By Ben Mehlman

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered while visiting his cousins in Mississippi. Orion Pictures’ Till, directed by Chinonye Chukwu (Clemency), tells the story of this brutal piece of American history from the perspective of Emmett’s mother, Mamie (Danielle Deadwyler), as she searches for justice in the wake of her son’s death.

Editor Ron Pantane, ACE

Helping to bring this film to life is editor Ron Patane, ACE, whose work includes Blue Valentine, A Most Violent Year and The Place Beyond the Pines. We recently sat down to discuss the delicate balance of how to depict the film’s racially motivated violence, the power of not cutting away from emotionally raw performances and Patane’s working relationship with director Chukwu.

How’d you first become involved in the project?
I had some knowledge of Emmett Till’s story from school but didn’t know many details. I vaguely remember the open casket and the effect that had, but I didn’t remember a lot of it. So reading the script, and the story itself, was pretty new, and I found it really emotional, partly because I’m a parent, and this is every parent’s worst nightmare. I read a lot of scripts, and I don’t normally get emotional, but it hit me how important it was to tell this story.

I also liked Chinonye’s take on the film, which was very much Mamie’s story, and I really liked her previous film Clemency. Plus, I thought using my abilities to tell an important story like this seemed like the right thing to do. So I met with Chinonye, who was very direct in testing people to see if they’d be the right person to go on such an intense journey. Then they offered me the job, and I was thrilled and honored by the opportunity.

Director Chinonye Chukwu on-set

What was your post setup, and what did you edit on?
I used Avid Media Composer. I came up editing on Final Cut Pro until they changed it, so I figured I might as well learn Media Composer since it’s pretty much the industry standard. The first job I did with Media Composer was The Wizard of Lies with Barry Levinson, and I’ve been using it ever since.

As far as my setup goes, it’s nothing too fancy. In terms of sound, I like to make sure I have a subwoofer to monitor the way the sound is going to translate in a theater or someplace that has full sound reproduction. I’ve not done that in the past and ended up in trouble when you got to a theater and suddenly there are all these low frequencies you didn’t know were there and you are giving people heart palpitations (laughs).

I also always work in stereo; I’ve never done an offline in surround.

How long was post, and how much was remote versus in-person?
None of it was remote. This was my first job back in an office every day since the pandemic. We had a space in Manhattan owned by Company 3. I had the option of doing dailies remotely while they were shooting but wanted to start and continue in the office since we had the opportunity to do that. It felt like a way to get focused again. While working from home can be great, I think some separation between home life and work life is a good thing.

Then once they wrapped shooting, Chinonye was very hands-on. She was there almost every day. It’s much better to collaborate in-person. I find the remote thing to be sort of difficult.

What did you use for dailies? PIX?
Yes, I believe it was PIX, but I never look at PIX. I have the dailies on my system, so that’s where I watch everything. But it’s a great way for everyone during production to see dailies, and it’s also a great way for me to send things to Chinonye while she’s on-set.

I’ve worked in many different ways with different directors. For example, J. C. Chandor really likes to see things as they’re being shot to know how everything is working. Derek Cianfrance is the opposite. For a long time, we never even edited during production because he didn’t want to deal with it yet. He liked to just shoot and then come in and start from scratch. That is not usually something the schedule allows you to do, so now we don’t do that anymore.

Chinonye liked to look at things, but it wasn’t her main concern. She wasn’t watching everything I sent her and giving notes all the time. If there were any specific concerns about a scene, we would communicate, but it was mainly me going through the dailies and then making an assembly while they were shooting.

Given the subject matter of the film, what were your early tone discussions like with Chinonye?
It was more about point of view and how the story would be told in terms of not showing violence against black bodies and presenting a certain respect and joy — as much as there could be given the film’s heavy subject matter. That’s what she was after.

We didn’t have a ton of discussion, as things were really busy getting ready for prep. DP Bobby Bukowski didn’t even come on until about two weeks before. It just happens that way sometimes. So we didn’t have a ton of discussions until we got in the room together after production.

Can you elaborate on what went into deciding what to show and how long to show it, in terms of the violence?
That’s something I’ve discussed a lot about the film because the construction of the film itself is pretty simple, right? Regarding the editing, there’s nothing flashy or tricky going on. A lot of it is about restraint and trust in the material. Chinonye had a very specific vision, meaning that a lot of what was shown or not was part of her original conception.

A lot of what I did was take that vision and go further with it because there were other things that were written and shot that showed other points of view, like being with Emmett after he’s abducted. What I realized as I was putting it together, especially with Danielle’s incredible performance, was that sticking to her POV was the way to go — that we should commit to it 100% and get rid of a lot of the things that would violate her POV. This isn’t just an academic approach but an emotional one too. You want to be in her shoes. You don’t want to know things she wouldn’t know or see things she couldn’t see.

This also applied to the historical context of the time. There are a lot of connections to other people, events and backgrounds that led to Emmett Till’s death — like Brown v. Board of Education — that could’ve been in this film, but that’s not what it’s about. Chinonye never wanted this to be a history lesson; it had to feel lived in and breathed in and fresh, despite it being a period piece.

So, while a lot of the editing was about certain scenes or moments going away, it was also about not falling into the temptation to give too much context. One of the things I like about the film is almost all the context you get for what’s happening during that era is coming through a character’s perspective. It’s on the radio or a TV; it’s not an editing device, like inserted archival footage. It’s almost all from Mamie’s point of view.

Danielle’s performance is amazing and can certainly hold the weight of that responsibility.
She is amazing. One of the other things we talked about was this being an origin story of a real-life superhero — not one who wears a cape and flies around but one who had the power to turn a horrible tragedy, especially for a parent, into something transformational. That makes sense because Mamie says in the film that she’s not really worried about what’s going on down south, that it was somebody else’s problem.

Then she gets drawn into this thing and finds the power to become one of the figures leading this movement. This plays out in various ways, like when we see Emmett’s body and she’s trying to be strong but breaks down, as anybody would. Then she finds the strength to stand up, her expression changes, and she makes the decision that people need to see this.

So for me, if you were going to point at one moment, that might be the moment that shows the idea of this film as an origin story. It’s Mamie somehow finding strength and purpose in this tragedy, and by the end, she’s on stage giving the speech and becoming part of this movement, even if somewhat reluctantly.

Part of what makes Till work is setting up Emmett as a larger-than-life personality whose absence hangs over most of the film. What was it like getting the right balance for this?
First, I think Jayln Hall did a great job of making Emmett memorable as this life-affirming and joyous boy. A lot of it is about his absence, but I also love that the film finds a couple of places to magically bring him back, whether that’s looking through the window into the store or at the end. In a story that’s heavy and real, it’s powerful to be able to have some magic in there, a spark of something greater.

The whole thing is set in motion by what happens to this woman’s son, right? So, he’s always there in every decision she makes. It’s all for him up until the end, when Mamie realizes that one verdict is not going to change this. This is echoed earlier in her conversation with Dr. Howard (Roger Guenveur Smith) by the pool or in the one she has with Mooty (Kevin Carroll) on her porch, when he’s trying to get Mamie to use this moment for political action.

These guys have been in this fight for a long time; they understand the context. Whereas, for Mamie, it’s personal. Then, when she goes down to Mississippi to testify, she sees it’s a lost cause and realizes that they’re right and that there’s still work left to do.

The camera doesn’t look away from the rawest moments of Mamie’s anguish. Can you talk about helping craft her performance and how much of her pain is the right amount to show?
I could tell how focused she was from day one and take one. A lot of what she has to do is hard to play; it’s very emotional, so you can’t do a lot of takes. You don’t want to tire her out, but even if we had one take of every scene from her or one camera angle, it would’ve still been great because that’s all she needed. So it quickly became apparent that when in doubt, we could just go to Danielle. We can always stay on her and it’ll work.

Another thing, which was part of the restraint and trust I was talking about earlier, was having what I would call the unflinching eye — to not have the option of looking away. That’s not to say we’d focus on the violence and not look away. There, you see just enough to know what it was like and no more. It’s about not looking away from Mamie and her pain, allowing us to really dwell there and not make it easy for the audience. It takes a certain amount of restraint to be able to do that. The performance is incredible, and you need to feel that anguish to then understand the transformation that she goes through. By the end you see the way forward.

What is it like to work on something so emotionally intense for so long?
It’s funny, we were at this Q&A at NYU, and it came up how there was a therapist on-set. I was like, “Well, there wasn’t a therapist in the edit room.” (laughs)

For one thing, anybody that knows my filmography knows a lot of what I work on is emotionally heavy. It’s kind of my thing; it’s what I do. Does it affect my mental health? I’m not sure. My wife might have another opinion (laughs). I think I’m attracted to stories with this kind of emotional weight. There is a compartmentalization of emotion that happens when I’m editing. At the same time, whenever I’m editing, I’m just trying to make myself feel something, hoping that if I feel it, it’ll translate to the audience.

Were there any VFX used to help with the time period setting?
Yes, most of it was about removing things. There were a few background extensions, like the train station, and some exterior work was done for Marshall Field’s at the beginning of the film. Our production designer, Curt Beech, and his team did a great job with a lot of practical work with the cars, costumes, buildings and making it all come to life. For the reason, the VFX work was mainly about taking stuff away, except for those few locations. All that work was done by Crafty Apes in Atlanta.

What was the most difficult scene to crack and why?
I was saying the other day that there’s always the scene in a movie that you cut the first time and it stays that way. Then there’s the scene you’re tinkering with right to the very end that you’re never sure is right. A lot of the scenes in the film, especially the ones that are one-on-one conversations, were fairly strong from the beginning.

I’d say the scene I mentioned earlier, when Mamie talks to Dr. Howard by the pool, was trickier. We kept messing with exactly what should be said and how much or how little they should say. It was a really important scene that had some challenges, as there was not a lot of coverage because that was a day when they didn’t have a ton of time. It was like a little puzzle to find the right balance.

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How much did the story evolve over post?
There was a little bit of removing moments from the white perspective, but to me the biggest change was deciding not to show Emmett again after he was abducted. There was material of that (not any of the violence), but it seemed much stronger without it. You wanted to feel what the world felt, especially Mamie, once he was taken and you just don’t see him again.

Finally, what are you watching that you’re loving right now?
Well, I’d been playing the game Clue with my daughter, so we ended up watching the movie together. Then I mentioned how I hadn’t seen Knives Out, which is supposed to be great, and how the sequel’s about to come out, so maybe we should watch those. But first, so we know the background, we should watch Murder on the Orient Express, so I watched that with my daughter and thought it was great. I loved seeing the simplicity and how elegantly that film works. I love Sidney Lumet, and the film held up so well.

A lot of the stuff I watch is from the ‘70s. I was just reading Quentin Tarantino’s new book “Cinema Speculation,” and a lot of what he talks about in there is the stuff I’m really into. People wouldn’t know this from my filmography, but I love B movies, exploitation and horror, especially from the ‘70s. So I’ve also been going back through that stuff too.