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Stephanie Filo: Editing Daredevil & Making Emmy History · Gilbert. K Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today on the Gilbert K Show, we're going inside the cutting room with an Emmy-winning powerhouse who's made history and brought her storytelling magic to Marvel's Daredevil Born Again and Horse Girls.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's an award-winning editor, activist, trailblazer, and creative force who knows how to turn every cut into an unforgettable moment.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give a big welcome to the one and only Stephanie Philo.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Stephanie, pleasure to have you on the show.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: How are you today?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you for attending and joining me.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so let's get into it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Our first segment is the person before the editor.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk about your childhood.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I did some research uh online and stuff.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So before the Emmys, Marvel, and everything you've accomplished, who was Stephanie Philo as a little girl?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh were you obsessed with what were you obsessed with growing up?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And was there anything in your childhood that gave you the first clue that storytelling would become part of your life?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so when I was little, I'm originally from Sierra Leone in West Africa, and we moved to Colorado, um, which is the polar opposite.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was kind of just this really like quiet, shy kid.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my whole world was dance, everything like every morning, every waking breath, I would just think about dance, or I would be in a dance class or um choreographing something.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of my whole life as a little kid.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I um outside of that just read so many books constantly, and I think it was kind of like I wasn't crazy about Colorado, no offense to Colorado.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was just not for me, but I um I think reading reading kind of helped me like escape somewhere else, and I just loved the different stories.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um so maybe subconsciously there was some aspect of that where I just kind of loved the storytelling of it all.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also have a dad who you know was a human rights attorney, and so I think just like the activism side of of my life was kind of always present, even if I wasn't aware of that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was just kind of always knowledgeable about different um like social issues and um just always thinking about fighting for whoever I could.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think subconsciously that maybe kind of translated into where I landed, even though it wasn't necessarily intentional.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you were mostly interested in documentaries because of the activism and all the stuff that you were mentioning.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, really just any any stories that had kind of a social impact aspect to them.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So not only documentaries, but um even just another example when I was a kid is like the movie Aladdin.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I totally um it resonated a lot with me, and I don't think I totally understood why.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And looking back, I think it's like I was so excited to see like brown people on screen in like a uh beautiful way, um, even though of course they're animated, but it was like it was just seeing culture and all of these different things displayed that you don't always get to see on on your screen.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So when I think of like social impact and activism, it's not just documentary, it's in like whatever stories we're kind of telling and and what lens we're kind of looking at things through.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So were were your family involved in entertainment or filmmaking or music or um my dad is actually a jazz pianist, um, aside from also being being a lawyer, but so he he you know played out.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: He used to tour um when he was younger as well.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and also a lot of my family is like very musically, musically inclined.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um I know they were kind of sad that I didn't, you know, I I took piano lessons as a kid, but I, you know, gravitated instead towards dance.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, I have a cousin who is a singer, I have other cousins who play saxophone, and um, you know, my grandma was a huge, huge musician.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I come from a pretty, like, pretty musically, musically inclined family.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's great.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you've talked about being a dancer growing up and how much of your life revolved around dance.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think dance secretly trained you to become an editor?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because editing is also about rhythm, timing, movement, and knowing exactly when something should stop.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think they look so different on the surface.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like you wouldn't think, oh, a dancer and editor is like a natural career progression.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think that um I do think that so much of our day-to-day as editors is thinking about what that pace is gonna be.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um telling a story um visually, um, with dance, it's through movement, with with you know, editing, it's through picture.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it outside of that as well, it's a matter of like reading body language because so much of my job is, you know, sitting in a room with somebody and seeing what works and what doesn't, and working through that.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you're dancing performing, you can see in the audience if there's somebody who is checked out or if there's a moment where someone gets lost or is not into it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you can kind of feel it similarly as an editor.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you're sitting in a room with somebody, you can feel their body language shift.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um just having kind of a lifetime of that um before even starting editing kind of helps as well.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I always every time I see that, I'm like, oh, that's I need to go back and and tweak that section, you know, because somebody was not feeling it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's a good tip, actually.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the seven moment, you said that seeing the opening title sequence, uh, I I read somewhere um of the sequence uh seven in high school really stayed with you because it told the story without needing dialogue.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that moment when you realized, wait, somebody actually gets to create this?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And did that change the direction of your life?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know what's funny is like I loved that title sequence so much, and I started trying to like recreate things like that with my VHS tapes and like home movie camera, and it never dawned on me that that was a career at all.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that so often we learn that we learn about like directing or writing or acting, but you don't learn about all of the other um jobs that you would see in the credits.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was editing and not realizing that I was doing it.