I feel like I'm leaving home.

3:25Tom EaglesRight

3:25Jawad Mir... Even though, even though I would not imagine living in LA, but just because it's the industry that I'm in, it just feels like, you know, people with the same language live there as…

3:34Tom EaglesYes

3:34Jawad Mir... Right?

3:34Tom EaglesYeah. Totally. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you sit down in any cafe and you're gonna hear a couple of people pitching something. You know, there'll be a writer working in the corner, and I'm like, "Okay, this is nice. I feel I'm at home."

3:49Jawad MirExcellent. Excellent. Well, let's get back to Nuremberg.

3:52Tom EaglesYeah

3:52Jawad Mir... I've also seen your film Jojo Rabbit, which was phenomenal, which we can talk about some other time. But going back to Nuremberg, how did your involvement come about in this film and your first reaction on the script that you had read?

4:08Tom EaglesYeah, I mean, my involvement was really very prosaic, I guess. It came through my agent, shout out to Devon Mann at Iconic. But the script was, kind of remarkable. You know, it was such a full meal, a-and there were so many plates spinning. You know, there were all these characters, who were gonna, you know, have an impact on the trial. And I guess the other thing I appreciated about the script, which I think I like about Jamie's writing in general, I really enjoyed in Zodiac also, is, he's very concerned with the truth and with the facts and what really happened, and he's happy to embroider around those. But the script that I read wasn't sort of shoehorned into a three-act structure. It was very much, "This is what happened, and then this happened, and then this happened," you know, and you join the dots. But it wasn't, you know, sort of forced into a kinda Hollywood format.

5:10Jawad MirYeah. And that's what I appreciated about it. It wasn't just sort of one, for the lack of better word, one-sided propaganda. You actually get to see the families of these people, at least one person, you know, who's accused of the war cri-crimes. And, you know, you… as a human being, you s… you feel for… the empathy kinda gets created, but at the same time, you know, what occurred behind, under his belt stands out too. So it was a very… And that's one of the things I love about this film, is that there's this counter and back and forth conversation, like, "Who are you to tell us what we have done? Look at you, what you have done." Right?

5:51Tom EaglesRight.

5:51Jawad MirAnd it's, and it's also very timely. I mean, some of the word, the sc… the words of the script, I felt like I was living… it was happening today, right? And…

5:59Tom EaglesYeah. Certainly, yeah. It is very timely. And I guess the thing, yeah, the thing that you're describing is the feeling that I had reading it that made me feel like I had to do the movie was this really uncomfortable feeling of You know, I grew up in the era of, Indiana Jones and Nazis as the ultimate bad guy, and you get to see…

6:20Jawad MirYeah

6:20Tom Eagles... Their heads explode at the end of the movie, and it's great. But, you know, I think what was kind of interesting about this script was it really implicated me, us. You know, it felt like, this was something that was done by all of us e… even if it's only in the sense of, you know, those who stood by and allowed it to happen. It's the, you know, as Howie's character says in the movie, these things happen when people stand by and let them happen. And so it had this really, you know, truthfully, quite icky feeling, that made me wanna, you know, lean in and find out more.

7:05Jawad MirFantastic. And I, this is sort of like a all over the place conversation, so I might be making some comments that come to mind and then with some questions. I really loved, without giving away anything, there were a lot of parts that I really loved, but especially... My favorite, I shouldn't say favorite scene, but the way it was not cut, I mean, that's the magic of no cutting, is that there's the hanging scene, and the te…

7:32Tom EaglesYeah

7:33Jawad Mir... The ten… the tension in the rope…

7:35Tom EaglesYes

7:35Jawad Mir... The sou… the sound of that rope was more disturbing to hear and see than if you had shown the actual…

7:45Tom EaglesYeah

7:45Jawad Mir... Right hanging.

7:46Tom EaglesAbsolutely. And we had that. We had everything. I'm so glad that you noticed that because that was a real, a discovery for me in the dailies. I mean, Jamie shot so much footage for this movie. There were always, almost always four cameras rolling. In any big scene like that, the courtroom scenes, that hanging sequence, there'd be four cameras rolling, all of these angles, and he definitely shot a sequence there that you could have seen, you know, the feet go through the trapdoor. The trapdoor actually, what we don't see in the scene is the trapdoor swings back and hits him in the face and, you know, there are all of these details. But I saw that one shot that's behind the rope looking back on the audience who are all lined up there to witness this execution, and it had such kind of violence and power for me, just to hold that and like you say, to see the tension in the rope.

8:49Tom EaglesAnd so that was something I pitched really early on. I sent it to Jamie while he was shooting, and I had a little trepidation because we'd not worked together before. I thought, is this, you know, I'm cutting out 90% of the footage that he's shot for this scene and leaning on one shot. But what I did do was, I did a lot of sound work, because I think all of that violence can be felt through all of the sounds that we hear.

9:16Jawad Mir100%.

9:17Tom EaglesBecause I knew that Jamie didn't… I knew that he wanted it to be confronting, and so I thought he might see it as a bit of a cop-out. But he fully embraced it. And then when we got into the sound mix with Mike, our… Mike Babcock, our wonderful sound designer, we've really leaned into all of those sounds. The tension on the rope, you can hear the choking, you hear, you know, it sounds horrible, but we spent a lot of time on the sound of the urine dripping on the floor, you know, all of those little details, that communicate the kind of horror of what's, what's happening…

9:55Jawad MirYeah

9:55Tom Eagles... And what they had to do.

