September 5

Today on Art of the Cut we speak with Hansjörg Weißbrich about editing September 5, which has been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture. It was also nominated for Best Editing by the Independent Spirit Awards and tied for the win for the LA Film Critics Award for Best editing.

Hansjörg has been nominated for or won numerous German Best Editing awards. His work includes the feature films The Glory of Life, She Said, and I’m Your Man, as well as the TV mini-series, Unorthodox, among many others.

The film starts with a promo from the network. Was that scripted that way? Or why did you decide to start the film that way? 

Well, actually, it’s not a promo from the network. It’s pieced together by us. We had a couple of different options for the opening of the film, but eventually we felt that the best option would be to start with that promo to set all the important information up, like where we are, what it is about, that it’s the Olympic Games to be broadcast live.

We wanted to set up that the games were also designed as PR for Germany, 27 years after the war, to show the world that Germany is peaceful and friendly and that the games should have been serene before they ultimately were shattered by the terrorist attacks. We wanted to also create a light tone at the beginning to set the stakes for what would follow.

We pieced the promo together from different archive footage, then decided to follow it with the report about Mark Spitz. That was a question: where we cut together those two pieces. Then the story in the hotel room with Jeff Mason, or to have the reporting later on when he actually enters the studio and the reporting would be ongoing.

That would have been a position for the Spitz game as well, but it didn’t feel right to put it there because we also wanted to establish the way Roone Arledge tried to report in an emotional way using close-ups, which ultimately is mirrored in how they approach the broadcast of the terrorist attacks. 

Did you watch any 1972-era promos? It felt very authentic to me. 

Actually I didn’t, so that’s good that it still felt authentic. Tim did a lot of research for the whole film. He’s very accurate. He was very keen on getting everything exactly right. That also was implemented in the set design. He worked together with, our production designer, Julien Wagner.

They collected all the technical apparatus in the studio, and they wanted to have it actually function. The editing table for example, the monitors. For me, it was a travel back in time, because when I started editing in the early 90s, I worked on a Steenbeck as well.

I was an assistant for three years on a Steenbeck. I also cut four films myself on a Steenbeck before I switched to Avid in, I think 1996. So for me, it was quite nostalgic. And I could help the actors a little bit in the editing to make it work. Of course, the actors did practice editing on it, and they had a consultant on set.

They had an editing consultant other than you to help with that scene?

For some weird reason, they didn’t ask me to come on set.

You had more important things to do! 

Yeah, that’s for sure. Also, I was in Berlin editing while they were shooting in Munich. Thomas was one of the producers and he would have known I could edit on a Steenbeck because he was the one who gave me my first job as an editor in 95, so we’ve collaborated on ten films during that time. 

That’s how you got this job? Through him?

That’s correct. I’m Thomas’ go-to editor. He introduced me to Tim for Tim’s first feature film, Hell, probably 12 years ago. I couldn’t cut that film, but I was a little bit involved in Hell and also his follow up as an editing consultant.

So I knew Tim for quite a while. With September 5th, they told me about the project a year or two prior to shooting, so I was involved in the script. I always say I start editing with the script if I’m involved that early.

With the directors I frequently work with, like for example, with German director Hans-Christian Schmid or Maria Schrader. So sometimes I’m involved early in the process - in the treatment stage. For everyone involved I think it’s a good thing because in my career, I have saved the producers a couple of shooting days.

Can you talk about what the other choices were to start the film other than the way you started it?

The screenplay started with the Spitz race - which was also a good start for the film, then the promo would have been when Jeff enters the studio, the Spitz race is over and the promo would go on, but we felt that that moment was not right for a long introduction.

Also the story had already started, so it didn’t feel good to have that light tone at that point. It felt better to start the story with the promo.

Editor Hansjörg Weißbrich

Later, the promo interrupted the flow. 

Yeah. 

Let’s discuss the transition between some of the chaotic scenes to something that’s more contemplative. 

I think that’s throughout the whole film, nd that was the basic challenge: to balance the fast-paced parts of the story and the emotional parts and the clock ticking urgency and the emotional impact or the moral dilemma they discuss in the hallway, for example, ultimately leading to that iconic announcement that all the hostages were gone.