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it was when I first kind of when I got to LA and I got my first kind of night assistant editing job, I was like, oh wait, this is like actually, this is what I was doing.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is a yeah, it's a thing I can actually do and make money at it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: So so you when you were a kid, you you had a camera and you were editing stuff.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's that's amazing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I also shouldn't have been, I shouldn't have been watching seven when I was, you know, middle school, high school, but I of course, yeah, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just loved it so much.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: I still it's still one of my favorite movies.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's so good.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So were you making movies with your friends and and neighbors and stuff?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um or with your with your siblings?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was like me and me and my sister mostly.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would I sometimes would with friends, but it was mostly just like me at home and my with my sister um doing it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So did you go to school and to do filmmaking, or like how did it start the whole thing?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: How how did you break in?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: I well, I studied um journalism and political science.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my school didn't have a film program, but it was kind of the closest I could get.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then also, of course, um strict African parent, I had my political science uh as well.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um so I did that, but I was able to take some film courses in the process, you know, because of broadcast journalism and really like of course gravitated towards it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I wanted to get involved in the industry in some capacity.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and when I came out to LA, I didn't know anybody.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I really just kind of knocked on every door I could find and eventually got it, got got a job, the one as the night assistant editor.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's that's where I kind of realized that I could make a career out of that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of fell in love with storytelling all over again.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and just kind of worked at it from there.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the editor that I had on that project, uh Ben Meyer, recommended me to another, another post house, and then I worked there for two years and you know, just kind of built my way up.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, Steph, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna play a game, this or that, and it's a rapid fire game for the audience to get to know you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, are you ready?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm scared.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, don't worry.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Feature film or TV series?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can say both in some instances if you want.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, comedy or drama?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm gonna be both on everything, but both.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Marvel superhero or indie underdog?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Both, Daredevil or Kingpin.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna say this controversial.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say Kingpin.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, dialogue scene or action sequence?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um both.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: First cut or final cut?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: First cut.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh perfect performance or perfect camera shot.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect performance.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh horse girls emotional scene or daredevil fight scene?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Both.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh editing alone in complete silence or editing with music blasting.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe both.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I like to cut dailies with music in the background.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, another Emmy or your dream project with no awards attached.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Dream Project.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna move on to our uh next segment, finding your voice.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, editing is one of those jobs where if you do it really well, the audience may never notice what you did.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: When did you stop thinking only about making the cut work and start realizing this is my voice as an editor?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, I think so much of our job as editors is to kind of follow our gut.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: You can kind of feel when an edit's not working, you can feel when a story's not working.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um I will always feel imposter syndrome.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think we all do when we start on any project where you're just looking at a blank sequence and you're like, oh no, I have a lot ahead of me.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think once I once I kind of gained the confidence in in what is important in storytelling, um, that's kind of where I maybe found my voice.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think each project kind of dictates what it what it needs, you know.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is a little bit different.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really about having confidence in your ability to tell stories um and your ability to collaborate.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say that's kind of where where I figured out or found my voice in the editing room.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had an another guest, uh, she mentioned to me that they basically they had to create so many edits, and um there was kind of like no end, there was an end date, but like if you finish your edit, you keep you keep at it and you keep at it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: You do you do the best one, the best one, the best one, and you keep working on it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is it did you encounter this?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, every day always I'm I'm refining refining something, or I think all of us are maybe a little neurotic in some sort of way, where it's just like you have to keep like keep finessing it, keep keep doing something with it.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's kind of where deadlines can be a blessing.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: They're usually too like tighter than we would like them to be, but sometimes we need that because otherwise, like, you know, there's probab there's projects I worked on like, you know, years and years ago that I would still be still be messing with.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: So wow.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Deadlines, deadlines are good sometimes.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so you made history through your Emmy winning work, including Mental State Separated, and later a Black Lady Sketch Show.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, take me back to hearing your name called as an Emmy winner.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: What was going on through your head in those few seconds?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And who was the first person you thought about?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so for Mental State Separated, this was like 2020.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like peak COVID time.