9:57Jawad MirI mean, normally, n… I've seen so many films in so many different languages where there, where there's a, you know, a hanging scene. You would see like a typical shot of, you know, a wide shot of him being dropped, the doorways opening, the feet going down. You know, just like a typical cut, and it was just so… Again, it's a very disturbing scene, but from a creative standpoint, it was so good to see that, and especially the audience. You can hear the audience murmuring in the back, like, you know, the…

10:23Jawad Mir... The people who are sitting there, which is us essentially, right? So, and I'm glad you explained that there was more coverage because that was gonna be my next question. So that's awesome that you decided to choose that because it really, if it connects with you, they say if it connects with an editor or a director or writer, it's gonna connect with the audience. So you made the right decision because it certainly did.

10:42Tom EaglesRight. I mean, we're the first audience for the film. I've really… You know, I wasn't on set for this. I wasn't even on location. I was back in LA while they were in Hungary shooting the film, and I kinda think that's really useful, to have someone who's really separated from the production side and all of the logistics of setting up those shots and, you know, what was important on the day to just respond to the material and what's within, you know, the boundaries of what we can see.

11:09Jawad MirYeah. There was a… There were a couple of times, well, there was the courtroom scenes where you had the actual, you know, where they watched the film of the ... The execution of Jews. But then there were certain parts throughout the court hearing, anytime, somebody stood up or the judge came in, you guys cut to this black and white. Obviously, it was, you know, shot in color, but you gave it, gave it like an archival look. What was the reasoning behind those particular shots? I think it happened three or four time, only when somebody stood up or somebody walked in.

11:46Tom EaglesYeah. I mean, there are a few shots that Darius, who shot the movie, and Jamie were very careful to set up exactly like the newsreel coverage that happened on the day. So if you go back and research this, you'll see that the angles are exactly the same on a couple of these shots. And it did actually come to me in black and white. Like they'd, they'd lettered it.

12:11Jawad MirOh.

12:11Tom EaglesThey also shot some stuff at eighteen frames to be more like a…

12:14Jawad MirOkay

12:14Tom Eagles... Contemporary kind of… Newsreel. I mean, I had both options. I had color and black and white, but just to say that was, that was something that was indicated early on. I think it was important to show that this was kind of a global event, that the whole world was watching this. So there are a few times where we cut to those kind of newsreel angles. There are a couple of times where we cut outside the courtroom at kinda salient moments. I think sometimes when Goering's landing a few punches in the final cross-examination and is talking about the Nazis' plan for Germany, you know, we cut outside and we see those people listening, and I found, you know, like, a little shot of a pre-roll of one of the guys playing the military police kind of gulping that felt like,.. You know, it felt like this crowd could turn on him at any moment. It was important to connect the proceedings in that courtroom out to the rest of the world and to understand that, you know, Nazism, as we're learning these days, Nazism, fascism, these are ideas, and the ideas can live on, and the idea still has to be defeated.

13:24Tom EaglesAnd so it's… all of these ideas had power out in the broader world outside of the courtroom.

13:33Jawad MirRight. And my… Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. It was something to do with the scenes. Yes, the actual, trial, the real trial that took place, I'm not sure if I'm… my res… I didn't really research on that part. Was that something that you had access to, and had you seen it?

13:58Tom EaglesI'd seen some of the, some of the newsreel footage. I mean, there's a good documentary out there, about the trials. I assume you haven't…

14:09Jawad MirWhat is it called?

14:09Tom Eagles... Watched… I'm gonna blank. It'll be called something like The Nuremberg Trials. I…

14:14Jawad MirOkay. Okay

14:14Tom Eagles... Can't think of the name. But there was a BBC documentary, but I mean, there are hours and hours of footage and obviously, you know, hundreds of hours of testimony and, thousands upon thousands of pages if you really wanna research it. I'm sort of a little ambivalent about research for an editor for some of the reasons we kinda indicated. Like, I need to be…

14:42Jawad MirYeah

14:42Tom Eagles... Equivalent to the average audience member, notwithstanding that I'm somewhat interested in the subject matter like you and,.. And so I had read the Jack L. High book that the movie is somewhat based on, but that only covers the relationship between Goering and Kelly. The… All the trial stuff was very much Jamie's, I can't say invention 'cause it really happened. It was his, contribution, and so Jackson's character, and getting the trial up on its feet. And that was useful in a way not to, not to know too much because I could be the person in the room who would say, "Look, I don't… I'm not getting this very complex legal argument," or, you know, like, "This is all very interesting, but we need to get to Nuremberg. We need to get these two characters in a room together." So, you know, like, how much information is too much? How much is enough for a layman like me?

15:43Tom EaglesIt was quite useful not to have over-researched. The areas I did wind up researching were the areas in the movie where we use stock footage, or sorry, archival footage, which you've alluded to a couple of them. The first one you see in the movie was, we introduced later. So we found that, we kinda needed to show who these Nazis were before they wound up in that prison. 'Cause you meet them, and in Jackson's words, there's… they're these kind of sad, disheveled men, and they're powerless. But at a certain point in time, they were the most powerful and most feared people in Europe, if not in the world, and were responsible for, you know, thousands, if not millions of deaths. And we kinda had to show that Goering was the leader of something. You know, so these people, Lejdle, Donitz, Streicher, they would kind of stand in for Nazism generally as a, as an idea and for the movement and for those people, in the party, which obviously there were a lot of them.