Obviously, we spent a lot of time getting the fast-paced parts right and we didn’t want to have a frame too much in it. We worked hard on that, but we also spent a lot of time getting the emotional parts right. A key approach was that I edited the film as a drama and not so much as a thriller. I tried to edit it from a point-of-view of the characters and not from an outside perspective.

I’m coming from a more actor-driven background. I did a lot of arthouse films with excellent actors. That was my primary focus. The other parts, they needed time and it was great fun to put that together, but the overall approach, felt like a drama.

I think that met Tim’s, expectations or Tim’s approach to be respectful of the real events and of the real characters and not to manipulate that in any way, but trying to stay true to the real events. That was also something we discussed a lot with the use of music with the composer, Lorenz Dangel.

Avid timeline screenshot of the entire film

Talk to me a little bit about creating tension - and maybe music’s place in that. There were so many places where you were on the edge of your seat. How do you maintain that tension and build up that tension editorially.

I should tell you a little bit about the way the film was shot. They shot it in very long takes, primarily because, Tim and our DOP, Markus Förderer, wanted to follow the action. They wanted to shoot the film like a documentary team would shoot it.

It was shot on a soundstage that felt like a real studio. The door of the soundstage was also the real outside door in our film.

They shot it with two cameras all the time. Both cameras were handheld and we ended up with the lot of documentary-style footage where no take was like the other.

We had to build everything in editorial. We carefully watched the footage. Also, when shooting wrapped, Tim watched everything on his own once again and made some select sequences.

When you have a lot of footage, you need to be kind of organized, because otherwise you would look for the bits and pieces you remember, but you don’t know where they are.

So for the bigger scenes we had line-by-line sequences put together by our assistant editors and Tim used this to pull his selects and gave it to me, and I would take a look and use the bits and pieces I thought were best or did some alternatives. That was a long process to finally nail it down to the end result. 

I would think that especially with the way this was shot - as you said, long takes handheld takes - that a line-by-line, string out would be difficult to use. Obviously you couldn’t use all of his best line choices because they’d be from different takes and the whole thing would get too cutty.

It was still helpful. By the way, it was the first time I was using a line-by-line because normally - if you have a normal coverage - you can quickly do it yourself if you feel the need to. On this film, if a lot of parts weren’t usable in the line-by-line structure, you could throw them out immediately and just get an overview of the bits and pieces, that were interesting.

Tim was very aware that I couldn’t use everything he selected because you have to match it with other shots, but, we are a great team, and he was very into the process and we were very much on the same level, so it was great working with him and using that line-by-line cut selects reel.

Did you put it in your source monitor and then match back to the actual take so that you were able to see more continuity on either side of a select?

I basically put it in the cut and then trimmed it because they were such short moments. That’s exactly why I’m not using it, because it lacks context. It’s maybe helpful with comedy where you will cut a reaction on every line and you have a certain pacing, but for drama I don’t necessarily cut after every line so I don’t want it to be chopped because I need the bigger flow of it.

That’s what most people say about those line-by-line cuts, or even using ScriptSync - that unless you are very conscious of it - you’re losing the flow.

Let’s talk about using reaction shots: when you use them, how you use them, what the purpose is. 

One scene comes to my mind: when one of the hostages that were able to flee - Tuvia Sokolsky - comes into the studio. That, for me, is one of those pivotal emotional moments of the film because, for the first time, our reporter team is confronted with the [physical] presence of a hostage.

Most of the time they are inside the studio and they only see what’s going on on the monitors, and at that moment there is that presence that has a heavy emotional weight to the scene, so we used a lot of reaction shots there, which I still find very emotional when I watch the film.

Talking about music once again, that was a scene where we had different approaches with the music. We could have done it with a more tenseful music, but we ultimately decided to use a more emotional music, which I think is the right choice for that moment. Throughout the film there were many scenes that we could have worked the music in one direction or the other.

We had to find the right balance for that. Another scene is when they first go on air. There is the excitement of Geoff Mason to get it all right and to not fuck it up. It’s also a theme throughout the film to be the first to air. But then also there’s that moment where the terrible news actually is reported to the world, and Jim McCay makes the first announcement.

We realized that music that had too many percussion elements in it, or was too rhythmical, felt wrong for that scene. So we had those layers we are now using to highlight Jim McKay’s perspective rather than Geoff Mason’s perspective, because that is something you see anyway by his performance.

