Directed by Carey Williams and shot by DP Diego Madrigal, R#J is a retelling of Shakespeare’s greatest love story, repurposed and restyled for the present day and told entirely through Romeo and Juliet’s perspective using their iPhones as the main storytelling device.
“This film transports us cinematically in a new visual language called Screenlife, which is a format invented by Wanted director and Searching producer Timur Bekmambetov, who is a producer on this film as well,” explains R#J editor Lam Nguyen. “This filmmaking technique allows viewers to experience our characters’ emotions and actions through the devices they use.”
We reached out to Nguyen, who has also recently cut The Courage to Run (2021), a one-hour documentary featuring Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame, to talk process and collaboration.
Lam Nguyen
How early did you get involved on this film?
I got involved in the early development stage of the project. I was approached by Timur’s company, Bazelevs Entertainment, to do a proof of concept from a few pages of the script with Carey. The project got the green light shortly after we got the story down visually and tonally in this Screenlife format.
How did you work with the director, and how often did he look at your cut?
Carey is a very collaborative director and storyteller. One of the main directions was to mindfully keep this visually cinematic. The idea of presenting this story through their smartphones had the stigma of “are we really going to watch in a vertical 9×16 format?” We consciously made the effort to keep everything full-screen. He likes to have this constant flow, with slow pushes and pans with the camera movements throughout the film.
I would work on the first draft on my own. Then he would review the draft and come back to me with his reaction and notes. Typically, he would call and discuss about the drafts first, and then he’d go back and write specific notes on Frame.io. After reviewing every draft with his notes implemented, we would discuss more detailed story beats and bounce off ideas to improve the scenes.
Once we got the full draft of the movie fleshed out, then we would work together in the editing room to refine the scenes during the previz stage months before we started production.
So much of the footage is shown on a mobile device, but they shot with traditional cameras, yes?
Yes. We filmed with two Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K cameras. This gave us the flexibility to resize when needed without losing quality and dramatic support since we’re placing the footage under a phone template. Carey also wanted to show the beauty of the sets and to have all options available in case we needed to break away from the phone world to balance the film visually. Luckily enough, the film needed that, and so filming on traditional cameras gave us that freedom.
Was there a particular scene or scenes that were most challenging for the edit?
The most challenging scene was the montage of them getting to know each other more and eventually falling in love. It was the most challenging because we did not film anything particular for this scene. We had to think of creative ways to show them falling in love strictly through various apps on their phones. The challenge was how to connect the audience emotionally without really seeing Romeo and Juliet’s faces or even seeing them together at the same time.
Essentially, I had to build this montage from scratch, and there were a lot of throwaways and redos. At times it was frustrating, but it was necessary. Carey was very smart to film spontaneous moments of Romeo and Juliet during breaks on set, and because of that, we were able to manufacture some of those clips into the montage (e.g., Romeo dancing TikTok video, Juliet’s reaction to a message and Romeo appearing in Juliet’s Kelela album cover).
Lastly, we wanted something very unique for these two that we hoped the audience would be able to catch. Seeing their text messages, GIFs and video sharing wasn’t unique enough because that was so common — what everyone was doing.
Carey Williams
Carey had a lot of great song choices for this movie, and that got me thinking of them sharing a Spotify playlist using song titles as messages as a way to flirt with each other. We both expanded on that idea and believe that glued the montage together in a very touching and emotional way to see their relationship grow.
Did you do more than edit on this film?
With this film in particular, because of the Screenlife format, I had to polish up on graphics, animation and rotoscoping techniques. On top of that, there were two important phases for post in this film.
The first phase was as an editor in locking the picture edit with the director. The second phase was working with the graphics team to up-rez the movie to 4K. The picture-lock version would have a lot of screen recordings and temp layouts, so they had to redraw all templates accurately in higher resolution from top to bottom (text message bubbles, matching animation to real-life social media apps, etc.).
In a way it was almost like being a secondary director for the movie in this phase, as I would often give additional feedback to the graphics team with specific directions on their animations and the look. During this final phase, we worked to improve the scenes with subtle nuances, adding motions and camera techniques to give that final cinematic polish.
Is the Sundance cut the “final” cut, or do you use this as a test screening?
As of now, the Sundance cut is our final cut.
Was the edit done during the pandemic? If so, how did that affect the workflow?
