What do The Bear and Fleabag, two of the finest shows of the 21st Century, have in common? Both insightful character studies that often find comedy where, on paper, it doesn’t scream laughs. Other than that, it’s hard to think of too many similarities, but in terms of craft, one episode of Fleabag actually inspired one of the best episodes of The Bear, “Fishes.”
The family train wreck episode was edited by Joanna Naugle, who’s an Emmy-winning editor once again nominated for the FX series. For the Christmas family dinner, in which tension keeps rising, she revisited the season two premiere of Fleabag and studied the awkward dinner scene penned by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, directed by Harry Bradbeer, and edited by Gary Dollner.
The Bear editor recently spoke with Immersive editor-in-chief, Jack Giroux, about her Emmy nomination. In Naugle’s own words, here’s how the scene not only influenced her but also how she approached cutting the infamous dinner scene from The Bear:
I was a little worried about that final [dinner] scene. I knew what we were building up to. Also, it was relatively static. There is a fair amount of panning between the characters, but everyone’s seated. One person comes and leaves. That’s kind of it.
I wondered, what are other dinner scenes that work really well? I went and revisited episode 201 of Fleabag, which is when they’re almost entirely in the restaurant talking to each other and you’re meeting the hot priest for the first time. Why did it work so well? I think it’s the use of reaction shots. It’s so captivating, so that’s something I really tried to pay attention to with that scene.
You start to hear somebody say a line, and then unless they’re doing something really specific with their face facial expression, it’s more interesting to see how everybody is reacting to that
Check tomorrow for more from our interview with Joanna Naugle.
