Everything Everywhere All At Once

Paul Rogers talks editing Everything Everywhere All At Once, collaborating with the Daniels during a pandemic, cut scenes, and more.

When they described the film to me for the first time, and when I read the script, it was a beautiful piece of art, and I'm just happy that it seems to have connected with even more people than we could have imagined. It was all this stuff that was really cool, and funny, and great in the moment, but when you put it all together, the cup was overflowing. It's been really nice to see that, and to hear some of the stories about the bonding that parents and kids have had, [and that] couples have had. What I hope the movie has done, and what Daniels' work in general has always done for me, is allowed people to hold that you can be silly, and you can use that silly childlike part of yourself in order to explore these really hard, deep questions about life, and about trauma, and love, and the universe. So, the first cut was just loud, and fast, and insane, and overly flashy and completely overwhelming in a bad way. It's the scene work between Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu; that's the work that I really spent the most time and energy on. The whole film has such a pace and rhythm to it. I'd just be sitting in the shower with my head in my hands, like, "How are we going to figure out a way to make the scene make sense in the movie?" And [we realized] that people didn't really need to see all the stories wrapped up. Some of the characters who pop up early in the film or the fight scenes popped up again at the end, and they had their stories very cleanly and nicely wrapped up. Once we got into the edit of this film, it wasn't always easy, but it was always really respectful. The success of the end product is also highly dependent on the film having a good edit, for which credit is due to editor Paul Rogers.