The Sundance film Mass, written by first-time director Fran Kranz, follows two sets of parents who meet again several years after they lose their sons in a school shooting. It explores the process of grieving and finding forgiveness in the wake of tragedy. Starring Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney and Ann Dowd, Mass was shot by cinematographer Ryan Jackson-Healy and edited by Yang-Hua Hu. We recently checked in with the editor shortly after the film made its Sundance premiere.

How early did you get involved on this film?
I got involved after they finished production in December 2019. A close friend of mine, editor Mary Chin, reached out to me and connected me with Fran. After reading the script, I immediately scheduled a date to meet up with him. During our conversation, I found that he wanted to tell this timely story for all the right reasons. I liked his ideas and direction of the film. We clicked right away, and weeks later, the editing started.

Yang-Hua Hu

What direction did Fran give for the edit? And how often was he looking at your cuts?
We cut the film from my home office. In the beginning, he would send his notes and original ideas of the scenes via email. I followed his thoughts to finish the first pass of the film. Later, he started to visit me two to three times a week. We worked intensely for about two months and then had our first test screening.

He wanted to have fewer cuts and mostly one take to open the film, beginning wide and stable. He wanted to let the audience slowly enter the world from a safe distance and keep the mystery and suspense before our heroes enter the room.

After our four main characters sit down, we start to unravel the story and see what this is truly about. In addition, he focused on the actors’ performances. He knew this was a character-driven story, and he wanted to make sure we brought out the best of their work throughout the film. I agreed with him strongly.

How would you describe the edit?
Mass is a powerful, meaningful and timely fictional narrative. After reading the script, I immediately thought I would focus on the characters themselves. I wanted to make sure each character had their own arc when they entered the room. Each character’s story should be intertwined during the stage-like conversation throughout the film. I mainly wanted to be true to the intimacy of the film and to make sure our viewers were able to understand the two sets of parents’ situations and grow with them.

I let the footage speak to me. I didn’t want to force a cut. If the take could survive without a cut, I would keep it going. I tried to use the long takes to cover the whole scene in the beginning and during some intimate, personal and silent moments throughout the film. I also use it for our characters when they have a long monologue.

Using the long takes, I hope to make the viewers feel like they’re in the moment with the characters — breaking the editing rhythm. I know sometimes long takes can be showy and distracting, however, I trusted our footage and our talented actors.

Fran’s writing is well structured in that he knows where and when he wants his characters to go during this journey. In the first half of the film, the four characters are doing a dance — two steps forward and one step backward. Sometimes the dance is a loop with no exit. There is hesitation and uncertainty, which I find intriguing. The script gives the bones of the characters. I use reactions and silent moments to fill up the blood — their essence and this building pressure. You can’t see the blood from the outside, but you can feel it during those silent moments and reactions. It’s like an invisible balloon in the room and we never know when it is going to pop. I think the impact of the words requires not only actors who can deliver the subtext but partners on the other side to listen and react. To keep all of them in the moment, I would cut to other actors’ reactions because that offers more than one interpretation of the lines. We have a fantastic ensemble cast, and I’m fortunate that I could explore the possibilities in their work.

Was there a particular scene or scenes that were most challenging? If so, why? And how did you overcome that challenge?

(Spoiler Alert)
In the film, there is an area where we cut to a field after Jay (Jason Isaacs) can no longer hold back bursting out in anger about the shooting. After he finally collapses, we cut to black, bring back the field, and the film ratio changes from 1.85 to 2.4.

We worked on this area for a really long time. We kept going back to revisit this area. This moment is the climax of our film. We treat it carefully because we don’t want to risk becoming indulgent. Originally, the plan was to stay on the field the whole time during Jay’s emotional speech. The reason behind this was to give our characters privacy. As the story was fiction, but based in reality for many, we wanted to present this carefully and did not want to go with a traditional style of showing flash cuts of the tragedy. We knew this was a risk and hoped it would work.

