For Nat Fuller, editor of Netflix’s Beef, one of the most challenging scenes in the series to edit was also one of the “strongest,” that being the Episode 3 church breakdown of Steven Yeun’s Danny.
As the church band plays in the piece titled “I Am Inhabited by a Cry,” his emotionally volatile contractor struggling to turn around professional bad luck breaks does in fact break down crying, finding catharsis in singing along to the song “O Come to the Altar” by the worship music collective Elevation Worship while at a rock-bottom moment in his life.
“That was one in particular where I know that there was a very clear vision of what we wanted it to be, and the buildup of getting him to cry in that way was a little challenging, just because there was no words,” recalls Fuller in today’s edition of the Deadline craft video series, The Process. “It was just all emotion; it was all Steven going through this process internally. So, to strike that balance of the realization that he’s in church, and he’s starting to feel these emotions, and to get that paced out correctly was challenging.”
In the end, Fuller shares, “I think it’s definitely one of the strongest, most emotional scenes. and Steven did a great job…The way that it came together at the end was very, very emotional and very satisfying to see, and I think a lot of people are resonating with that scene in particular.”
Also praising Yeun’s performance in that moment, in conversation with the editor, is Jake Schreier, one of the directors and executive producers brought in to help corral this “very sprawling, complicated show” from his longtime friend Lee Sung Jin, who he refers to by the name Sonny.
“It was this interesting thing where what I had always wanted for that was just to be on Steven and not even have the camera push in, so that he didn’t feel tight in the timing, but to hang on him and watch this breakdown in a single, very simple shot, no crazy oner,” Schreier says. “But then we turned the camera on and it just sort of didn’t happen. Steven had felt like the church was such a magical experience, and he was excited about doing it, but there was a thing where there’s that song that he’s listening to, and [there was] something about not having people sing along at first, and having it be this newer version of the song, when really the original Elevation Worship version of the song is always part of what would make him cry.”
After taking a break from shooting this scene to reflect on what was going wrong, production resumed with the version of the song by Elevation Worship being used. But this version played on set for Yeun, Schreier recalls, “is at a slightly different tempo, and, I think, key” than the one that had previously been arranged for the show by L.A. pastor Jason Min and his “wonderful” band, which was played live on set. “So then in post, we have this incredible performance, but it very subtly lines up differently, tempo wise, [from] what the band is actually playing,” explains the director-EP. “So, cutting around that, I remember you and I and Sonny, it was a very delicate process of preserving the best performance with something that would actually cut into that scene.”
Debuting on Netflix to critical acclaim on April 6, Beef watches as Yeun’s character gets into a road rage altercation with small business owner Amy Lau (Ali Wong) — a petty squabble taking place at a tough moment in the lives of both, which leads to increasingly severe consequences for both as it consumes their lives, with neither willing to let up on their quest for revenge.
Fuller was attracted to the darkly comedic drama given his penchant for “nice character studies,” and the idea here of working with characters “you’re rooting for” one moment that can turn on a dime and do some “despicable” things.
Part of the rewarding challenge for the editor in his work on the series was the opportunity it presented him to think through “film language” in new ways. “I think in particular just the expertise that you and Sonny have…I learned a lot just from hearing you guys discuss…how you approached things, and it changed a little bit of how I approached the cut because of the importance of having everything in this tight film language that a lot of people don’t probably necessarily notice when they’re watching, which is a good thing,” says Fuller. “You don’t want them to be aware of those choices. But just how clean and unobstructed the way that it had me build the edits was, [was] something I really enjoyed, and it made me kind of rethink how I approach things.”
Fuller goes on to say that it was things like matching eyelines that he would come to approach slightly differently, or with more focus. “Sometimes as an editor you’re like, ‘Performance, performance, performance,’ which we always do,” he remarks. “But paying attention to the way that [the scene is] narratively or structurally being built also has its own merits as a pleasing experience for the viewer to watch.”
Also stretching his craft was Schreier, who pulled out a new trick to visually speak to the interior life of Jin’s characters. “It was so clear in the scripts that that this was a story about these two people that really did not feel like they fit in amongst their environment, and only when they connected with each other did they sort of come alive, for better and very often, for much, much worse. So, how to enforce that idea of character perspective in the camera, something we did a lot of on the show was this idea I’d wanted to try out of unbalanced coverage,” he shares. “Traditionally, in a shot-reverse-shot scene, you’ll match the focal distance because it’s the most simple and pleasing to the eye, to see matched sizes and frames when you go shot to shot. And we almost never did that on Beef. We would always be on a slightly wider lens closer to Amy, closer to Danny, and then whoever they were in a conversation with, in a slightly longer lens, further away from that person.”
Schreier notes that he went with “a pretty extreme version of that [idea], which works” in the beginning of the season before pulling it back a bit in later episodes. “Especially as the episodes get later and you want to just sink into it a little more, we did a kind of more subtle version of that,” he says. “So, I think getting to figure that out, because it was something I’d wanted to try for a long time, and see that it actually did function and work, and then even get to modulate it a little bit as the season went on, that was really rewarding and fun to try out.”
The other great reward of working on Beef, for Schreier, was being able to serve as an on-set “translator” for the vision of Jin, a longtime friend who here was presenting a work with a voice all of its own. “I think what was so rewarding about Beef is that it is very much Sonny’s show. I’m just so proud of him for a piece of work that’s this personal to connect with so many people,” he says. “At the same time, I probably feel about as proud of Beef as I do of almost anything else I’ve made, [even though] it’s not ‘mine.’”
In conversation with Schreier, who will reteam with Beef‘s Jin and Yeun as the director of Marvel’s forthcoming Thunderbolts, Fuller speaks to getting into editing after being a biology major in college, early professional experiences working in post in San Francisco’s ad world, his first interview for Beef with Jin which revealed the “good common vision” they had for the show, the first scene he cut for the series, his experience with the show’s cross-boarding and the increasing prevalence of this method of putting together shoots post-Covid, his goal of continuing to work on stories that are “emotionally stirring and beautifully told,” the divide within the editing community over the use of modern editing tools and tricks that allow a new level of fine-tuning of performance and pacing, and the unique assets of Schreier’s approach to planning his shoots.
Schreier speaks for his part to editing himself on music videos he’s directed, the challenges that come with cross-boarding, being a self-described “eyeline and screen continuity nut,” his “weird career” moving between film, TV, music videos and commercials, keys to a successful collaboration between a director and an editor, the “strong perspective” he looks to bring to his work, aiming to be respectful but additive as a director in TV, where the showrunner is the lead creative, why Beef was “the good kind of hard,” his favorite episode of the series and his aspirations going forward.
View Fuller’s entire conversation with Schreier above.