Those were the questions throughout the film, and it was sometimes a very thin line and a tiny, nuanced balancing to get it where it is.

You mentioned the scene where the escapee - the former hostage - comes into the studio. At a point in that scene, the music stops. The score goes away. 

Yes. There is that moment when they walk to the window that separates the control room from the studio. We are very close on Geoffrey Mason’s face before it pans to Bader’s face, then they are interrupted because they need to go on with the broadcast and there’s a moment of silence at that point of the story, which highlights the emotion level of it.

I start looking for music from the first day of editing because I need to find the tonality of the film. I do it on all my projects, and for September 5, it was extremely important to find that tonality early on in the process.

I think that moment was in my temp already because I just thought it would work great. Lorenz Dangel, our composer, came on board in the middle of editing, and that was also pivotal to the process because I couldn’t have imagined locking the cut and then get the composer on board, because the editing and music work so much together.

It’s sometimes frames that the music could be placed differently, and I wanted to have the control of it and not having to work on getting it all right again if the composer had started later. So for me, it was crucial to have our composed music long before picture lock, so I could cut on the music or with the music, could place the music to the cut. That is something I find extremely important for the way I work.

On the Mix Stage

My sense - just having watched the film once - was that there was not a lot of music in it. You smiled when I said that. 

Yeah, actually, I think there is a lot of music in it, but we didn’t want to play it too loud or too obvious. We wanted to be discreet and decent. Once the music starts, I think we have very few moments without music, so I’m very happy that you didn’t perceive it that way, because that was our ultimate goal. Did you remember where the music starts?

It starts with the gunshots. That’s the first music. Of course, there’s music for the ABC trailer and on the Spitz race, but once that is over, we don’t have music. There is one moment on the drive in the car where we have source music, but the actual score starts with the first gunshots.

That is something I did in my very first assembly of the scene because I found that was the moment where it all began.

The music is very, very subtle. It’s almost not audible, but it slowly builds up. I think the moment when Geoff wakes up later to call Roone, that is the moment where we are on a normal level of the music, but those ten minutes of music are almost imperceptible. 

I was not always present in the mixing because I had other obligations, but normally I’m on the mixing stage because I want that control. I think it’s part of my work.

One day, Tim called me and said, “We had an idea. We wanted to get rid of the ten first minutes of music. We felt that is really interesting. I know you won’t like it.” And I didn’t. The next day I went into the mix and we listened to it all together.

Ultimately, we all agreed that it was not a good idea to take the music away, even though you don’t really hear it, but it gives a certain feel, and it’s so important.

Director Tim Fehlbaum

Talk to me about that conversation, because I’m sure - as an experienced editor - that you don’t want to dismiss that idea out of hand, even though it seems like a crazy idea. Maybe it will work. What kind of discussion did you have or collaboration with the mix team, the composer, and the director about that choice? 

Our sound designer, Frank Kruse, is also the sound designer of many big films. He worked on All Quiet on the Western Front. We’ve known each other for years. We trust each other, so that is very comfortable for me, especially when I’m not able to be in the mix all the time.

I know that it’s in good hands. Also, our sound mixer was also on All Quiet on the Western Front, and we mixed a couple of films together before. I have been thinking about those questions for quite a while before the mixing starts, so I know a little bit about what works and what doesn’t.

That doesn’t prevent other solutions that might turn out even better, but there is a reason why I’m spotting the music in a certain way. I do understand that a fresh perspective sometimes has good ideas or other ideas, but in the mix time runs out to evaluate those new things, especially when they concern the overall play of the film.

For example, getting rid of the first ten minutes of music would be impossible to judge without seeing the whole film. Eventually, it was quite clear for everybody involved that this wouldn’t be a better option than to keep the music. I was very happy that we could make a decision on that quite quickly.

It’s a collaborative, creative process. That’s the way it is. It’s not my film and I’m not the one to decide everything, so you have to discuss it, and you have to get the director on board your idea. In the case of other opinions and other ideas, discuss it, then find a great solution that fits for everyone.

This might be more of a directing question than an editing question, but I was aware of the fact that you were only seeing the hostage situation from the perspective that the sports crew would get. There weren’t cutaways inside the hotel room of what was going on. Can you talk to me about what kind of coverage you got and making that decision about the perspective?