16:49Tom EaglesAnd so I did wind up doing some research there, digging into who these people were in order to kind of build out profile. And so what you see in the movie is, you know, bits of actual newsreel and then, newsreel narration that we pulled from the headlines, and kinda cut and paste.

17:14Jawad MirWonderful. No, that's really cool, man. I thought that Russell Crowe, I've known him as Maximus or John Na…

17:22Tom EaglesRight

17:23Jawad Mir... John Nash in Beautiful Mind, and I think it was Jeffrey character in The Insider, and I could not for a second tell myself that's, that was the guy that played Maximus. Not because of what he looked like, but because of his conviction, his… first of all, his German accent and the choice of words with a certain space was just so spot on. Not that I know German, but I've seen so many, you know, World War II films…

17:46Tom EaglesRight

17:47Jawad Mir... And I've seen that he was remarkable. Everybody in that film was remarkable. I mean, just the performances were outstanding, and the script was solid.

17:56Tom EaglesYeah. I mean, yeah, we had a really stellar cast. We're very lucky. But absolutely, Russell was just a phenomenon, and I was reminded every day why he's a movie star. You know, he's just… He's playing this horrific character, but you cannot take your eyes off him, and that was perfect for Goering because he could be quite charming, you know, and he was able to pull people into his web. And so that kind of movie star charisma that Russell has was perfect casting in a way. And then I know that he put a lot of work into researching the character as well.

18:30Jawad MirYeah. The only Nazi character that to my knowledge, I mean, I'm sure there might be more that I've, it comes close to is, in Schindler's List, Amon Göth, where played by Ralph Fiennes, where he was kinda shown as a, you know, trying to be like a decent human being, and then he's not, and, you know, crisscross between his view of the world. And, but Russell Crowe just knocked it out of the park. And even Rami Malek, it was just amazing, totally amazing.

18:58Jawad MirAnd the scene with his family, you know, that really spoke volumes i… in terms of the character that, Russell played.

19:08Tom EaglesYeah, I mean, they were difficult, those scenes. I think some people responded quite negatively to them, and it was a constant balancing act of like, where is the line for Rami's character? And we have to make sure that he does overstep that line, but how far should he go? So yeah, it was interesting to see, that even these kind of monsters have families, you know, and that there are people relying on them.

19:40Jawad MirYeah, no, 100%. Every one of them has family and there are people relying on them. That's just the reality, whether we like to agree with it or not.

19:50Tom EaglesYeah.

19:50Jawad MirLet's go off Nuremberg. Let's talk about your career a little bit. What was the catalyst in your life that sort of convinced you that this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life? You know, whether it's being in the film business or whether it was some other job in the film business, or it was always like an editor. Was it a film? Was it a moment? Was it a TV play? Was it a theatrical TV play or a movie pl… movie?

20:16Tom EaglesYeah. I mean, I think there were lots over the course of the years. I don't think I had a... You know, certainly I didn't think I would become an editor. That wasn't even something I think I was really aware of as a, you know, as a career until quite late in the picture. I mean, I always loved movies. We didn't have a TV at my mom's house. When I would go to my dad's house, we would go to the movies, but we would just go see whatever he wanted to see. We didn't see, like, family movies. So saw a lot of interesting and challenging films at quite a lung… young age. I mean, the first movie that I was really aware that people had made it was Do the Right Thing, because I guess Spike Lee in it breaks the f… the, fourth wall, and it has all these crazy Dutch angles and, you know, you sort of kind of, even as a kid, quite a young kid, I could kinda see that this was made by someone and had a certain point of view, and people had put, like, craft and love into it.

21:19Tom EaglesSo that was some kind of a catalyst. And then, you know, I was interested in lots of things. I was interested in writing, I was interested in photography, and I was interested in movies, and I was, you know, I was, like, acting in plays and stuff. And then I kinda had a moment of realizing that I… not only did I love movies, but movies kinda synthesized all these other, loves that I had, writing, photography, theater, music in a big way. Yeah. And so then I, you know, I studied, I did like a bachelor's degree. I was accepted into a film school, but I felt like I couldn't afford to do it because my loan was so big. So I just went out and started working. And I kind of had a whole career as a, what they call a promo director, making title sequences and promos and trailers. And then at a certain point I realized, well, this is all cool, fun stuff, but it's not movies.

22:19Tom EaglesIt's not the thing that I really wanted to get into. So I had a friend who was working as an assistant editor, and he pulled me onto one of the shows that he was doing. And we were working under, an amazing editor, Eric Debow, who would teach me things. You know, I would, I would work overnight, I would run out of tasks to do, and then I would just start cutting scenes for him. And then I would come in the next afternoon, and he would run through the scene with me and tell me what was wrong with it and what was working. And so that was kind of my apprenticeship, my kinda crash course in movie making.

