Editor Alexander Serpico, son of detective Frank Serpico, talks about his New York post-production career and why he defies the usual scheduling rules.
Born in Manhattan, Alexander Serpico is indeed the son of the legendary New York police detective Frank Serpico, so immortalized by Al Pacino in the memorable 1973 Sidney Lumet film. The younger Serpico is now a notable New York-based editor who has endeavored to create a niche cutting films for James Signorelli at Saturday Night Live. Without question, his schedules and methods of editing for that 34-year-old late night staple defy traditional rules and mores of post-production schedules.
His path to Saturday Night Live was fairly traditional as far as the East Coast post world goes. “I was fortunate enough to get an internship at a major NY commercial post facility – Crew Cuts,” says Serpico. “I learned a lot there – more than I did in four years of film school. I had randomly gained access and taught myself the Avid even before that. But then as an assistant, I was able to really learn every aspect of that machine and the entire post process while working for some amazing people.”
Since the late 1990s, Serpico had been a freelancer and as an assistant until he got a full-time job at the commercial facility. After using the Avid for much of his early career, things started to change for the young editor at Crew Cuts. “We did a technical switch-over to Final Cut Pro,” he notes. “I helped 12 different editors who had been cutting on Avid to use Final Cut. I was also always interested in visual effects, so I taught myself compositing, starting with Shake and learned Nuke last year.”
After paying his dues in commercials, Serpico looked for other things as he stated that advertising could often be artistically frustrating. “In commercial editing you are serving the product, so there is only so much artistic gratitude you can get from that,” he says. “Jim Signorelli had been bringing his work to them for many years and cut with a number of the editors there, one of whom, I was her assistant. I started to cut things for Saturday Night Live while I did short films and music videos on the side.”
For the uninitiated, Signorelli has been making films for SNL since the mid-1970s and has made the some of the most lauded TV commercial parodies ever put on film. “Jim’s a master, and he has it down to a science,” Serpico says. “The first time I met him was as an assistant editor on a parody which was guest directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. I have now been the actual editor on 17-18 films and have been involved in color correction/technical assistance for many since 2000 when I met Jim and worked on one of those SNL projects.”
If traditional post schedules in film go down to the wire, and if most television is exponentially more trying, a sample of SNL’s film schedule might humble many in post-production. “Late evening Wednesday they find out that they will or will not have a script to do,” Serpico says of Signorelli’s SNL film group. “Pre-production is all day Thursday. They film Friday morning and will film sometimes as late as 7pm and I’ll start getting footage as they are shooting and that’s it – you have until Saturday night.”
As soon as footage comes in, Serpico will start loading and logging the material. “It’s the fastest turnaround of any production and post – no show does that type of thing,” he describes. “People who do films have the luxury of time, which we don’t have. It’s so impressive that we can actually pull it off!”
Though Signorelli shot 16mm and 35mm film for many years, now, he shoots on high-end Panasonic HD cameras to P2 cards – solid state. “It’s not instantaneous though – it still takes time to import,” the editor notes. “We just switched to the HPX-3000 and 3900. From the camera, they are copied onto two drives – one for protection and one for editing. That gets sent to me via a P.A. at NBC where we moved the edit to in January. Once I bring everything in, I go take-by-take and remove any filler.”
As the shoot ends by the end of the day on Friday, Serpico will finish his assembly by building a string of every different line read that a cast member gives. “Later we can go back and find those best moments that will be best for the piece,” he explains. “When I have the footage finally in, I build the spot in its roughest form going over the script with circled takes faxed from set so that I can lay down the structure. It gives us a sense of what length we are running at.”
Depending on the nature of the piece, scripts for the short films could run over a typical script-to-screen ratio. “Scripts could be seven pages, like in a Seth Rogen spot, which was cut down into two versions: One long running about 2:10, and one short at 1:30 (which ultimately aired); unfortunately, some very funny jokes ended up on the floor. The right duration of a spot is key; if it goes on too long the joke loses steam, and the spot just starts to die.”
Serpico noted that in a typical spot, the desired running time is anywhere from one-minute ten seconds to one-minute forty seconds. “The film unit not only does film parodies, but does film segments that go on for three or four minutes,” he says.
Once he has his assembly, going by the aforementioned takes that were favorited on set, as Serpico reviews footage, he chooses to listen to Signorelli’s, an actor’s, or a writer’s comments (captured from the boom mic on set) which helps him select takes. “I’ll go by the script and lay down everything knowing that it’s overlength so that we can see everything that’s there – that’s the starting point,” he says. “The first thing is to remain true to the script. Then Jim and I will take a look at it and stand back and look at the big picture. Then we go from there how to best serve the piece and make it as funny as it can be.”
Another technique that Serpico utilizes is the advent of frame stills made on set. “We take the script, cut it up, and put it on posterboard,” he details. “There could be many hours of footage, but we can go directly to that shot [referenced on the posterboard]. It is another one of Jim’s ingenious methods that’s invaluable to the process and keeps the process fast.”
Once he puts his assembly together – ideally by the end of principal photography early on Friday evenings, Serpico can determine where a specific film stands at that juncture. Then he starts to scour the footage for his best takes. “Many times, the last take is the one where they’ve got it and move on, so I start from there,” he says. “That’s the most efficient way, considering that we’re fighting the clock. Because Jim and I have been together for so long, we have a relationship like a shorthand – I can read him pretty well. He’ll basically say half of a sentence and I’ll know exactly what he’s referring to.”