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was on the couch.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was sitting, it was Emmy's at home.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it was me and my cousin Zynga, who also worked on the project, um, her daughter, her mom.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we were all just kind of like at home sitting on the couch watching.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we all dressed up, but still we're on the couch.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was um, it was probably the most like surreal moment of my life.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was um not, I guess just not something I ever envisioned for myself happening.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say like the person I thought of um was probably like young me.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I like I just never would have imagined that.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was just a really cool, um, cool experience.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really um, I think it was just really like a touching moment for you know my cousin and I um and our community, and you know, as Sierra Leonean women, it's not very often that um that something like this happens.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just a really it was a really um big moment.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: I still have the video of it somewhere.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: You can see us just like screaming and like happy crying at each other.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: We were like, what?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, it would I would say it's like the most surreal thing that's probably ever happened.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And being at home on our couch all dressed up made it even more surreal.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's amazing.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in 2021, you and the editing team of a Black Lady Sketch Show won the primetime Emmy for outstanding picture editing for variety programming, and you continued an incredible run with wins in 2022 and 2023.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: At what point did the awards stop being just personal achievements and start feeling like something bigger?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, proof that doors were opening.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like you have basically you got more opportunities, or did it did it give you more opportunities, or maybe it didn't give you more opportunities?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think from you know, it's always felt like it's something bigger, given the fact that it's you know so rare that you would see an all-black editing team or an all-women editing team or all women of color editing team.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so it always felt a little bit bigger than all of us, you know.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think ultimately, like we want to see more people who look like us standing on that stage, you know, it's not about us.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's um also has to be said that, you know, that was in 2021, 22, and 23, and it should not have taken that long um for for an all-black editing team to win anything, you know, for any black editor to win to win an Emmy.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So um I think that's more a testament to like to an industry that's a little bit broken in that regard, but hopefully is also a testament to maybe things slowly starting to change.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um still still slower than I would like, but um, but those wins meant a lot.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um sometimes just existing when you're from a marginalized community is like an act of rebellion.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it kind of, you know, it felt a little bit like that, where you're just like, this is an incredible, incredible experience.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I just hope that hope that it helps other people um to be in that same position.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna move on to our next segment, uh Daredevil Born Again.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um you've edited comedy, drama, documentaries, and some incredibly emotional stories.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then suddenly enter the Marvel universe.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: What was your reaction when you found out you were going to work on Daredevil?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, excitement, pressure, fear, or all of the all of them?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, probably all of them, but I um I was a massive fan of the Netflix series, and so I was so so excited um to have the opportunity to cut on this show, but also just felt so much pressure, not only as like I have to prove myself to all of these people um that I'm working with, but also like I was like I as a fan, like I can't let myself down or let other other fans down.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think going into it, it was it was like just pressure because I was like, okay, I gotta gotta gotta really show up.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um Daredevil Born Again went through a major creative evolution during production, and the editing team had the difficult job of helping everything feel like one complete story.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: From an editor's point of view, how do you take material created at different stages of a production and make the audience feel like it was always meant to fit together?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was a challenge and it took a while.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that my unscripted background actually really helped in that regard because a lot of a lot of what happened during that um overhaul was that we already had about six episodes already shot and edited.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so it was a matter of like repurposing scenes, um, moving things around throughout those six episodes and elsewhere just to make sure that it all made sense.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so what we would do were conform edits, and that's basically like the writer's room is actively going, they'll come up with like maybe an order of like scene ideas where they're like, okay, what if it's something like this?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll do a conform edit, you'll kind of repurpose different scenes where you're like, okay, I know they're trying to build towards this.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll take the scenes that already exist, rework them, send kind of and and also there would be slates for hopeful additional photography where it's like, I hope that there's a scene that will be here.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So you kind of just put a slug in there.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we had just like, you know, weeks and weeks of just trying different ones.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, each day we would kind of come up with a new conform edit and send it to the writers, and then they would send back new ideas.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so we kind of it was it felt very collaborative in that way.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like we kind of pushed, like pushed things back and forth amongst amongst ourselves, but um, but it's also like a really fun puzzle to to try to solve.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know in one of my episodes it was like there's a lot of additional photography, but there's um, you know, a scene from like three episodes later of um Matt and Frank uh in Frank's uh lair.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so that got moved up.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be about something else.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was about Muse, got moved into my episode, and it was instead about Matt and his um Matt and Foggy and and um those it's it was just a really like interesting um exercise, I guess, to try to try to rework it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm happy with where we landed.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: They they shot it and then they sh is it they changed the the what what exactly happened?