23:01Jawad MirAmazing. Well, in the late '90s, there was this emergence of the Kiwi talent, right? The Russell Crowe, Peter Jackson, you know, Lord of the Rings and all that. I don't know if… I don't know if Kate Winslet is from New Zealand. I'm not sure. I think she is…

23:18Tom EaglesNo, she's English, but she was in

23:20Jawad MirOh. She was in Heavenly…

23:20Tom EaglesYeah, she was in Heavenly Creatures

23:22Jawad Mir... Heavenly Creatures, right, Peter Jackson's earlier film. But… ... You know, was that, was that ever sort of to see Peter Jackson, you know, who wasn't really a big name, but Lord of the Rings became a massive thing, kinda like Star Wars or Avatar. At that point in your life, was that a big sorta push? Okay, no… And then Russell Crowe too, Insider, Gladiator, Beautiful Mind, it was around the same timeframe. Seeing those people making a name for themselves and doing all this amazing work, that kinda gave you some confidence at the time, or was that just not part of…

23:56Tom EaglesYes and... I mean, I mean, yes and no. It sort of, it was always a bit of a cottage industry in Aotearoa at the time. You know, there wasn't… When I was growing up, certainly didn't know anybody who worked in movies. It just wasn't a thing. I mean, but then I did become aware of Peter Jackson with, Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, which were, you know, incredible for a young kid, like a, or early teen to be watching. And then, Around that kind of time or a little bit later, you had, The Piano and, Once Were Warriors were kind of big international hits that came out of... Really, it felt like they came out of nowhere. It didn't feel like there was a, an industry…

24:40Jawad MirYeah

24:40Tom Eagles... That I, as a ordinary person, was aware of in New Zealand. And then Lord of the Rings came along, but by the time I got into the industry, it was gone, and it was very quiet again. So there were... You would meet these people who had worked on the biggest movie in the world, but they were back to swinging a boom on a kids TV show or, you know, maybe they didn't even have work. So it was always kind of boom and bust. But I guess, yeah, you could kind of sense that it was something that someone could do and I don't know that I had any sense that you could make a living from it, but, I'm still not sure that you can make a living from it. You know, you just kind of…

25:20Jawad MirOh, that's true

25:21Tom Eagles... Take it gig by gig. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously massively influential movies.

25:29Jawad MirThe Piano was directed by Jane…

25:31Tom EaglesJane Campion

25:32Jawad Mir... Campion. Campion, right. Yes.

25:34Tom EaglesYeah.

25:34Jawad MirYes. That lost out to Schindler's List that year. I think it was '94.

25:39Tom EaglesWow, okay. That's a good memory.

25:41Jawad MirYeah. There was a scene in Back to Nuremberg, which I, again, this is just a comment, I… I'm horrible with character names, for… forgive me. It was a scene where one of the inmates screams, and then it cuts to the woman singing. I thought that was…

25:58Tom EaglesRight

25:58Jawad Mir... Really well done, and was there sort of a moment in this that you realized to do that, or was it always sort of in the place in the script, to be able to show those two contrasting images?

26:12Tom EaglesYeah, I think those scenes were always next to each other. You know, we did some light restructuring. Nothing heavy in the movie, but I think those scenes were always together. It was just a question of, you know, coming out really at the peak of that scene with Lei as the character that you're referring to, punching Rami in the face and then s… screaming, "Shoot me," and then hard cutting to... I guess we had more of the, you know, the intro to that song, but hard cutting to this close-up on this lady singing A Tisket A Tasket. That part of the movie, we were trying to work contrasts. So, you know, it was an interesting, proposal with this movie. It's 172 dialogue scenes back to back. So how do you create dynamics within that? How do you create shape and pacing, you know, fast and slow? Through the beginning of the movie, we're using a lot of overlaps and music to pull you through, and that kind of almost plays as one sequence until you get to Nuremberg.

27:16Tom EaglesAnd when we get into those cells, that's where we slam on the brakes and, we're constantly working contrast. You know, so loud, quiet, inside, outside. Also, once we got into sound design with Mike. But yeah, that was, there just was a good opportunity, I guess, that presented itself, and those presented themselves at various points through the story, to work contrast.

27:47Jawad MirGot it. So the film is two hours and 28 minutes long with the credits, and the actual Nuremberg trial begins an hour and 48 minute mark, if that's what I remember seeing. So that's, like, almost good 70 to 80% of the film leading up to that.

28:04Tom EaglesRight.

28:04Jawad MirWhich I thought was amazing because it's very rare nowadays to see that, the build-up, the character building. Was there any sort of counter from the studios that we need to chop this down, it's too long?

28:17Tom EaglesAlways. There's always... You know, I don't think I've ever done a movie where you didn't get the note, "We love it. Can it be 10 minutes shorter, 20 minutes shorter, 30 minutes shorter?" and it certainly was, you know, a lot longer at various points. But you know, it's, it's interesting. The, for me, the key really was to… I was in a hurry through the, through the first act of the movie, but I was in a hurry to get to Nuremberg and to get Kalley and Goering in a room together. I wasn't necessarily in a hurry to get to the trials because that's the heart of the movie for me, is the…

28:52Jawad MirYeah

28:52Tom Eagles... Relationship between those two men and how…

28:54Jawad MirYeah

28:54Tom Eagles... That ripples out and affects everyone else in the, in the film. So certainly we were conscious of pacing. You know, we were rarely had our foot on the gas until we got to Nuremberg and then slammed on the brakes effectively. And then you get to see, you know, you're sort of stuck in this airless room with two men, and you really get to see the character dynamics play out. But the trial itself is sort of the climax of the story, but not the story, if you know what I mean.

29:26Jawad MirYeah. I agree. Well, it's just the name of the film, right? That's why.

29:29Tom EaglesRight. Yeah. It is.

29:32Jawad MirGot it. One thing that, you know, in the end of the film that I ho… I would love to know if that was at any point sort of added later, or was there any kind of counter to cut it out, but I thought it was very important because it speaks to the times today, when he's at the radio station, doing his interview, Rami Malek's character at the very end.