Yes, the main edit was done entirely during the pandemic. We lucked out in wrapping the production a week before the lockdown happened.
This really didn’t affect our workflow as much. We were working remotely a lot for the previz before production, so Carey and I had already built that relationship and communication in understanding each other’s vision and instincts.
Also, we were fortunate enough to live pretty close to each other during the pandemic, so we had the luxury to work in person when needed, with social distancing of course — Carey would be in the back corner watching scenes on a monitor. We were able to get a lot more done since we could brainstorm ideas in the moment whenever we hit a roadblock on a scene.
What system did you use to cut?
I used Adobe Premiere, which offers what pros are used to with their layout and keyboard shortcuts. On top of that, Adobe made life easier for editors to use their other programs in the Adobe suite (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator) with their dynamic linking system. There were a large number of graphics and animation done on this film, so I moved between After Effects and Premiere constantly. It was nice to make a change in After Effects or Illustrator and have Premiere automatically update those changes — since all the programs are linked to each other.
Is there a tool within that system that you use that most people might not know about?
Carey would present this challenge of making the digital movements feel as natural as possible. We used key frames to do our digital movements a lot. So a thing I learned during this edit was that by right-clicking on a key frame, you get multiple selections to ease in and out of the movements smoother, slower or faster. That applies in both Premiere and After Effects. This helped make the camera movements feel more subtle.
I feel that After Effects does a better job with the key frame movements, especially if we need to move multiple layers at once. For instance, there are a couple scenes where I pulled out from Romeo’s phone and panned over to Juliet’s phone. So I would create a null layer as the main source for the animation. Then I would link both of their phones to the null layer, and those templates would be glued to any adjustments I made on that null layer. It was a huge timesaver to be able to do that without having to duplicate key frames to each comp to move in unison.
Also, the shift key: I use it a lot when I move multiple video layers in a sequence. By holding the shift key, it keeps everything intact so that you know you didn’t accidentally move something a few frames off.
The same with sound levels. I love holding the shift key to select all the key frames and to move the levels over all at once. This saves the redundancy of moving each key frame at a time when readjusting for an edit.
How did you manage your time?
I’m probably the worst to ask about time management (laughs). I’m so passionate about what I do that I don’t keep track of time. Like an athlete in some ways, I eat, drink and sleep filmmaking.
There’s so much problem-solving in storytelling that I usually won’t take a break until I feel satisfied with a scene. Once I feel good about a scene, then I reward myself with breaks.
But working with Carey helped me balance my time better. He would often force lunch breaks and multiple breaks in a day. It was nice to be able to come back to a scene with a fresh feel.
I adjusted my schedule more in the second half of the project timeline, especially when I worked remotely. I would work in four-hour increments with one hour breaks in between. But to do it without distraction was key for me. I felt that three to four hours of pure focus was a good amount of time to be productive. That sounds pretty intense, but that’s how I’m able to get things done.
Did you have an assistant editor on this? Do you see the role of assistant editors as strictly technical or as collaborators?
I didn’t have an assistant editor on this project. That’s mainly because I was so involved early in the project and did everything in the previz, so I felt I didn’t need one for this film.
But I do see the role of assistant editors as collaborators as well. If I were to have an assistant on my next project, I would love to see what they come up with for a few scenes without my direction on it. I’m a big believer in fresh eyes.
How do you manage producers’ expectations with reality/what can really be done?
For me, I will always say nothing is impossible unless the idea is extremely outrageous. As editors, we make something out of nothing a lot, and when producers or directors have an idea, I’ll tell them what’s possible but won’t set too high an expectation (even when I see in my head that it could actually work) until I work through it myself. More often than not, I try to exceed their expectations in that way.
How do you take criticism?
I accept criticism with an open mind. I recall from my first edit project years ago that I would get defensive about a note because I felt that I did something wrong. But with every project you work on, you often discover that no one is right or wrong about a note. It’s what’s best for the story.
As I mentioned before, I’m a big believer in fresh eyes. Those are the eyes that count more than our own since we can be so invested in the project that things can get muddled. So new ideas and notes are refreshing to me, and I like the challenges of that. I think having a challenge makes the actual job more intriguing as well. I think of it this way for emerging filmmakers: You wouldn’t want to see a QB keep handing off the ball to the running back every play, right?