However, after the test screening, our viewers wanted to see more than just the field. We decided to bring Jay’s image back instead of staying in the field and found that was tricky. The read we liked from Jay was cut together precisely to work with our field image. To come back to the room, we would need to rediscover and find the balance between what we want and what the audience expects.

Meanwhile, we only had one or two takes of other characters during this moment, and we needed to find the right place to shift the film ratio. It was a challenge to make this work, and we thought we found the right balance for this artistic moment after months of exploring.

Is the Sundance cut the “final” cut, or will more editing happen after the festival?
I believe this is our final cut. As a filmmaker, you always want to do a little change here and there, but we know we are too close to the project. We do not want to ruin a single moment if everything else works. We believe what we have now is the right blend between our original intention and the viewer’s expectation.

Was the edit done during the pandemic?
Yes, it was. I was already cutting from home, and mostly our notes were exchanged between email, texts and calls to begin with. So after the pandemic hit, the only downside was that we couldn’t work together in person, and I couldn’t quickly show him something on the screen. Thankfully, the movie was in good shape before the pandemic; we only had a few scenes needing some rework. Due to our personal schedules, we were on and off during 2020. It didn’t impact us too much, as we were a two-person team, Fran and I, during the editing process mostly.

Fran Kranz

You used Premiere for your first edit but then switched to Media Composer to finish? Can you talk about why, and any hiccups going from Premiere into Avid?
Afterward, the post schedule was extended, and the plan changed. Cutting the raw footage in Premiere requires a supercomputer. Since we were hiring an assistant to work remotely, we would have needed more than one supercomputer to transcode the files to a smaller format. The benefit of using Media Composer is that the production audio tracks are tied to the footage, which saved us time during the turnover process.

After a meeting with our experienced online people at Headquarters Post, we found that moving the project into Media Composer was more suitable for the extended post period.

Then we hired a tech-savvy assistant editor, Christopher Ma, to help us with this transition. After multiple tests between HQ post and us, we found a good workflow tailored to this project. We broke the film into reels.

While I was cutting Reel 1 with Fran, Christopher was on Reel 3, converting the timeline from Premiere to Media Composer. He transcoded all the raw footage into Media Composer, exported an XML from Premiere and relinked the timeline in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. From there, he exported an AAF and imported that into Media Composer with the transcoded files, which were already imported. The trick worked with the picture, but he needed to redo most of the sound work on the timeline that had already been done in Premiere. Both Christopher and I worked closely together (virtually), and we were glad everything worked out in the end.

Is there a tool that most people might not know about that you use?
Here is a trick Christopher shared with me during the software switch process: While exporting AAF from Resolve, instead of doing it from the deliver page, he did it in the timeline page. If we had done it in the deliver page, it wouldn’t have worked because it would have created new non-full-length transcoded files, and Media Composer would only link to those, not the full-length transcoded files we wanted.

How did you manage your time?
Since I was working from home, I had the luxury of rolling out of bed and was in my home office within 10 seconds. Without the commute time, I was able to put my hands on the keyboard and mouse and start cutting right away. Fran usually came in before noon, and he would leave before rush hour hit. As I believe a healthy life can boost creativity, I would do some exercise or walk my dog, Lily, in the afternoon and evening. Sometimes a good idea would pop into my head during these times.

You mentioned working with assistant editor Christopher Ma. Can you talk more about that?
He was on board during the software transition. However, due to the schedule and budget, we couldn’t have him the whole time.

We asked him back to do some sound clean-up and exporting for the test screening, festival submission and final turnover process. Since he had a full copy of the footage and sound, he could work remotely by my sending him the Avid bins and some new imported MFX. He was not only tech-savvy but also a supportive team player with a great creative mind. I often asked what he thought about the cut, and he gave great suggestions, which I thought were valuable and helpful. We were fortunate to have him.

What’s next for you?
I’m always looking forward to my next project and am open to editing any genre. However, I do hope I can land on something like Mass or The Public again. They both have their unique voice, strong characters and socially conscious subject matter. We are living through this pandemic, and everything is unpredictable, but I am in early talks for a follow-up film from a popular adventure franchise.