29:57Jawad MirAnd I thought that was, I thought that was so, that is so timely even today, that if you ever criticize somebody, like y… the country that you're in… ... Somehow you're anti that country or anti that community or anti that religion. You know, w… we're just such in the polarized world. And then the quote at the end, which was, "The only clue to what a man can do is what a man has done" by R.G. Collingwood.

30:25Jawad MirTalk to me about that whole scene. What was the proc… Was that always there in the script, or was that something g…

30:33Tom EaglesIt was, yeah.

30:34Jawad MirOkay.

30:35Tom EaglesIt was always there in the script. That portion of the movie was a lot longer and slower. You know, in some ways it was, it was something that I enjoyed about the script was that it had a genuine fourth act. But at the same time, we were aware that once the verdicts had been given, we were kind of on borrowed time, that people would sort of be shifting in their seats if we didn't keep things moving. So we moved very quickly through, the sentencing and the kind of setup of what the execution would be. And then, you know, as we've already talked about the hanging, we kind of slam on the brakes there. And then the other place that we spent time was in that coda, but that also was longer. We just had to be decisive about what we really wanted to say there. We really needed, you know, I guess the line that resonates with me is, next time these guys come back, they might not be wearing scary uniforms, but don't be deceived. You know, it can happen here.

31:37Tom EaglesIt can happen anywhere, in the right conditions and if people do turn a blind eye, to some of the stuff that's going on. So it's interesting, you know. It really did resonate. Some people were sensitive about it. There was always the debate about if it should be in the movie and how much it should be in the movie, but actually audiences were very receptive to it. And I think even across the political spectrum, people didn't really kick back against that scene, you know, not too much. I think some people think it's maybe a little on the nose. It's sort of telling what the message of the movie is. But I would rather that than people walk out of the cinema with any sense of ambiguity about, how awful the events of the Holocaust were or how relevant they are today.

32:32Jawad MirYeah. I always find that, at least that's my belief, when I'm working on any project, when I'm directing something, there is a lot of uncomfortable things that y… you know that is gonna get some sort of a reaction, right? But at the end of the day, I truly believe that as filmmakers, as editors, as cinematographers, you know, production managers, whatnot, our job is to make people entertained, but at the same time, sometimes uncomfortable, so that they can…

33:02Jawad Mir... Think about all these questions that are out there, make them think about more than just the news would tells them. Like, the news will just sort of tell them, you know, like this one-dimensional story. And films… And it's supposed to be the other way around, actually. And films and television will tell like a three-dimensional story or a four-dimensional story. So I truly believe that, and I… that's one of the reasons I appreciated this film because it went into areas where a lot of people wouldn't have gone, especially nowadays.

33:29Tom EaglesYeah, people are a little afraid, a little weary to touch on some of these subjects these days, but I think we need to keep pushing. We need to keep our eyes open.

33:40Jawad MirRight. Right. And when you, were working on this film as an editor, was there a scene that d… required more time than the other? Was it challenging because of, I don't know, if you had to sort of… the coverage wasn't there or w… the messaging wasn't coming out right?

34:03Tom EaglesI mean, yeah, there are a bunch of scenes that come to mind. The coverage, though, was always there. We definitely had a lot of coverage for this movie, and that was one of the challenges. You know, if you think about the…... Courtroom scene, the… just the cross-examination between Goering and Jackson, those were twenty-five minute takes, from the first question to the last answer. Just from…

34:25Jawad MirOh, wow

34:26Tom Eagles... The bit where they're speaking to each other, and that's covered on four cameras. So that's 100 minutes just for one take. So there was a lot of material to go through. The trial was definitely… You know, the cro… the cross-examination was definitely longer. There was a lot to that. There was a lot of detail, but we really had to kind of, zone in on, you know, what was important. And kinda… And we had to set it up at… adequately as well. So we did add, you know, there's a little ADR section of, Kelly coaching Jackson as to, you know, and leading our expectation as to what we think the gotcha moment will be that will, clinch the trial for them. And then, you know, and that obviously winds up being a bit of a misdirect, but that was something that we worked on in editing. So that scene was just a big beast and was very complex and took a lot of time. The other thing that comes to mind that we did a lot of versions of was, I mean, one of the most challenging films and we could… scenes, and we can talk about that as well, is the…

35:32Jawad MirSure

35:32Tom Eagles... The scene where they have to watch the footage from the camps. But the scene that we did the most work on is the scene that comes just after that, which in a way is kind of a climax for that storyline, if not for the movie, which is Goering and Kelly going at it in the cell.

35:52Jawad MirRight

35:52Tom Eagles... And my first cut of that scene was very restrained. It was all just sort of simmering tension, and probably my first, instinct as an editor is to kind of be restrained and not to, overcook things. But this was during the shoot, and I hadn't really processed that concept, that this was really the climax of a movie. In a movie that doesn't have car chases or, fight scenes, this was really the big pyrotechnics. And so Jamie asked me to go back and do the most, you know, choose the most purple performances, the biggest stuff. And we did that, and that was also a good version of the scene, but it wasn't the… we still didn't have it. And so then what did is we actually went through and looked at all of the outtakes and all of the bits that didn't work, because the scene was very difficult for them to shoot. They… Jamie made the call to, build everything to scale and not to remove any walls in those cells.

