Frasier originally debuted in 1993 as a spin-off of the iconic sitcom Cheers, it followed psychiatrist Frasier Crane who returned to his hometown in Seattle and showcased his comedic trials and tribulations. It is regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, it won 37 Primetime Emmys (a record at the time) including winning Outstanding Comedy Series five years in a row. In 2023, Frasier returned for a well-received revival series that has just completed its second season.
Emmy Award winner Russell Griffin took over editing for the second season. Griffin’s skills are unparalleled, an expert in multi-cam editing with credits on How I Met Your Father, Mad About You, Family Reunion, and The Upshaws. He recently spoke with Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
So how’d you first get involved with this new incarnation of Frasier?
I had been eager to be on Frasier forever, and when I found out that Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli were the writers and showrunners coming onto the show I tried to get in there… but Frasier was going at the same time as my work on How I Met Your Father, and they had a great editor, Joe Fulton do it. When season two came along, he had a conflict and I was free so they were able to bring me in… It’s been a dream.
What was it like working with James Burrows?
He’s the reason why I got into television. I remember thinking at the time, seeing his name on Cheers, that I wanted to be James Burrows, so to get a chance to finally work with him, he directed our first two episodes of season two. It was really special.
What was the collaboration like with all the different directors? I imagine sitcoms are pretty streamlined but any ebbs and flows to the other personalities? Kelsey Grammar for instance…
Kelsey Grammer comes from the golden age of sitcoms. He wants to stick to making sure the audience is enjoying the process. It is a live play. Let’s get it as best we can all week with rehearsals, and then we put it on in front of an audience and get to see the energy.
So all of the energy that you feel from the audience is real, and it’s great. So the director’s kind of coming in and coming out, Kelsey’s a great director. They all know that they’re trying to get that energy from the audience right there because they don’t want to have to fake it from something that we’ve pre-shot or do something like that.
I love the live audience aspect. How does that work with the edit? Do you go to the taping?
It’s a big treat to go down to the set and see things that are happening and make sure that you’re following along. They’ll look to me and just make sure, so being down there firsthand, seeing what’s happening and seeing if we have things or if we need an additional take or additional line or something that it’s really helpful.
What we do is we do pre-shoot some things like if it’s a large stunt or something that’s taking place on a back lot or something that the audience would be bored watching, that’s something we’ll shoot before the audience coming in the day prior. I’ll have that edited and we’ll play that back in front of the live audience. So the vast majority is what they’re going to see right in front of them.
How does that translate from live to the edit…
It’s seamless to the audience, but it’s nice to make sure that what you’re going to see is what we want to see. That’s why I’m down there making sure that we’re not missing anything or that I’m approaching it from an editorial standpoint. When you’re editing, I’m using take one or take three or take two, and I have to make sure that those look and feel seamless.
Then when we get into editing and finally are pulling out scenes and pacing things up, you still want to have the audience laughter there to keep things alive and make sure that it doesn’t feel like you’re putting in a laugh, putting in a plug here and there. So you have to keep that energy up and make sure that it’s the soundtrack to a live audience sitcom is the laughter. That is what we use to paint the emotional ups and downs in the episode.
Do you have any favorite episodes or scenes or both from the current season?
Absolutely. There’s an episode called ‘My Brilliant Sister’. It’s just a classic Frasier, things that happen back and forth, a real great farce to see, and it’s just a hilarious episode, and it’s something that I’m proud of. We worked hard to get the timing of the jokes and the timing of how we’re moving across this party back and forth. It’s a special episode.
What’s your relationship like with the director of photography, Gary Baum, and the rest of the camera crew?
I talk to Gary Baum all the time… We’re very fortunate to have four camera operators, but we’re also old school, so we use dollies. The classic way of moving cameras around is on a dolly. So you need a dolly grip, you need a focus puller, and you have a camera operator. When you’re watching this on set, it is a ballet of movement.
You have A, B, C, and X cameras, and you see these people moving around and you’ve developed the shots and blocked the actors and blocked the cameras in such a way that you’re having very dynamic coverage, very dynamic movement of the camera angles that you’re getting as the actors are moving around the set and those guys are fantastic.
Were there any specific episodes or scenes that were, oh my God, this is such a challenge?
We had one episode where Amy Sedaris guest starred, and we had a very physical scene in her office, and it involved a dalmatian dog who gets out of a cage. Then Nicholas Lyndhurst is trying to secretly put back a file into a file cabinet while they’re in another part of the room, and she has her eyes closed and there’s an ax involved and a large punching bag that starts to swing.
It was a very challenging piece to put together to get the timing of when the dog gets out, when the bag moves, and how to keep Nicholas hidden from Amy Sedaris’ view so that the bits all play. It was quite a challenge, but it turned out to be a blast. A lot of fun.
Now that this season’s wrapped, what is it like being on the other side of this now?
It’s fantastic. It’s one of those moments of pride where you get to share these episodes with everyone. I’ve had so many editor friends and other friends just come out and say, oh, we’re enjoying this season of Frasier so much.
It’s so special to be on the other side of it and to see how much people are enjoying it. I hope we get to do many, many more seasons of it. All you can do is make the best episodes that you can and hope for the best hope people enjoy it, and you continue to do more of it.
It’s good to spread joy. I think there needs to be more positivity in the world.
It lifts you. I mean, it’s not artificially sweet or anything. The moments are earned. We have levity, we have emotion, and it seems real. It’s a measure of fun and putting joy out into the world that you kind of receive very nicely.
It never veers into doing serious commentary on something. It never feels like labored where you’re like…I’ve got to do work now. There’s just something very reassuring about it. I guess that’s the beauty of episodic comedy. The Multicam has that quality, and who does that better than Frasier?
It’s classic for a reason. There’s something comforting about being able to watch any episode and enjoy it with no context.
I feel like Frasier is enjoyment. If you miss an episode, you might miss kind of a larger satisfying arc, but you’re still going to enjoy it. It’s something that you can enjoy each episode individually and the season as an arc.
This is Frasier Crane’s third act, and it’s so wonderful to see that it’s the same caliber of output that we’re doing with a whole new cast a whole new writing team, and a whole new production team. Kelsey is the standard that we’re all living up to, and he does a great job of making sure that we stay at that standard. He’ll often say, well, that’s good for other shows, but we’re Frasier. Yes, let’s make that extra effort.
Frasier Season Two is streaming at Paramount+.