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the the original direction um was just um more of kind of a procedural drama, and um which you know it was fine.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't they weren't bad episodes, it was just a totally different direction of the show.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so um this was also during the strike strike times, and so there were a lot of um other things happening where we you know we kind of had to slow down, and and I think that's where kind of rethinking rethinking everything kind of started.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um and yeah, it was it was really just a just a change of of the show.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's you know it happens, but it, but it um yeah, I think it was we have a really strong team, so it was really um yeah, it was a uh interesting collaborative uh experiment to to work through.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Matt Murdoch can be quiet, vulnerable, and very human, and then their devil can explode into action.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: When you're editing those two sides on the same character, do you actually give them Different rhythms.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do you make us feel the change before he even puts on the mask?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that so many of the scenes, especially if it's like an like action or um, you know, horror, any sort of genres that have tension, um I kind of figure out which scenes are building and which ones are releasing tension, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of times when you're in Matt Murdoch world, the like tension is building, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's upset about something, he's thinking through something.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so those are scenes where like the tension is building.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times when he's in his suit as Daredevil, that's kind of tension release uh scenes because they're usually action, or it's like him heading into like an action sequence.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that would kind of be the difference between the two versions.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think I edit them similarly, it's just that I I try to figure out um which scenes are building versus releasing tension, and I think it's usually lands that way.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Daredevil editing challenge, action scenes can look exciting on paper, but if the audience can't understand what's happening, you've lost them.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're cutting Daredevil fight or high-stake sequence, what's more important to you first?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: The coolest shot, the emotion of the character, or making sure the audience always knows exactly where they are.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, to me, it's always, always about story.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: And usually by the time you land on an action sequence, you've had a significant amount of buildup to get there.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think it's important that any action sequence should be kind of focused on what story you're trying to tell and how that connects to everything else.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um when you have cool shots with it, that's a plus.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um and being able to understand where you are is also very important.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think I think those all kind of come hand in hand because I think you know, if you're focusing on telling the story, the story is also being flushed out by by figuring out your surroundings, figuring out where you are and how you got there.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna talk about horse girls from Marvel to Horse Girls.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love the contest between Daredevil Born Again and Horse Girls.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: One is this huge Marvel word, while Horse Girls is intimate, funny, emotional, and very human.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: As an editor, which is actually harder?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Cutting something huge and action-driven, or cutting a quiet scene where a tiny look on someone's face can change everything.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I think that cutting smaller, quieter scenes is one of the hardest things you can do because it's always those are very much focused on nuance, and Horse Girls especially has a lot of nuance within it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: But it's about, you know, making sure that your characters are experiencing things authentically, um making sure that those performances work, but also um, you know, I think it's important.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times it's like, oh, you're editing to make someone, the audience feel something.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, you're editing to make sure your characters feel something.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I always am like focused on, you know, focused on what that um performance within the scene is that makes makes that um makes that dynamic work, I think, between characters in those, in those kind of like smaller intimate moments, if that makes sense.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I I gen generally find that harder.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um And especially if it's an indie, sometimes you don't have time.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a lot of elements that that might be stacked against you.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's like you're kind of racing or trying to really really make something great um out of something very small.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so finding Margarita's rhythm, Horse Girls follows Margarita, a 22-year-old autistic woman, finding independence and community through the unexpected word of competitive hobby horsing.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you were shaping Margarita's journey in the edit, how important was it to let us experience the story at her rhythm instead of forcing her into the rhythm audiences normally expect from a coming-of-age movie?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there's there's a a specific way that I read the script, you know, and I pictured Margarita a certain way, um, just because, you know, you're reading, you don't have have like the cast in mind.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and when they cast Lillian Carrier to play Margarita, and she is such an amazing actress, and she brought so much to the role that like I never even never even thought about.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so every day that I would get dailies of her, it was just like learning something new and trying to find new things, new ways to to tell her story.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I think performance and and footage really kind of dictate what it what it needs to be.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And she was just so great at um playing this character so authentically that it's it made it very easy to cut.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: You almost didn't need to cut out of anything that she did because she just truly embodied this role.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, I think pacing-wise, it is a little different than what you know, if like what a traditionally cut film might be.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I I owe so much of that to um Lillian's uh performance as margarita because I think it really kind of showed me what it what it needed to be.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you edit a hobby horse competition and make people emotionally invested in it?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you were cutting those sequences, what did you discover that made you realize this isn't really about hobby horsing anymore?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's about margarita.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, it's the story itself is a very like heartfelt touching one.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think, you know, when we cut the final hobby horsing um performance, the like the very first pass of it, I cut it very traditionally where it's like, okay, here's the the coverage we have.