36:59Tom EaglesSo the cell is only, you know, three by four meters or something like that, and you've got the two actors, camera operator, boom operator, and they're all trying to move around each other and... And so there were sort of natural frustrations that were coming out and lots of line fluffs, and it was a sort of dirty, messy scene. So we did a version that included all of that material, and that was very interesting because it was sort of, you know, it was wrong, but it had that sense of… it had that energy.

37:30Tom EaglesIt had that kind of lightning in the bottle feel. And so the final version that you see in the movie is, you know, after maybe 20 cuts is some kind of combination of all of those things. So you will see, like, some odd continuity sometimes. You know, Kelly's at one end of the cell, and then suddenly he's at the back end of the cell. But we kind of felt like the energy of that argument is right. It'll carry you through all of that stuff, and you won't be worried about, repeated lines or continuity or any of that kind of stuff. So that was…

38:04Jawad MirYou know…

38:04Tom Eagles... Certainly one that we gave a lot of love.

38:07Jawad MirThat I normally notice continuity errors, but I didn't notice any continuity error in this film.

38:13Tom EaglesIt's great. Yeah.

38:14Jawad MirWhich is, which is a testament to the performances and the scene, the way it was cut, and how involved and, you know, how much tension there was.

38:23Tom EaglesYeah. Yeah. I always think if you're engaged, you won't notice that stuff.

38:27Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. So how big is your team in terms of your editing team, assistant editors or, you know, assistants, second assistant editors?

38:38Tom EaglesWell, it varies from movie to movie, but this was an indie. I don't know if people know that, but, this is an indie movie with a, you know, limited budget. So it started out just three of us: myself, my first assistant, Monty White, and second assistant, Kelly, McQuaid Weingarten. And we were in these tiny... You know, we had effectively only really two rooms, and Kelly was kind of in a hallway in between the two of us. And then it did expand out a little bit over the course of the movie because the movie was massive. You know, whether it's a low budget or not, there was just a lot of footage to deal with. So we got a PI… a PA on, and we bumped him up eventually to apprentice, so he could help us in the edit. That was Liam Mills. And eventually we got a VFX editor. There's not, there's not a lot of VFX in the movie, but we did kinda need a VFX editor…

39:30Jawad MirYeah

39:30Tom Eagles... To handle that stuff. So, I mean, the team was probably, you know, medium-sized, I would say.

39:40Jawad MirAnd just for the audience, what's the difference between a first assistant editor versus second assistant editor? Or is it just a spread of difference… it's a job of, you know, cut this scene or cut that scene or log this scene or log that scene?

39:55Tom EaglesThe first assistant really is theee, the way I use them is they're the brains of the operation. If I'm the freewheeling creative who gets to play around and cut scenes and... You really need someone who's on top of logistics and the technical aspects. And so the first is usually that person. And on a bigger team, they're… I'm also delegating running the team a little bit to them, you know. So they'll be deciding who does what. And then the second can, you know, often will be, often will be, you know, more junior in their career, and they'll be given some of the sort of, labor-heavy tasks. So I use a feature in Avid called Script Sync, where we get all the script and any improv that was done, and we lay it all out, and we connect it to the footage. So at any point in time, I can go, "Okay, here are all the reads of this line." I don't really use that when I'm cutting because I wanna see everything, but it's very useful later with the director.

40:59Tom EaglesBut that's an example of, like, a very labor-heavy thing that the second has to do during the shoot to kinda set us up to be in the best shape to be fluid and creative in the edit.

41:11Jawad MirRight. The most, involved people, and I'm not trying to take anything away from the entire team because it's a collaborative effort, right? But then there are certain people like a director, a writer, an editor's work or cinematography, costume and set, whose works are more visually seen in the film when an audience sees it. The biggest curse for people like us is that, or a wish, is that we want to see it be in a theater, where we wanna see the film with the audience, but we're also petrified as to what the heck… how the heck they will react, right? There's always that…

41:46Jawad Mir... Fear as well.

41:47Tom EaglesYeah.

41:48Jawad MirYour ex… your experience in watching, Nuremberg, was it in a theatrical setting with audience after you…

41:54Tom EaglesYeah

41:54Jawad Mir... Had finished and everything?

41:56Tom EaglesWell, but also during the movie because we test the movie, in a movie theater, and I think that teaches you so many things. I mean, they always do feedback. You know, they'll have a little focus group, and they'll write feedback. But I kind of don't need that in a way because you feel where the film is working and isn't working. One of the things I love about American audiences actually compared to back home is they're very vocal. So you can kinda hear… Like, people will talk back to the screen. You'll hear, like, whether a plot point is hitting 'cause someone will say something about it.

42:26Jawad MirOh, really?

42:28Tom EaglesYou'll hear gasps, you know, like when…

42:31Jawad MirYeah

42:31Tom Eagles... A surpri… something surprising happens, you'll hear a gasp. If you're doing a comedy, you'll hear lots of laughter if it's genuinely funny and none if it's not. So it's definitely part of our process. But then, yeah, the f… I guess the first time I saw the finished film with an audience was at the Toronto Film Festival, and that was, you know, an amazing experience. They all stood up and gave it a standing ovation. And, just to feel it starting to go out into the world, because you know you're not gonna be at every screening, but to be at the first one…

43:08Tom Eagles... To kind of, witness it take its steps in the world is an amazing feeling. And I, you know, I just love the cinema though. The whole reason I go to the movies, I think, is to feel something with other people. I don't know why I'm drawn to do that, but to go sit in a dark room with 100 strangers and feel emotions, and you could definitely feel things in that room. But yeah, it was a special experience.

