
Susy Benaim is one of the artists behind the FX miniseries, Clipped. Benaim, who previously worked on The Dropout and Mayans M.C., brought a fast-paced yet patient touch to the series. She edited episodes one through five of the Gina Welch-created series, which deals with the Los Angeles Clippers and the infamous Donald Sterling tapes.
Benaim not only helps define a lot of characters from the ensemble, but makes the exposition go down fast and smooth. The series builds the world of the Clippers with such efficiency. Recently, Benaim told Immersive Media about crafting the fast-paced drama.
Let’s start with episode one. How did you want to set the tone, pace, and rhythm for Clipped?
It’s funny because the tone sort of progressed over time, but we definitely wanted to walk a line of introducing all the characters, having some fun with it, and at the same time, introducing the elements of race and power. Thank God for the amazing writing and material we received from the get-go.
You have a white party that, and all in all, you could say it’s only about powerful people showing off, but at the same time, you have an element of race. You’re introduced to this world through the eyes of someone who’s technically new (Doc Rivers) in this time period to it. So, it was a lot of balancing the point of view more than anything, bringing us and the audience into the story. A little bit of hand holding was involved.
I’m actually someone who knew little of the story. I heard about it when it was happening, but I didn’t know all the intricacies of it.
So for me, it was valuable to have that objectivity and bring in that point of view to it, in the sense that I did not know all the ins and outs of the story. So, how would someone who doesn’t follow basketball be able to catch on? I think that was a hard line to walk because if you are someone who’s very familiar with it, this might be slightly boring, so you have to balance that.

Many fine lines to walk. These characters all have very different personalities, too. Did you find yourself cutting their scenes differently, trying to have different rhythms to show their point-of-view?
It’s interesting. I think as a person who again, doesn’t move in these circles, I personally empathize more with Doc than probably any other character. For me, him and the players were easy to cut, because rhythm-wise, it felt very natural. It was rare that I found difficulty in terms of getting their point of view correctly. We actually had more of a hard time figuring out the musical tone for the score of Doc than probably anyone else.
And thank God for Wendy Wang, our composer, because she found it and it elevated the whole series. But V. Stiviano (Cleopatra Coleman) was actually much more tricky to cut than you’d think, because Cleopatra (Coleman) brought such a humanity to the character. I didn’t know much about her (V Stiviano). The little I did look up was to try to match, for example, the Barbara Walters interview, which is so well-known. I had to look at the cadence of things to make sure that we were matching that as close as possible.
In terms of what happens behind closed doors, we do have a little bit of range in what we can do. Cleo gave us a lot of options. There were takes where she was more nasty, and there were takes where she was much more kind. We had to find the balance of keeping us engaged with the weirdness and the eccentric nature of V and still sort of wanting her to succeed somewhat. At the same time, at the back of your mind, she really messed up a good situation, so you have to balance all these things. I had such a range from Cleo.
I do think the biggest thing that we did with Cleo’s performance was in the cold open of the pilot, because that was not scripted at all. The voiceover and those images of her, we actually took pieces from all the episodes to make that work. Gina Welch, our showrunner, wrote that first version of the voiceover on the fly, got Cleo to record it, and temp it in. She had to do various versions to see if she was being a little bit more sneaky and sassy with it, or was she being a little bit more unaware of her circumstance and in the belief of what she’s saying more than a normal person would.
You’re saying how those aren’t really your circles, but I did also think as someone that works in the film industry, there is a similar hierarchy and similar issues as the NBA. You can relate as someone that can be a part of this huge machine, right?
Yeah, there are power struggles no matter where you work and live. I think the NBA and this story is just one example of a greater systemic problem. Hollywood is definitely part of that issue, in the way that they respond to even budget cuts. Diversity programs go first. So, it is something that occurs in every industry in the United States.
I approached a lot of the material with power in mind and how power and control works in the country more than anything else. But I think I’ve been lucky to have been part of the storytelling of many stories where race is at its forefront. I have learned from creators and creatives and storytellers of all kinds, and hopefully, that was brought in at its most truthful and careful capacity here.
I was going to say you’re also not a stranger to cutting stories about power. The Dropout, that is such a good example. How do themes influence your more practical choices as an editor?
I don’t know if I approach it with the theme in mind. I think I approach it with psychology in mind. I don’t think it’s about finding empathy necessary for a character, but finding something compelling about a character. There are compelling characters that are not likable at all that, I think, that we watch with a lot of enjoyment. The Dropout is a perfect example of people who are pretty horrible, yet they’re so enjoyable to watch because they’re so odd. There’s something enthralling about decisions that snowball into this bigger problem. It’s fun to watch because it feels very real, and it was very real.
