On the morning of Monday, February 14, I drove to Manhattan Beach Studios to interview Phil Neel, one of the editors of the hit ABC series Boston Legal. Phil worked on Moonlighting as its Post Production Supervisor, Editor and Associate Producer (Seasons 3-5) and he was very happy to sit down with me to discuss what it was like for him to work with Glenn Gordon Caron, Neil Mandelberg and the rest of the Moonlighting cast and crew. In fact, 20 years later, Phil is now working right next door to Glenn and Neil, as Medium is shot on the same lot. Isn't that ironic? Not only did we discuss Moonlighting, but we also talked about Boston Legal, including episodes he edited, Hired Guns and It Girls and Beyond. After the interview, Phil was gracious enough to take me down to the set to meet some of the cast and crew and view the filming of a scene from the amazingly powerful episode Death Be Not Proud, which he also edited.

DM: You were an editor on Remington Steele. Is that where you met Glenn Caron?

PN: Yes, Glenn was a writer/producer. The way it worked that first season was that whoever was the writer of record on the episode would work with the editor and bring the show to final cut. I think Glenn and I worked together on two or three episodes. We got to know each other pretty well and enjoyed working together. I think it was mid-season or so that Glenn started talking about a show he was developing, a series of his own. He asked me if I knew Artie Mandelberg who he had worked with on Breaking Away. Artie was also an editor who later became a producer on Moonlighting. He thought that someday I should meet him because we might enjoy working together. Of course, this was a year or two before Moonlighting had started.

DM: You were the post production supervisor on Moonlighting beginning with the third season. Can you explain the role of the post production supervisor, and you were also an editor and associate producer, so can you get into that also?

PN: For the first seven or eight shows I was the post supervisor, and then became associate producer. I was also editing at the same time. A post supervisor is like an associate producer, basically responsible for bringing the show from final cut to air. I worked with the sound supervisor spotting effects, background ambiances, and ADR (looping). I was also involved with music and would sit with Glenn and Artie while they spotted music with the composer. After I became associate producer, I supervised the dubbing stage, where all of the sound effects, dialogue, and music were mixed together. Regarding music, there are two types typically used in editing and mixing. There’s needle-drop music, which is existing records and songs that Glenn would’ve selected during the writing of the actual script, and we would edit to those songs. There were other times when Glenn would have us edit-in needle drop music after the show was cut, just to give the scene an attitude we never saw before. Alf Clausen, our composer, scored the other type of music we would use in the episodes. Alf would underscore the emotional scenes, plus any other whimsical or comical cues that were necessary. I forgot to mention that as post supervisor I also supervised the color correction of the shows, and made up the post schedule for the delivery to the network, which was always done under an extremely accelerated amount of time. I’m not sure at what point it’s best to talk about our schedule because it was sort of infamous, the post schedule.

DM: I’ll ask it now. What were the challenges of working on a show like Moonlighting?

PN: Well, obviously there was the physical aspect of getting the show on the air. We consistently shot until Friday with a Tuesday airdate. Turning the show around for post production was definitely a big challenge. This was in the days of cutting on a Moviola, not electronically. It was all cut on film so that was a slower process. Nevertheless, even by today’s standards, this would be considered a tight turnaround. We developed a system that seemed to work pretty well to get the show on the air quickly. We’d usually mix the show on the weekend. Then we’d play the show back for Glenn on Monday morning, one day before air. This was in the days when shows still cut the negative, so we would have the negative cutters doing their work over the weekend, and we would start color correcting in telecine Monday morning as well. Another challenge was in the creative side of editing a show like Moonlighting. It was an extremely well written series and editorially we had to support the writing with proper pace. It was comedy, and it was drama, and at times it was a musical. It was a series that tackled all three very well. Usually you have a series that’s one or the other, but Moonlighting was consistently all three. As an editor, it was very challenging because we had to know when to slow down the pace and play the moments, and then turn around and edit David and Maddie doing rat-a-tat dialogue.

DM: And overlapping dialogue.