43:36Jawad MirI actually, I live in Toronto, and I missed it at this, when it was playing.

43:39Tom EaglesOh, man.

43:40Jawad MirYeah, that would've been a, would've been a cool experience. Because films like that, it's hard to get access to at major film festivals, especially with star cast.

43:49Tom EaglesYeah

43:49Jawad Mir... But going back, going back to what you said about, you know, when you watch something, you kind of real… that you worked on, you realize how, s… what's the significance of it. David Bowie's, I was watching this little interview of him. He said something along the lines of, and I'm paraphrasing it, is that when you make cine… something, like as a, as an artist, you're not making it for an audience. You're trying to fill an inner void that you have…

44:19Jawad Mir... And you're trying to serve that. Which I think is pretty much true, and I don't know why we do what we do, but there is, I think, that when we create something, there is that, at least for me, there's an inner peace after it's done. You know?

44:36Tom EaglesRight.

44:36Jawad MirAnd I feel that you hit the nail on the head, that it's just, it's sort of somehow fixing us in a way, or making us realize about the world that we had never known before.

44:46Tom EaglesYeah. And yeah, I mean, I love that. And as a coder to that, I mean, it… it's not done until an audience sees it. And so I think there's always anxiety about the movie. You always feel like you could have…

44:57Jawad MirOh, yeah

44:57Tom Eagles... Done better, until the moment you see it with an audience, and then it's just, it's done. It's, it's out there. It's in the world. It's, it is what it is, and people are responding to it, and it's not yours anymore. So it is a, yeah, it's a wonderful moment. But

45:15Jawad MirYeah

45:15Tom Eagles... But yeah, I mean, he's certainly right. Like, you can only really make movies for yourself. You can only really do it on your own compass.

45:24Jawad MirRight. Right. I, w… was going to ask you about what's coming up next for you, and I had another question that I just forgot, so I'll come back to that. But what's coming up next for you?

45:35Tom EaglesYeah.

45:35Jawad MirYou working on anything?

45:38Tom EaglesYeah, I don't think I probably can't talk about what I'm working on right now.

45:41Jawad MirSure.

45:41Tom EaglesBut the next movie I did after, Nuremberg, which is complete now, is, Klara and the Sun, which is with my old friend Taika Waititi, and it's a, adaptation of a beautiful Kazuo Ishiguro novel.

45:58Jawad MirOkay

45:59Tom Eagles... So that should be out sometime this year. I don't know anything about release schedules or anything, but

46:04Jawad MirRight

46:04Tom Eagles... It should be out this year.

46:06Jawad MirAmazing. And the one that you're working on right now, not that I wanna know about it, is it something that's coming out next year, or can you at least tell me the genre?

46:13Tom EaglesWell, I'm wo… I'm sort of working on a few things right now.

46:17Jawad MirOkay

46:18Tom Eagles... One comedy, one action, but yeah.

46:22Jawad MirNice. Lovely.

46:23Tom EaglesThat's about all I can say.

46:24Jawad MirNo, that's fa… fair enough, man. I would, I would recommend you to watch this film that I saw yesterday, and I spoke to the editor of that film yesterday, which is gonna be published tomorrow. Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die. I don't know if you've heard of that movie.

46:37Tom EaglesYeah. No, I'm looking forward to seeing that. Is... Yeah.

46:40Jawad MirIt's…

46:40Tom EaglesThis is…

46:41Jawad Mir... A remarkable film. Absolutely remarkable. I cannot believe it tanked at the box office. Like, it's directed by Gore Verbinski, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean…

46:51Tom EaglesRight. Yeah

46:51Jawad Mir... The Ring, The Mexican. Craig Wood, who's the editor, I highly recommend it. It's, I literally told him yesterday that it is something that people will remember, down, you know, the next couple of decades, as people remember Blade Runner and 2001: Space Odyssey. It is a remarkable film.

47:06Tom EaglesOh, wow, okay.

47:07Jawad MirYeah. Highly recommend that.

47:10Tom EaglesAll right. I'm excited. I'm gonna go out and see it. Thank you.

47:12Jawad MirWonderful. Wonderful. Just last bit, I have, I just kinda throw out some questions. Nothing to do with the film, just to, kinda like a quiz, if you wanna call it.

47:22Tom EaglesSure.

47:22Jawad MirIf you don't mind doing that for next minute or so. What's your, favorite film? I know it's a very big question.

47:29Tom EaglesOh, man. I, yeah.

47:31Jawad MirI know. I know.

47:32Tom EaglesI don't know.

47:33Jawad MirThat's why I threw it.

47:34Tom EaglesI can tell you know, I can tell you things that I've said at various points in my life.

47:38Jawad MirSure

47:40Tom Eagles... And this is kind of true, but it's also the kind of poser film school answer, is Tarkovsky's Stalker. I was ready to say goodbye to that movie, because I sort of thought it was an art school pose of mine.

47:54Tom EaglesBut then I watched it again in a cinema the other night, and it is, it's just incredible. It's such an incredible, beautiful movie. Sort of a genre movie, but also tackling massive questions in a really kinda mystical way. It's so hypnotic. You know, it, his movies are very special. And then, you know, from that to, like, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Annie Hall, Do the Right Thing, as I mentioned, was kind of a seminal movie for me, understanding that movies were made by people. I don't know. I can't do it.

