Twisters Editor Terilyn A. Shropshire, ACE on Taming a Summer Blockbuster

Talk us through the lifespan of a VFX shot in Twisters. How does a shot evolve from storyboard, to VFX review, to final edit?

At the start, it’s a combination of storyboards, previsualization, and animatics. Many of the animatics were around the theater and Kate driving into the field (referring to the opening scene that tilts up from the character’s face as they see a giant tornado).

I have found that, as an editor working with animatics, a lot of that process is about the actual physical nature of what’s happening in the shot such as where the truck is moving, where the tornado is moving, and when the screen is being torn out. And what you don’t get in the animatics, unless you get in there early with them and request the shots, are the characters reacting and moving through that space emotionally.

You’re going to get a lot of that from your actors, ultimately, but you want to start feeling that in the animatics. You want to start bringing that kind of character stuff into the animatics as much as you can. Otherwise, you’re just looking at something that’s moving you through space and showing you the spectacle, but not allowing it to feel immersive for the audience. And that’s the most important thing.

We had storyboarded the opening scene of Twisters, where we first meet Kate and see her out in the field. We took our storyboards, added the voices, and added sound effects to help us until we could shoot it. But that only gets you so far, emotionally, until you find moments in the dailies.

A good example for me is when Kate comes in and she introduces us to Jeb and Jeb says, “Did you find one for us?” And then she hops out of the truck. Jeb is played by the lovely Darryl McCormack, and he gives her this look as she comes out of the van, which I held for a moment because I wanted the audience to really start to feel the love that these characters have for one another early on.

So it’s those kinds of things that you can’t always tell in a storyboard.

Can you talk us through the process of updating and changing VFX plates, and how it affects the edit?

The best part about going through the visual effects journey in Twisters was the amount of time we were able to work together, because they were just down the hall from us. In the very beginning we had visual effects reviews sometimes once or twice a week. And then it became even more frequent as we were getting closer.

What that did was it allowed us to go through a lot of the steps of what tornado creation was, where we would sit in a theater and we would watch a lot of R&D footage, documentary footage, tornado footage. We talked about each tornado and what they would look like and what the purpose of each tornado was within the story.

It was an education for me because if you don’t really know a lot about tornadoes, we just think of them as these conical rotating things. And then when you really begin to see what they look like in form, it’s quite extraordinary.

So we could take those tornadoes that Warren Hickman, my VFX editor, created and just drop them as templates. It also helped to take them into a visual effects review. Anytime we had a question, we would bring in our visual effects supervisor, Ben Snow, and go over these things. It really was helpful.

And I found myself asking for a lot more handles early on. Typically on a visual effects shot, your handles can adjust from like 12 frames to 30 frames head and tail.

But I found that when it came to shots that involved the tornadoes, like the first time Kate gets out of the car when she’s back in Oklahoma and has to face one of these things after what happened to her 10 years earlier, it was one of those things where: ‘okay, I think I’m going to need more.’ I’m going to want more handles on this moment because it’s the first time she’s coming up against something like this.

So, you also found yourself adjusting things based on what the character was experiencing at that moment.

You had a really interesting workflow where you had QTAKE giving you a live feed from the set. Is that a normal thing for editors to have?

This was the first time I’ve had it in my cutting room. I know other editors who’ve used it. I think (editor) Paul Machliss uses it, but I have to say that I’m kind of spoiled now because to be able to have the immediacy to look over.

Often I would get a call from either the unit production manager on the set, or sometimes the script supervisor, and they’d say, “are you watching QTAKE? We’re about to do this particular pickup or this particular shot.”

And so I had the ability to watch and then let them know, well, that looks good. And because they also had QTAKE on Isaac’s (director Lee Isaac Chung) set when he was shooting, if there was something that they needed him to look at, or at least someone else on the team, they could take a moment and watch it as well.

So we had this way of communicating. So it was really great. I remember one time, and it’s in Twisters, when Tyler has cut everybody off and he’s chasing the tornado to go set off the fireworks, and the truck goes launching into the sky.

I’m watching this live, and I just get so excited, and I call them. I’m like: “My God, that was amazing. That was an amazing shot.” And the producer on the second unit says, “Yeah. And we just broke the suspension of the truck!”

Fortunately, there were other Tyler trucks. I mean, it was visually amazing, but yeah, it did hurt the truck a bit to get that shot.

But having those moments and being able to communicate quickly with them was really helpful. Taking that footage and dropping it in as a template within the cut was really helpful until I got the actual dailies. That was all very useful. I’d love to be able to use it again on a film like this, a film that has this many moving parts.

I’m guessing if they had been shooting Twisters on digital it would have been much easier, because your assistants wouldn’t have had to overcut the tap feed vs. the print dailies?

I think they would have had to overcut it anyway, because when you’re looking at QTAKE, you’ve got a lot of timecode and everything else running over it. So it’s something that, ultimately, you would still have to do an overcut on. I mean, the difficult part was that with shooting on film (Twisters was shot on 35mm film), QTAKE would keep running even if the film ran out.

So there were moments where I remember seeing something and then it was like, “No, the camera ran out.” Oh well.

What’s was it like to be an HOD (Head of Department) on Twisters? You’re editing, maintaining the machine of the edit, and running a team of post staff.