PN: Yes, and overlapping dialogue, just the physical aspect of cutting a scene where two frames can make a crucial difference in the pace. It was definitely a challenge to give the story the emotional feel it deserved and still give the show its trademark pace. I remember when I first got there, I cut a scene together where there was a lot of back and forth with David and Maddie. I was making cuts that were ten and twelve frames long. It went back and forth, back and forth, and Glenn looked at it. He liked it, but he said, "Can’t you get back to Maddie just for that one word?" And I literally don’t think I had more than six frames to devote to that word, so here I thought I was cutting the scene too tight and it wasn’t tight enough.

DM: So what were the most challenging episodes that you had to get ready for air and why?

PN: One show was Tracks of My Tears because Bruce and Cybill had each been off the show at separate times. Cybill was pregnant and while she was pregnant we shot around her. We shot her close-ups when she was still there and after we released her we had to shoot with her photo double over her back. Then Bruce injured his shoulder just before Cybill returned, so now we had to shoot around Bruce. Ironically, we shot around Cybill’s pregnancy to hide the fact she was pregnant for many months. Then after she returned, the writers had a new story arc where Maddie was now pregnant, so we had to make her look pregnant for the next several months. Altogether, Cybill must have felt like she was pregnant for 18 months. Finally, when they both returned, I remember ABC said, "Look. Now that we have both of them back, whatever it costs, get it on the air".

DM: Tracks of My Tears is when Maddie returned from Chicago by train and she walks into the office and tells David she’s married (to Walter Bishop, portrayed by Dennis Dugan).

PN: Yes, and the show that aired after that, Eek! A Spouse, was even more difficult. We had to shoot that episode Saturday and Sunday and also Monday morning for Tuesday night air. It was definitely challenging. I think it was Sunday night at midnight and I was measuring the show as I was editing. At one point we had five of us editing at the same time and I was trying to go from room to room to measure the show and see where we stood length-wise. If the show was too long by as much as a minute, we could varispeed it (speed it up) on the telecine rank (the machine used for transferring cut negative to videotape). I think I made a math error somewhere along the way and I told Artie at midnight on Sunday we were not two minutes over…we were nine minutes over. There was a scene that I had been working on all day with Jay Daniel, a big chase in the parking lot that was maybe two and a half minutes long, so the first thing we did was drop that. Within three hours Artie had gone through and made enough lifts in the show that we got it to footage. Meanwhile, the negative cutters are trying to cut negative, and the sound effects and music editors are trying to keep up with our changes, and of course this impacts the dubbing stage as well. And then Monday morning we’re still shooting, so I sent one of the editors home early so he could come back late Monday night to edit the scene that was shot that morning. He had to have the scene edited by about 5:00 in the morning Tuesday (day of air), so we could view it and make changes before the sound effects and music editors spotted it at 6:30 in the morning. Then we were on the dubbing stage by 10:30 a.m., mixed it, married it to the picture and delivered it to the network, I think, at 2 or 3 o’clock that day, which is about as late as they take it. And it looked beautiful! Everything came out wonderfully. The sound was great, the picture looked great. But this editor said it was the strangest experience for him because he came into work, edited all night, went home, went to sleep, woke up and turned on the TV, and it was on the air. It was as though the network had just plugged a big cable into the back of the moviola.

DM: ABC didn’t even bother screening it. They just plugged it in and prayed that there was nothing too risqué in it. (Laughing)

PN: Exactly. Right. As a result, I think that I had one hour of sleep in about four days and I felt it. It was really tough. But it was a lot of fun, you know? We never stopped.

DM: Working on adrenaline.

PN: Yes, exactly. I don’t know if anybody else had mentioned this but one of my favorite quotes, just to define the post schedule and how tight we were, was when Will Mackenzie, who had finished directing an episode on a Friday, asked, "I’ll see my first cut Wednesday?" and he was told, "Well, it will be on the air Tuesday."

DM: Yes, yes. It was Will Mackenzie asking about Atomic Shakespeare. He asked Glenn, "When will I see my director's cut?" And Glenn replied, "You'll see it like everybody else, on the air on Tuesday night."