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're just, you know, it's cutting a last performance.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: But um as the film kind of got more and more in shape, we realized that that performance really is just about Margarita.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's just about what she's experiencing in that moment.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's just suffered a loss, you know, and she's she's um she's kind of finding her stride in this final, final moment.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you look at that final performance, it really is only on her.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: We stayed, stayed on the the takes that were really just focused on her until toward like we get later into the performance.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that was that was solely to just drive the emotion of that that sequence.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that a lot of the um a lot of the hobby horsing in the in the film ultimately ended up um playing out in that way as well, where it's really were in her in her perspective, um, and not so much just looking at like a traditional hobby horsing uh performance or practice or anything like that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna take a final break and we're gonna play game true or false.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's time to test some facts about your life and career.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Steph, are you ready?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can say both also the same thing.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm scared again.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, don't worry.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, as an editor.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um sorry, true or false, an editor can save a scene that didn't completely work on set.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true or false comedy.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: True or false comedy is harder to edit than drama.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, sometimes the best edit is actually not making a cut.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, you've become emotionally attached to a scene and fought to keep it in the final cut.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: True, true or false, you've what you've watched a finished project and immediately spotted a cut you wish you could change.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, editing Daredevil made you look at action scenes differently.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, horse girls made you emotional while you were sitting in the editing room.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, winning an Emmy creates more pressure for the next project.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sadly true.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, your background in dance still influence the rhythm of your editing today.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, true or false, there's still there's still one dream project on your list that will make you drop everything and say yes.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh, we're gonna go to our final segment: purpose and what comes next.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Next, your career goes far beyond Hollywood.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've worked with organizations and campaigns supporting women and girls.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're connected to Sierra Leone through your activism and you're used editing as a tool for social change.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: After the Emmys, Daredevil, Horse Girls, and everything else you'd accomplished.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want the next generation of editors, especially young women and girls, who don't see themselves represented behind the camera, uh, to learn from your journey?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think um I I really want people who are coming up to know that they that their voice is important in the editing room.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um that they can make or break a project.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's really, it's really their their um their job, but also we have kind of a responsibility to think about the ethics of any project that we work on.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um and so it's you have to fight for the characters that you're whose stories you're telling, and you have to be able to have those conversations um with other people in the room.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um I hope that anybody, I would hope that any of the next generations coming up would, you know, really focus on that and make sure to to remember that the ethics are ethics are important and telling stories authentically is really important.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um I just hope to see, again, more people who look like me in the cutting room.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think by by productions seeing seeing folks who look like me in the in the cutting room and who are advocating for the the stories that they're telling, um will hopefully only keep keep increasing the amount of of diversity we see behind behind the scenes.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: So do you have any tips or recommendations for uh upcoming editors or people who are they want to follow your path?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any tips?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think just always be always be editing, like just have have as many samples as you can, but also just just practice as much as you can.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because whenever that opportunity comes, if you're not prepared for it, um it's gonna be difficult.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: So just just always always be practicing um and always uh be like knowledgeable about other people who are who are in post.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think it's anytime you watch a movie, if you're like, I really like how that was edited, like look at who edited it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can try to connect with that person, um and if not, just have their have their name um like in the back of your head.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's always helpful to know to know who different editors are and you can follow their work.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I would say always just, yeah, always just be learning and and practicing.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: And also just like experiencing life, like go out and and travel and and have life experiences because the more um the more life experience you have, the better you are at telling stories because you will you can relate more to those stories.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Stephanie, do you have any projects, dream projects that you'd like to work on or work with directors or producers or studios?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Any yeah, yeah, I do, but I I don't I don't I have a lot of them, but I I don't want to say it because I will um jinx jinx myself.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and finally, can you talk uh about any projects you're working on right now or upcoming projects you you're you're gonna be working on?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Can you actually can you talk about any new projects?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um because of the NBA stuff.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, uh Horse Girls is now available to rent or buy, I know.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Daredevil season three will be out soon.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um so can't wait for for everybody to see it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I have another another thing in the works that I can't tell you about yet.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thanks, Stephanie.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're nearing the end of the show.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's all, folks.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for watching, Stephanie Filo, everyone.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Stephanie.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was a pleasure to have you.