I find that when you think of everybody as a filmmaker—I feel like I’m a filmmaker who edits—then ultimately it’s my responsibility as an HOD and as a filmmaker who edits to honor the intent of every single person who is on a film.

In some ways, it sounds large, but I also feel like it’s my responsibility to always to be the person who is representing you, the audience. If I stop to think about it too much, it is daunting. But if I just try to be an audience member who’s a filmmaker, who’s just trying to get through it all, that kind of keeps me grounded. And everybody comes into a film, you hope, has the intention of bringing their A-game and doing their best work.

What allows me to get through it are exactly the people you’re talking about—the people who are coming in and working with me, supporting the film in service to the film with the least amount of drama possible:

• I really look for that when I’m building my team. I look for people who are talented, forward-thinking, solution-based, and have an energy and passion for film. And that makes the job so much easier.
• I always say you’re either about impedance or flow. You’re either helping us get to where we want to go or preventing us from getting there, and anybody who’s about impedance is not someone who should be in that kind of environment.

Every single day of my professional life is a pendulum, and you just have to navigate it. But what allows me to keep going is my love for telling stories and working with talented people who love to tell stories as well. It’s the best job, honestly.

How did you go about making sure the characters really shone through in such crazy situations?

What really attracted me to this project was Isaac. After seeing a film like Minari, I knew that when he was going to take on a film like this, it was going to have at its core a story-driven, character-strong base. And that’s what I dream of as an editor.

And so when we began to build the film, a lot of it was knowing that the characters of the tornadoes were going to be our spectacle.

We always gave ourselves time to work on characters and work on that part of the story. And yes, it was a huge responsibility and a huge task to deliver the shots that were necessary in the time that they needed to make sure that the spectacle was as immersive as you saw it.

But then we also had to find that space where we say, ‘Okay, we’ve given you what you’ve asked us for.’ And then we would really work on Kate or work on Tyler and their relationship. And I’ve really appreciated the people who’ve seen the film and talk about the relationship between Kate and Tyler.

What would you say are the key ingredients of a creative editor-director collaboration?

In terms of passing or taking on a project, it starts with the script. I have to be able to connect with the script on a certain level. It’s also about meeting the person who’s going to be telling that story.

But I find that when it comes to the positive aspect of wanting to work with a director, it all starts with the script. It takes that connection of sitting down with the director for the first time to talk about the story. I want to have that level of communication. And what I really look for, and what I hope they look for, is the ability to communicate the story and have a discussion about the story.

I’ll ask them what they feel their challenges will be. I’ll discuss the same things that we’ll ultimately discuss in the cutting room.

I’m a very proactive person, so I like to be involved as early as they’ll allow me to be. I want to help them get to the set. So if there’s anything even in pre-production that I can help within the story or often with Gina Prince-Bythewood, who I work with quite a lot, I’m very involved in even the presentations that she gives to the studios. And it helps me get myself immersed in the world that we’re about to go into.

It’s also about creating a safe space for the director to work. And that can be challenging at times, but I want them always to feel that when it comes to the editing room, it is a place where we try things, do bold things, fail horribly, and rebuild, and no one ever sees it.

I have a sign in my room that says, “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy any evidence you tried.” It should be that kind of lab, and Isaac and I would tease at times because he would often ask, “What if we try this? Do we think that would work?” And I would say, “In the Twisters laboratory, we try everything.”

So the editing room should be, in some ways, a laboratory where you can try all kinds of things, allow them to explode, and then find the right alchemy.

As a filmmaker who edits, do you have any desire to direct?

It’s funny that you ask that because for me, my desire to direct usually comes forth when it comes to getting the additional material that I need or want as an editor to do my cut.

When we need an insert or an additional shot, I like to say, “Well, we have a second unit director for that, and I’m going to let them know as closely as possible exactly what we need.”

People talk about the director a lot, and they don’t really give a lot of love to second-unit directors, but I have to say, they’re invaluable to me. That second unit director picks up a lot of things that the first unit often doesn’t have the opportunity to get. And it’s as important to get their work matching and being organically connected with the film. It’s an art form. It really is.

I’d heard of your work with the Academy and ACE in championing diversity within the industry. What led you to take on those leadership roles?

Part of it is that my parents were always the type of people who were very successful and also really believed in serving others and bringing others up with you. And I found that when I was coming up in the film industry as an editor and pursuing this, when it came to people that looked like me, there were very few. You could count them on one hand. There was Earl Watson, John Carter, George Bowers and Lillian Benson—who’s still with us. And I just didn’t really see a lot of people that look like me.

But I think that young people, no matter what color you are, there’s always the sexy part of filmmaking: The acting, the directing.

• But if you ask somebody who Willie Burton is, they’ll look at you and not know that he is a multi Academy Award-winning sound recording mixer.
• Or Ruth Carter, who is now famous because of her costume design.
• Or Wynn Thomas, an amazing African-American production designer.

And I just wanted to try to help young people and young people of color, if they’re trying to work their way up this craft, find avenues for them to do that. And then once they’re here, to be seen. To be recognized and acknowledged that they’re working and they’re trying to, and I don’t mean this in a conceited way, get to the level that I’m at.

I want to try to help get them there and get them into the academy and get them into ACE and get recognition as well. I think it’s important.