That was a decision made in script stage. Originally, Tim wanted to tell a multi-perspective story, but they found out that wouldn’t have been doable in terms of budget. They met with the real Geoffrey Mason at one point of the research.

That was the point where Tim immediately had the idea to tell the story entirely from the ABC sports reporter’s perspective. That was the pivotal moment in the development of the script. From that point on, they wrote the script just from that perspective.

Part of the archival footage is taken from the original broadcast tape and other parts were recreated. All the balcony scenes where you see hostages is recreated because we didn’t want to show the real footage of the hostages out of respect for the families.

How much footage did you have of the events of 1972? What archival did you have to work with?

Our production was in Munich, and we were very lucky to be able to shoot at the actual Olympic location. Not exactly the real apartment, but in the Olympic Village. It is a World Heritage site, due to architectural reasons more than for the events that happened, so not a lot has changed.

We were able to get the real footage from the broadcast. Not the separate iso cameras, but just the broadcast tape.

That was a pivotal moment for for Tim, because he wouldn’t have felt comfortable to recreate the footage of Jim McKay because he felt that he’s such an iconic broadcast legend and the way he did that broadcast was so unique for him.

But we couldn’t clear the rights to that footage until two weeks prior to shooting. From that moment on we used the footage of Jim McKay as if he was a character in our film.

That was a little bit tricky, given the fact that we didn’t have his iso camera, but just the edited broadcast. He wasn’t always on camera where we needed him, so we had to build the cut around that.

We could only use the bits where we had him on camera and had to find solutions when he was off camera.

We do have moments in the film where we have the original TV footage. For example, the policeman on the roof is original footage. That moment is fascinating for me because the situation feels so unreal. Of course, it adds a lot of authenticity to the project and to the story.

The part of the archival footage that we recreated were re-shot on authentic monitors. We kept the monitor wall after shooting had wrapped. Before we picture-locked we had one extra shooting day for that.

You mentioned the documentary feel of it. Have you cut documentaries before, or did you watch any documentaries to get the feel of how that should be cut? 

I did do some documentaries, but I started quite late in my career because I always felt the responsibility to manipulate reality. I wasn’t too comfortable with that, so I needed 20 years to do my first documentary. My starting point in documentaries was to give a second eye on something that already was more or less locked.

That was a good starting point, because on the next project, I felt that the first phase of editing of documentaries where you have to find a story or a path was kind of frustrating for me because I was so used to have a result by the end of the day, with the fictional work I was doing.

I couldn’t really stand the weeks and sometimes months of just looking and trying and not having an idea. Plus, I found it difficult to schedule with the fictional work I’m doing because mostly it takes longer than expected. You need to be flexible.

On one of my last documentaries, I asked the producers, “Will we finish in time” because I had to sign on to a feature film project. The producer said it would be fine. A week later they decided to follow a different path, doing a second shooting period and extending the editing for three months, so I had to drop out. That was frustrating for me.

Eventually I decided not to mix documentaries with fictional work. But of course, it helped me for this process - not only my work on documentaries, but I did a lot of projects that were shot in a similar way: handheld style, documentary style. For example, Hans-Christian Schmid - a German director who I’m working with for 30 years now - he was a former documentary director. His fictional approach was a documentary-styled way.

I’m very familiar with the way September 5 was shot. That was a good point because for Tim, it was his third feature film and he’s a relatively young director and sometimes with young directors, who shoot in a similar way - postponing all the decisions to the editorial - it’s easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed with the amount of choices.

Tim knows how to make decisions. He was very aware of the process and very hands on and very dedicated, so it was really great working with him.

Can you think of a scene in the film that you’re either very proud of - that you were able to solve a problem or the way it turned out - or that it was very difficult? 

I wouldn’t nail it down to one specific scene. The overall pacing and the overall emotional arc - that is something I am very proud of. I spoke to a lot of people who told me that they needed to collect themselves after watching the film, and that is something I’m very proud of.

For me, films need to have that emotional impact, and need to be relevant and give the audience something to take away.

Thank you so much for a great discussion about this film. I really enjoyed it. And it was definitely for me - as a former TV news guy - definitely a blast from the past. 

Thank you so much. It was great talking with you.