48:32Jawad MirRight.

48:32Tom EaglesI can't pick one.

48:32Jawad MirNo, I know. I know. It's, it's, it's a lot. There's, you talked about Annie Hall and Raiders of the Lost Ark. They came around the same time as Robert Redford's directorial debut film, Ordinary People, came out.

48:43Tom EaglesOh, wow. Yeah.

48:43Jawad MirHa… have you seen that?

48:45Tom EaglesYeah, it's a beautiful movie. Yeah.

48:46Jawad MirGod, crazy movie. Crazy movie and beautiful movie at the same time, yeah. I just kinda remembered that as you mentioned Annie Hall and Raiders of the Lost Ark What's, t… to you, what director would you love to work with? Again, another big question

49:02Tom EaglesSomeone who's actually alive that I could work with? I mean, I…

49:05Jawad MirYes

49:05Tom Eagles... I love, Yorgos Lanthimos, and I love Luca Guadagnino. Those are two that kind of spring to mind right away. I mean, there's, there are so many. There's a, there's a laundry list, you know?

49:20Jawad MirYeah.

49:20Tom EaglesAnd most of them are, you know, have wonderful partnerships with editors, so you kind of like, you know, like Scorsese and Schoonmaker, you know, you don't wanna step into that, like…

49:30Jawad MirOh, yeah

49:30Tom Eagles... What they have is perfect, so you wouldn't actually want to... I mean, but I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall, you know what I mean?

49:39Jawad MirYeah.

49:39Tom EaglesJust go and sit in the room and watch what those conversations are like.

49:43Jawad MirOh, for me it would be Spielberg and Michael Kahn, just…

49:46Tom EaglesRight, yeah

49:46Jawad Mir... Just, you know, 'cause I mean, they've been together for like, what, the last four decades now, four and a half decades. So…

49:53Tom EaglesYeah

49:53Jawad Mir... To be able to see the shorthand that they have with each other

49:56Tom EaglesI wonder if they even talk at this point, you know?

49:58Jawad MirProbably not

49:58Tom EaglesLike, I can kind of imagine that.

50:00Jawad MirProbably not. I will give you a little one ti… fun, negative information. I don't know if you've seen the film The Post

50:08Tom EaglesI haven't seen it, no

50:09Jawad Mir... With,.. Okay, so Spielberg directed it, came out about five, six years ago, Meryl Streep…

50:13Tom EaglesYeah

50:13Jawad Mir... And Tom Hanks, and it's about, the 1970s fiasco about how the government tries to ban New York Times because of their coverage on the Vietnam War.

50:24Tom EaglesRight.

50:24Jawad MirAnd, there's, the film, the way it opens up, it's basically Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep's character in a restaurant and, you know, there's light coming in through the windows in the background and there's people in the background. The way they shot it was they had so much coverage, but in the post they decided to just leave the camera like this with them two facing the camera, and that was a scene that went on for six, seven minutes.

50:48Tom EaglesWow.

50:48Jawad MirAnd I thought that was really, I mean, as an editor you'll appreciate that because there was no cut, but because it worked with the cinema, with the, with the story because it was establishing their relationship and what was to come after that.

51:00Tom EaglesI love these moments, you know. Like, I love a oner, but I, but what I love more than a oner is a sort of discovered oner, you know?

51:06Jawad MirYeah.

51:06Tom EaglesIt's such a wonderful feeling as an editor at least when you go, "Wait a minute. I don't have to cut this. This works," you know?

51:14Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, 100%. To you, what's purpose of life?

51:19Tom EaglesOh, man. I'm still figuring that out. I have no idea.

51:24Jawad MirSomething I'm sure you have a little bit of an idea. I mean, you've lived, you've lived life.

51:29Tom EaglesI've lived plenty of years, but I really haven't figured it out yet. I'm just trying to be happy moment by moment, and that is hard, you know, in this world, in this hyper-connected world. But yeah.

51:43Jawad MirYou sound like a tr… you sound like a true Kiwi. I watch cricket a lot, and…

51:51Tom EaglesOh, yeah

51:51Jawad Mir... Over the years I've seen so many different teams, and the only one team that I always cheer for, even if they're playing against my team, is New Zealand, because they're just such nice group of people no matter which set of players come in. Everybody's so chill. They always have a smile on their face even if they're losing. It's okay. It's not the end of the world. That's, that's…

52:11Tom EaglesBut that's it, right? We're always the underdog in the... You know. Asides from rugby, any other sport we're playing, anything we're doing, we're the underdog, so you can cheer for us. I love it.

52:20Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, I'm just saying it's a testament to people in New Zealand. They're, they're pretty chill and relaxed. I mean, I think they're even more chiller than Canadians. You know, Canadians are known to be nice, but I think New Zealand is far ahead.

52:31Tom EaglesYeah. Yeah. We take chill to kind of catatonic levels, but yeah.

52:36Jawad MirAwesome, man. Listen, this has been fantastic. I truly appreciate your time. I truly appreciate your work in the film Nu… Nuremberg, and, you know, I would love to, if I have time, to see it again, and if I come to LA I would love to grab a bite with you if you like, or a coffee.

52:51Tom EaglesYeah, cool. That'd be great. Give me a shout.

52:53Jawad MirAwesome.

52:53Tom EaglesIt's been a pleasure talking to you. It's been a good one.