By Alyssa Heater

The Paramount series Yellowstone, created by Taylor Sheridan, has become a cultural phenomenon over the span of its five seasons. The drama surrounding the Dutton family and the fate of their ranch has drawn millions of devoted viewers who are eagerly awaiting the release of Season 5’s final episodes.

We recently sat down with Yellowstone editor and longtime Sheridan collaborator Chad Galster, ACE, to discuss all things editorial on the fifth and final season of the series.

Chad Galster

You’ve worked with Taylor Sheridan since the beginning of Yellowstone. You also worked on its prequels, 1883 and 1923, and on Mayor of Kingstown. How does having a sort of shorthand help to achieve the desired pace?
Yes, we’ve been working together for a long time, so that means a couple of things. One is that, over the years, it’s become clear that we see movies and TV the same way. There’s a benefit to a longstanding relationship like this one, where I can tell if he’s going to like something or not. And when he doesn’t like something, I can usually figure out what the fix is pretty quickly. The more that you collaborate with a person, you actually talk less as time goes on because you understand what that person wants to see.

As far as pacing out the story for Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923, each show generally has its own rhythm. It’s a rhythm that makes sense to me from the footage that comes in and from the way it was directed, shot and performed.

How do you work with Taylor on the edit?
We work rather closely, even though he’s based in Texas, and I live in Los Angeles. When we’re working together on a show, I’ll travel to him about every two weeks so we can work in person, even if it’s just for a few days. You get that irreplaceable, in-person dynamic. It’s just that thing, the way he breathes, the way he does something or a look that he gives me. I’ll say to myself, “Oh, he didn’t like that shot.”

That in-person aspect of our relationship is really important. For as much as we’ve all gotten used to communicating and collaborating over Zoom, there’s a part of my job that I think benefits from the time we spend together. I think it’s a key to our success.

Any other key collaborators involved in the creative decision-making process?
Many. My friend Michael Friedman, who introduced me and Taylor years ago, is one of our creative producers and a central part of the team. They’ve known each other for 20 or 25 years at this point, way before all of the craziness of Yellowstone started. When we’re working together, it’s often Taylor, Michael and I figuring out the best way to present the show.

Speaking of shorthand, the longevity of the show and these relationships — from our composers to our sound team — means that there is a shorthand in communication. Typically, we create these shows on an accelerated schedule, so it helps to have partners you don’t have to exchange a lot of words with because they just get it. That’s a big part of our success as well.

How did you handle the pacing for Yellowstone and its prequels? And how does Season 5 differ from the previous seasons?
When I’m working, I don’t think about it. What I do think about are the visual dynamics within the show — moments to stop and start, moments to make things very violent and then moments that bring it down so it gets very quiet and still. In my mind, that’s how you keep an audience engaged.

I was an amateur musician for about half my life, so dynamics, volume and pace are important aspects of people connecting to classical music. I think of editing much in the same way. For example, if you’re just going to have a barrage of gunfire, that’s going to get old with your audience pretty quickly. You have to be constantly thinking of ways to change up the rhythm and the flow of what you’re doing.

Off the top of my head, in Episode 1 of Season 5, when John Dutton is sworn in, there was a fun moment when I sucked all the sound out of the scene. There’s a young girl singing the national anthem when all the sound goes away, and he’s just locked into his mind. Then he starts to hear the church bell chime.

Using sound, in addition to picture, to change the rhythm of what we’re doing is more than any specific overall rhythm given to the season. Those little moments are a key to keeping our audience engaged. And I’m just always looking for places to do that.

Speaking of the violence, there is a scene from Episode 3 of Season 5 that stands out. The Dutton Ranch cowboys and Beth are at a bar, and a girl is flirting with Rip. Beth is having none of it, so there’s a beer bottle over the head, and the entire bar breaks out into a fight. Then it’s a quick cut. The cops are there, and they’re all standing outside. Tell us a bit about that scene.
That’s a fun story because it’s based on a real thing that happened to Taylor. A lot of things are drawn from experiences he’s had. I think the violence in Yellowstone can be quick and brutal, but it’s not drawn out. We’re conscious of not making it melodramatic. The way that things turn in real life are sudden, and they’re quick and they’re violent, but then they’re over with.

A bar fight doesn’t last for five minutes; it lasts for 30 seconds or until someone gets punched in the face, and then they’re done. There’s a bit of an entertainment spectacle to what we’re doing. It is a TV show, so the fight has some entertainment value — no one is going to die in that fight, so the stakes are somewhat low.