Once Signorelli is back from locations and returns to NBC to screen the assembly, he will give Serpico another 60-90 minutes to work on a rough cut. “Sometimes, my first assembly minus some general tightening didn’t change at all until we went to air,” he states. “Then there’s the other end of the spectrum! We have a relationship where he trusts me and knows that I can read what he’s thinking which makes it a lot easier for him to allow me to take that time to fix it or improve the cut.”
One advantage that Serpico has is the access to the SNL creative team as his post facilities at 30 Rockefeller Plaza are on the 17th floor with the film unit and most of the writers. “We are literally all in the same area,” he comments. “Jim will come in and screen, give me comments, let me make the changes, and come back. Another advantage of being in 30 Rock for the writers is that they can come up and screen as well. We’ll go back and forth tightening the spot ideally until midnight if we want to cut it off. Sometimes, Jim will leave and it will just be me and [SNL associate producer] Rhys Thomas. We’ll make final tweaks for Jim to see late that night or first thing the next morning.”
Regarding the commonly held view of the all-nighter, Serpico said that it rarely occurs. “If I cut it off at midnight, I’ll be in at 11 or 12 the next day,” he says. “If a spot needs the attention, I’ll sacrifice some sleep. It’s a lot easier now than it used to be. When Jim would shoot on film, it added a huge extra step to the process because you’re shooting on 16 or 35mm because you are editing VHS tapes with burn-ins and would have to wait for transfers to come in from the transfer house and have to reload and eye-match everything back in. When that was the workflow, there were more overnights! Working digitally, it goes much faster.”
Another aspect of the process that has been made much easier is NBC’s new tapeless system, installed in 2005 when the entire company went to HD and redid their whole infrastructure. “Transferring on the internet is the most efficient way,” Serpico explains. “NBC has a really impressive internal fiber channel server network. We can send material downstairs in seconds. My final file is a QuickTime with source compression.”
Once Saturday arrives, if the cut is in a good place, Serpico can be a little more relaxed. “It’s good to look at it Saturday for some fresh eyes,” he remarks. “Around 3PM on Saturday, we send it to get mixed even though it will change. If we’re lucky, there won’t be many changes, just pull-ups, but that’s not always the case. Also, we will send stuff to be graded which I will have to reload and match back in. If I can grade it and it’s not too drastic, frequently, I will do that as well.”
Ultimately, the crucial Saturday Night Live dress rehearsal at 8PM is the first big deadline. “Once the spot airs in dress, which is always overlength, you hear back either good or bad from a whole team of writers and producers, and it has happened that we’ve had to make changes at 10PM to be ready by 11:30PM – including remixing – that is when the pressure is on.”
Dress will often determine if any further editing is required, depending on the spot and reception of the audience. “Even though we’ve got a cut on Friday night, we still might not have gone through the cut and made sure that every take was the best possible take,” Serpico says of his Saturday duties. “We want to smooth it out and get it to where it should be. I come in and keep cutting and refining. Jim will watch the posting from home that I put up the night before, so he’ll put up some comments. I will just use compressor and upload it to a private NBC site, or if it’s small enough, I can e-mail it. Very frequently, there’s things that need compositing done. If it’s simple, I can do it on Shake. If there’s a lot of work to do, we’ll hand it off.”
One would think that 11:30PM Eastern Time would be Serpico’s final deadline, and all would be well for the week, but that too is just not always so. ” Sometimes, we’re delivering a final cut a minute before it airs,” he says. “It’s been very tight. And even after it’s aired, I’ve had to make changes for the West Coast feed. It only happened to me once! But once you see it air and getting the response of that audience, you can step back and take pride in what you’ve accomplished in such a short time.”
Scott Essman has been writing about crafts and craftspeople in the entertainment business since 1995. His book, Tim Burton – An American Original is due in 2010 from Praeger Publishing.
Saturday Night Live – AIRDATE May 9, 2009
MAY 8: 1. Got footage from the shoot at 3pm Friday. 2. Screened with Jim at 7pm.
3. Made his changes then screened again at 8:30pm. 4. Made more adjustments then screened with him and the writers at 10pm.
5. Kept working with them till about 3am.
6. More tweaks and prepared footage for our Flame guy Graham Holly (since there were a lot of comps).
7. Left NBC a little after 4am.
MAY 9: 1. Back at around 1pm.
2. Kept working till 7pm.
3. Mixed (chose music from stock this week, but we have also had Lenny Pickett score a number of previous pieces in past). 4. After showing 2-minute version during dress, got notes from Lorne Michaels, recut with writers and Jim at 8:30 pm. 5. Made 2 shorter versions – writers and Jim screened with other writers including head writer Steve Higgins. 6. They chose one of the two, with a running time of 1:30. 7. Spot was remixed, and I continued to make slight visual tweaks, including color correct and pulling down posts of the comps.
8. I had kicked out a QuickTime of the final and transferred it to the server minutes to air, but …..
9. After getting some additional tweak comps, re-exported and sent the last version down as the monologue was going on. 10 We actually didn’t know if that final version would make it to air until we saw it on the feed right after monologue… but it did!
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