The Dropout is particularly funny because we were cutting that show while Elizabeth Holmes was on trial, so we had to actually adjust part of the story as news came out and they had already shot the show. We were hearing Elizabeth Holmes saying one or two things that would really derail the way we were telling part of the story. We would have to rethink the way to cut a scene with that in mind.
Even if it’s a despicable character, like Donald Sterling, you still have to find what’s compelling. Of course, Ed O’Neill is just such a great actor, but what choices did you want to make to tell his story?
Not shying away from the ugly with Ed’s character. Ed is such a wonderful performer and person. He was always lovely in ADR, and I heard lovely stories from Gina working with him. Ed is just such a sweetheart, so it’s particularly funny when you’re looking at his footage and they yell cut, he’s making a joke with Jackie, and they’re giggling like children.
Admittedly, you have to take what the performer gives you and the best way to thread his arc. So, it was not choosing necessarily all of Ed’s ugliest versions of him saying nasty lines. Sometimes he did it with some weirdness and discomfort creating the performance, and I went for that instead. I think whatever felt most compelling to give you a full picture of a character, not just a simple or flat persona.
Even though he’s despicable, he’s a fairly complex character. Ed brought forward a lot of that complexity in his performance. He gave us a lot of the weirdness, discomfort, and a lot of the unawareness of the times that he was living in. You could argue that, yeah, he’s a product of his time, Donald Sterling, he was just so unaware, but still, it’s horrible.
You have to bring that balance and complexity to the character, and it just depended on the scene and who he was playing off of. In the pilot, you have that scene where he goes into the locker room. We actually had to reshoot part of the locker room to bring up the ante of the discomfort that Donald was creating. Like, how the players react to something simple or something pretty nasty and uncomfortable, like him asking about a player’s wingspan or touching his face or misunderstanding the fact that he’s Latino or not. You could say that that could be a throwaway line or a joke, and then you see the discomfort in everybody’s experience, and that’s a very different type of scene.
What about Laurence Fishburne? He’s one of the greats. What does he give an editor to work with in post? Do the best performers usually give you a lot of choices?
That’s a really interesting story. I dunno if it’s about best performance, giving more options. I think more is better for me, just because I can always move the needle one way or the other. It’s also about confidence and belief in the character and what they bring, because every so often you have a side player or something that is not great. You have to cut around.
This is a show that embraces the cut and cuts a lot. We move around a lot, partially because of the pace, less so about wanting to cut around people. We have such great performances. It’s more about creating a feeling in a world where I can hold on to a character, which I always try to do.
Laurence, he is one of the best. He doesn’t follow basketball, nor does he know much about coaching or did he ever play basketball. He went up the theater track, I think, for most of his life. So, he brought complexity and humanity that really held the audience by the hand. Especially if you’re someone who does not follow sports, I think, because Doc is sort of the new person in town. You follow him around for a lot of the pilot. At first, in a way you could say, “Oh, he’s the main protagonist, he’s the person leading us around.”
I think he really understood and researched Doc Rivers to bring as much as he could to something that, I think, was out of his comfort zone from my understanding. I can’t say that there were a whole lot of different ways he performed that character, but he performed it with confidence and an understanding of who that was supposed to be. So, that was easy to put together.
He did give me options, I wouldn’t say he didn’t. Everything he gave though, was very good. I think it just wasn’t a huge variety, and at times, we stole from moments that we weren’t supposed to use. A lot of the white party, him walking around and looking around, all that is stolen pieces from off things that we weren’t supposed to use that we montage to make it seem like he was walking around. Even when he’s not doing a performance that is scripted or something important, he is always giving something.
Well said. To wrap up, we recently ran an interview with the president of ACE, Kevin Tent. There’s a tentative deal in place with the AMPTP. What changes do you hope to see for editors in the future?
Oh man. There’s so much, and it’s not just editors. I think we all have an agenda of things that we want to improve upon. I think it’d be great if apprentice editors as a category was opened up more, just because that gives an entry point to a lot of people into the union, so not every union is difficult to get into. I find that kids coming out of college that may not have the resources to move to LA may not have the resources to get into this industry as easily, they have a hard time getting into this track.
I wish we could open some paths for them a little bit more. I definitely want our insurance and pension plan to get back to a healthy plan. I hope rates come up, because obviously inflation is difficult to keep up with, let alone in a city like Los Angeles. I’m sure there’s quite a bit that is being done and the points of the deal are public now. I do think that they did a good job, in my opinion, getting us a decent deal.
Clipped is available to stream on Hulu.