And it’s funny the way it evolves. You have the guitarist up on the stage who just keeps playing through it. This is what happens in this bar. He probably saw another fight earlier that night. Then boom, it’s done and we’re on to the next thing. We don’t belabor it.

Who is your assistant editor, and what is your collaboration process like?
There are several on the show, but mine is Michael Goldberg, who has been with me for a couple of years now. He’s based in Atlanta — that’s the way the world works now. It used to be that we would all be in the same office together, trading ideas back and forth. I do miss that collaboration. Before Michael, it was Brooke Rupe.  She worked with me from Season 2 of Yellowstone as well as on Those Who Wish Me Dead and up to 1883, when she started to get editing credits. I tend to work with my assistants closely and for an extended period.

The shows that we make are on a very tight schedule, so you need to trust the people that you’re working with. My relationship with my first assistant editor is vital. Because I travel a lot to work with Taylor, my assistant will prep travel materials and encrypt drives for me. We work in some pretty remote parts of Texas, so there is a lot that I depend on them for. Michael has been a great partner and so was Brooke. Eventually a lot of them want to move on to editing, and I consider it my responsibility to help facilitate that. That’s part of the job, but it’s tough when they go.

Let’s shift gears and talk tech. What system do you use to edit?
I use Avid Media Composer v2018.12.15 because I love that particular interface. In 20 years, I have only done one thing that wasn’t on Avid, a History Channel show from 2005 that was on Final Cut 7.

As far as editing tools go, I believe very strongly that you should use whatever tool you feel comfortable with. The reason Avid works for me is because I am so used to the interface. I don’t even think about it anymore. A long time ago, it became muscle memory for me — I think about what I want to have happen and then my fingers do it. Beyond that, if you are working in episodic television or collaborating with other people, Avid has the collaboration aspect of file sharing worked out in a way that I haven’t seen replicated anywhere else.

Do you use plugins?
I’m spoiled. When you work on a TV show with a big budget, there are a lot of folks who take on the other jobs. My responsibility is picture editing, sound editing and sound effects editing, then it goes off to other folks. Because my responsibility is limited to the craft of cutting the picture and the sound, that’s all I have to do. When we use plugins, I use a very basic set of them. The shows that I work on don’t depend on editing effects very often. There is a lot of compositing, bluescreen and visual effects, but I just need to have a temp comp done, and it doesn’t take much. I have my Avid, and that’s all I need.

How did you work with the sound team at Formosa — supervising sound editor Jay Nierenberg and mixers Diego Gat and Sam Ejnes. How do you achieve a soundscape that matches the intensity of the picture?
Every editor is different in how they handle their sound in the offline. I tend to be very meticulous. For example, the inauguration scene where all the sound gets sucked out — that was something that I did in the offline.

I provide a specific blueprint for what I think the sound should be on our episodes. We have a fantastic sound team who will then take that and elevate it. What’s important to me is that we hire these artists for what they bring to the table. I always tell folks what I think, but if they have a better idea, let’s hear it. I’m not tied to anything, I just want the show to be the best that it can be.

Our teams are longstanding collaborators, so we can go back and forth, and they know what the basics of the world are. We all know how to do horse sounds and cowboy sounds, but what could we do that’s different than what we’ve done before? Soundscape and sound design are, in a lot of ways, the easiest way to do that.

When we spot the episodes, we’ll have a Zoom session. We’ll watch the episode and, after every scene, pause and ask, “What do you guys think?” “Do you want to try this?” They’ll ask me, “How tied are you to this particular kind of music?” And we’ll just go back and forth. My general answer is that I’m not tied to it; improve on it, make it better or do something different. If we don’t come up with something different, then what was in the offline is a reasonable blueprint for something that would be cool. A lot of collaboration, a lot of trust and a lot of really great artists are involved at all of those stages.

Anything else that you would like to share about your experience editing Yellowstone?
This show, this job and my relationship with Taylor are the highlights of my professional career. I enjoy the community of people that is interested in it, and the enthusiasm for the work is really rewarding. It’s not something that we take for granted. It was also completely unexpected.

We were making Yellowstone for a couple years just going about our business, and then suddenly it exploded in popularity. It’s cool that people connect to the material that way. But we haven’t really changed anything about what we’re doing. We’re still mostly the same folks making the same show. So hopefully that’s what continues.

Alyssa Heater is a writer working in the entertainment industry. When not writing, you can find her front row at heavy metal shows or remodeling her cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains.