By Randi Altman

Director Matthew Gentile’s feature film debut, American Murderer, is based on the true story of a charming con man (Jason Derek Brown, played by Tom Pelphrey) who takes one robbery way too far. Besides Pelphrey, it also stars Idina Menzel and Ryan Phillippe.

L-R: Matthew Gentile and Matt Allen

Also written by Gentile, the story mostly unfolds in Utah, with Brown finding illegal ways of paying for his extravagant lifestyle while an FBI agent (Phillippe) is hot on his tail and as he’s romancing a woman (Menzel) with a young son. The film was shot by cinematographer Kalilah Robinson, who worked with colorist Katie Jordan at Light Iron in Hollywood for the grade.

We recently spoke with Gentile and his editor, Matt Allen, about making the film during the height of the pandemic, their workflows and how previz played a big role in finding the story.

 What was the film shot on?
Matt Allen: We used the ARRI Amira camera. Most of the shoot was single-camera, but we were fortunate enough to have two cameras on a couple of the days with the action/ set piece scenes.

Matthew and Kalilah do a great job of working together on-set, making their days and shooting very efficiently to get what we needed to tell the story well.

Matthew Gentile: I am very happy with how the look of the film turned out. Kalilah and I have used the Amira on our shorts Lawman and the American Murderer proof of concept, and the lenses we chose (Zeiss standard speeds) were crucial to how we were going to accomplish the different looks needed for the film. She knows how to run a film set, lead a camera crew and collaborate so well.

What about the camcorder footage and older TV/surveillance footage? Was that look created in post?
Allen: We also shot for one day with the Red camera for all the scenes that take place on a boat, which are revisited throughout the film as camcorder footage. We wanted to shoot on a different camera so it had a very different feel and look from the rest of the film.

The visual effects team, led by VFX supervisor Arthur Mesa, treated that footage to create the full camcorder look with graphics. We also used DJI Osmo action cameras for the surveillance footage.

Gentile: Yes, the tiny DJI cameras were easily mountable at various locations throughout the shoot, and the look felt appropriate for telling the story of surveillance — Jason Derek Brown leaving behind digital clues for the cops and the audience.

Where did you shoot, and for how long?
Gentile: We shot in November and December of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. We were the only feature film shooting in Utah at the time. Principal production was 22 days, with some additional pickup days for second unit photography, which was done in April 2021.

I was fortunate to have great producers — Kevin Matusow, Carissa Buffel and Gia Walsh — who believed in me and helped pull off this production in the midst of a global pandemic.

How early did Matt get involved?
Gentile: Matt got involved in preproduction during the summer of 2020 and played a unique role. At the time, he had received the prestigious Eric Zumbrunnen Fellowship from the American Cinema Editors and was working under Oscar-nominated editor Matt Chesse (ACE) as an assistant editor.

I had met Matt Allen at film school at AFI, and he impressed me the very first time we met. I kept an eye on his career because I knew he was going places. During the pandemic, Matt had taught himself this previsualization program called ShotPro and offered to help previsualize some scenes from American Murderer with me.

Not knowing much about the process, I was skeptical at first if this was going to be helpful to my prepro process, and I didn’t think I could hire Matt to edit the film (since I was a first-time director, and normally producers encourage you to work with department heads that are more experienced). Matt didn’t care about that, and with his positive attitude, we jumped right into previz. I realized very quickly that Matt and I worked really well together and that he had to cut this movie. Seeing all the hard work Matt had done before a single frame was shot and his resume as an assistant editor, it was a pretty easy sell to the producers. I credit Matt with getting me directing again before the shoot happened in Utah.

Allen: We did previz on scenes in preproduction with Matthew was a really important time for us. It allowed us to get on the same page creatively. As an editor, I think we can sometimes be at a disadvantage in preproduction compared to some of the other department heads.

Creating previz and editing previz with the director allows me to start that collaboration early with a director. Once the actors are there, the footage is hitting my editing system, and the clock has started, you can feel the pressure because every day of production is expensive.

Having that time with Matthew allowed me to know what he was looking for in the edit, and I credit that with a better first cut of the film. Obviously, you still have a great deal of molding and shaping to do with the director to get to the finished film, but starting in a great place makes your director feel secure and willing to try things and explore the final rewrite of the film.

Matt, were you on-set? Near set? Keeping up with camera?
Allen: I was not on-set. I was back in Los Angeles receiving digital dailies each day through the dailies system provided by Radar DIT. Over the phone, Matthew and I would talk about how the shoot was progressing, but we did dailies separately.

L-R: Matthew Gentile and Matt Allen in the editing suite

Matthew would call out takes he liked while shooting and ask my opinion about performance. There was a high level of trust that developed quickly because of the previz for the film, especially for all the action and set pieces.

Were there any instances where you told Matthew you needed more coverage?
Allen: We didn’t have time to go back and get additional footage because the production was changing locations every day, so Matthew’s rigorous storyboarding and previz helped ensure we got what we need to craft a scene.

Gentile: As much as the preplanning helped, I didn’t follow the previz and storyboards exactly. Some great filmmakers I love, like Alfred Hitchcock, storyboard everything and follow it very closely. Matt is also a big Hitchcock fan, and we love to draw inspiration from the greats in cinema.

In fact, Matt actually paid homage to Psycho in the film with how he cut together a driving scene of Jason Derek Brown on the run. Brown is looking at the things he passes by, like a pawnshop, a strip club, a loan office, etc. It has quite a few similarities to the driving scene in Psycho toward the beginning of the film, when Janet Leigh hears voices in her head.

However, as a first-time director, I would ask the actors —like Ryan Phillippe, who has worked with some of the best and has directed some projects himself — what the best directors do. They would all say roughly the same thing: The directors are prepared and have a vision but are flexible and collaborative.

That’s what all this preplanning with Matt and my other wonderful department heads did. It allowed me to have a strong plan going in, but I deviated and reacted whenever needed. A great example of something being better than you possibly imagine was Tom Pelphrey’s performance as Jason. I realized quickly that I had to shoot him on wider lenses than I anticipated because Tom brought so much physicality to the performance.

Allen: Yes, we would often want to play things wider with Tom because his performance wasn’t just in his eyes or his face, but in his whole body. A great example of this is the golf course scene, when Tom’s character is trying to convince his brother to help him. Tom is pacing back and forth, and his body language adds so much to the scene; you need to see that as an audience member to understand his desperation in that moment.

Matthew, how much footage did you shoot? Was it tidy, or did you shoot a good amount of takes?
Gentile: Due to the schedule restraints, I had to be efficient. I didn’t have the luxury to come back to locations or shoot one scene over several days at the same place. But I did give my actors time to explore the scene and bring that emotional authenticity.

Matthew Gentile (right) on-set.

Also, sometimes movie magic strikes, and you get something wonderful in the first or second take, or an actor does something even better than you wrote. That happened quite a bit on this movie — this great cast of actors elevated my script, and sometimes their ad libs were better than the lines that I had written. And that’s an ideal situation.

Allen: I will add that watching dailies every day was incredibly energizing. It was fun to watch these amazing actors work at their craft. As editor, sometimes it’s your job to get out of the way; just sit on an amazing performance and let that actor work. The fun of cutting this film was that you have moments of pure performance mixed in with a nonlinear structure and some sequences that required quite bit of intercutting to get right.

It was great to edit the movie Matthew designed because American Murderer is a movie that takes advantage of the craft of editing to propel the story forward and create tension.

Can you provide an example of the intercutting?
A great one is the theater stalking sequence as Jason plans his crime. I think the interesting part of the film is that it is true character study, and you’re getting to see Jason through all these other characters’ perspectives — his sister, his brother, his mother, his real estate agent who he has a love affair with, her son and the special agent who is hunting him.

Honestly, my personal favorite intercut scenes are in the last 15 minutes of the movie, when you see the consequences Jason’s crime has on his various family members and the manhunt for him. I don’t want to give too many spoilers away.

What direction did you get from Matthew in terms of the pace of the edit?
Allen: American Murderer is a true crime thriller, so we wanted to craft a “ride” for the audience to go on for about 100 minutes that grabbed and kept the their attention. Matthew and I had quite a few conversations about tone because we knew it was going to be challenging. The tone was going to have to shift subtly but confidently throughout the film.

We were starting in a place where people would be intrigued by Jason, and maybe even like him, then going to a situation where the whole world is collapsing around him due to his decisions. A big challenge was the nonlinear structure and how much we could scramble up the timeline without confusing the audience. We did some virtual audience previews and screened it for some trusted and veteran directors and editors, and this really helped us discover the right blend of mixing up the timeline.

Editor Matt Allen editing on Avid Media Composer.

Gentile: Matt did an excellent job with helping me craft the nonlinear structure in the film and making it even better. He’s definitely a director’s best friend. I really needed his help in the third act of the film. The way the script was written in the first two thirds of the film were nonlinear, but the third act was completely linear. It worked well on the page, but after shooting and getting into editing, we realized we were having an issue around our climax — after all that build-up, it fell kind of flat. Matt devised what we referred to as the “third-act scramble.” He blew my mind when he went out on his own and created a whole chase sequence in the third act out of stock footage from other movies. That inspired me to go out and shoot this chase during our second unit photography.

Also, as Matt mentioned, getting the right tone for the film was very important to me, and music plays a huge role in setting the tone. Personally, I find the concept of temp music to be a little silly and challenging, but when Matt temps music, he is very careful and deliberate with what he chooses. This really helped my brother Scott when he became involved as composer, and things went to a whole new level when they started working together. Matt was definitely a co-author of the film.

Matthew, how were you seeing Matt’s cuts?
Gentile: We created in our own editorial bubble, and I would go over to Matt’s home editing bay in Los Feliz and work with him in person most days. It’s hard to replicate that creative synergy over a computer screen. A lot of times Matt and I would go on walks through the Franklin Hills in Los Feliz and talk about the edit.

Occasionally, I would look at cuts on Pix or use PacPost or Evercast when I was in New York. I would say the most amazing remote collaboration occurred between Matt —who not only edited the film, but also served as the score producer, previz editor, music editor and post supervisor — and my brother Scott, the composer. They did the entire score remotely with Matt in LA and Scott in New York and met for the first time at the film’s premiere at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy. Matt and Scott had this synergy working together that was fun to watch. It was so rewarding to watch Scott craft this first film score and bring all his incredible talent as a world-renowned conductor to the film world.

Side note: I got to meet my idol, Francis Ford Coppola, at the Taormina Film Festival!

Any examples of notes given during the edit?
Gentile: Matt was really good at taking feedback from me and the producers. Neither of us are precious. I didn’t find so much that I was “giving him notes” because I felt very much that Matt and I were on the same side and in it together. Co-authors, collaborators working together to tell the same story. The mission was to improve the picture. Period. We both want to craft the movie for the audience experience. And that was true of so many people on this film, who gave so much time and energy to bring this thing to life. They put the story first. A big thank you to our incredible Utah crew.

Matt, what system did you use to edit on? Any plugins?
Allen: I edited on Avid Media Composer. It’s my go-to nonlinear editing software, and it’s great for living with a film for a long time. To get the dialogue to sound extra-clean, I used the iZotope RX plugin. I also took advantage of the built-in RTAS (Real Time Audio Suite) plugins in Avid quite a bit, especially for music editing and sound design.

Often with gun shots and the club music, I wanted a particular reverb for the sound to sit in a specific space for a scene. I spent quite a bit of time getting the sound of the source music correct for the club scenes using reverb and other audio EQ tools in Avid.

Did you have an assistant editor on the film? If so, how did you work with them?
Allen: Lead assistant editor Jing Han played a pivotal role in the online/conform, turnovers and dropping in all the VFX. We wouldn’t have finished the movie without her. She is amazing. Jing is very skilled at her job as assistant editor and eager to learn. I would highly recommend that anyone hire her.

Gentile: Jing was a great asset to the editorial team, and we hope to have her on the next film.

Where was the film’s finishing done?
Allen: We had a great post team. The color was done by Katie Jordan at Light Iron, and John Chamberlin served as the sound mixer, with final mix completed at Warner Bros. Wes Hughes also served as a score producer and played a pivotal role in producing the film’s score.

Our VFX supervisor completed many of our visual effects and led a team of independent artists and visual effects grad students out of the Academy of Art in San Francisco to finish all VFX for the film.

What is something you both learned from making this film?
Allen: While making this movie, I learned the importance of having a great team around you. This was a very ambitious debut feature film, and we were fortunate to have so many wonderful collaborators in so many departments.

Gentile: What I learned from making this film is to hire Matt Allen. This guy has an amazing work ethic and is an incredible artist. And all his talent and hard work make me look good as a director. I know he would do a fantastic job for any director that hired him to cut a film. He’s definitely someone I would keep your eye on.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 25 years.