PN: Yes. What a great story. Another example I just thought of about Glenn’s musical influence happened in Blonde on Blonde, the one where David was wandering in the streets…

DM: Following Maddie but he was really following Donna Dixon.

PN: Yes. But the song was the Dion and the Belmonts song.

DM: Run Around Sue.

PN: Yes. What Glenn wanted to do was have David hear the song coming from here, there and everywhere as he walked down the street. We had to keep giving the song different perspectives. As he walked by one store, it was coming from the speakers of the store and then it would come out of a car that drove by, and then he would hear it coming from the outside speakers of a store across the street. We were a mono show. We weren't stereo, so it was really hard to do that. I remember that was a big challenge, and it ended up working fairly well. That’s the kind of creative way that Glenn had music comment on the scene. In another episode, there’s a great example of how music can add another dimension to the scene. It's where David is following Maddie’s father around because she thinks he’s having an affair.

DM: Yes, Every Daughter’s Father is a Virgin.

PN: Yes. Exactly. Love that title. It was the scene where David is in the car following Maddie’s father to his lover’s apartment. But Glenn looked at it. It was already a strong enough scene and Glenn goes, "Here. Try this song" and it was Papa Was a Rolling Stone. The editor dropped it in and it suddenly took on a whole new feel.

DM: Yes. Great! Excellent! Very memorable. The way they cut between Papa Was a Rolling Stone when David was driving and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing when Mr. Hayes was driving.

PN: Right. Yes, exactly.

DM: Songs that tell a completely opposite story.

PN: That’s right. Another post production story was when Cybill returned after she was pregnant and Bruce was out because of the shoulder injury. It was the episode where Mark Harmon and Bruce get into a fight in the parking lot.

DM: Yes, yes. In the underground parking garage.

PN: I’ve forgotten the name of the episode. Which one was it?

DM: It was I Am Curious... Maddie.

PN: Well, I was editing that scene when they fought in the parking lot and like I said, we would have either Cybill but not Bruce, or Bruce but not Cybill. But in this particular spot, we had Mark Harmon’s character as well. Bruce and Mark were in this fist fight (over Maddie). At no time did I have all three actors in the scene. We first shot half of the fight without Bruce, and then shot the other side, days later, without Mark. I think he was already scheduled on another show so he wasn’t around. Then I had Cybill without Mark and Bruce. So I was cutting a fist fight scene without the two actors. At one point, when the camera dropped back wide, I had none of them. They were all stunt doubles. That was the fun of editing the show.

DM: I think Chris Howell was one of Bruce’s stand-ins.

PN: Yes.

DM: Because you could tell in that sequence that it wasn’t Bruce's hair (as seen from behind).

PN: Yeah, exactly. You could see it. Couldn’t stay for too long on that shot.

DM: You had to cut away real quick so people wouldn't notice.

PN: And you know who Chris Howell’s son is?

DM: Yes. C. Thomas Howell.

PN: Yes.

DM: He did some stunts. C. Thomas Howell showed up a few times in Moonlighting. He was knocked around a few times, as a waiter (in Lady in the Iron Mask) or in Come Back Little Shiksa when Bruce and Curtis Armstrong (Herbert Viola) were in a department store and he was store clerk adjusting a mannequin. He did some stunt work on Moonlighting.

PN: Oh yeah.

DM: Now, any memorable instances dealing with the network executives at ABC, especially since Moonlighting liked to poked fun at them? Anything that they had you edit out at the last minute?

PN: Well, the dialogue was risqué, so we usually had standard’s notes to deal with, but nothing I remember about poking fun at ABC.

DM: What I meant by poking fun was that in the beginning of the episode Fetal Attraction, there’s an ABC executive lying in a hospital bed in a coma.

PN: Oh right! Yes.

DM: Moonlighting was always poking fun about how ABC had to deal with the production delays or what was going on with the storylines. The opening to Fetal Attraction was where an ABC executive was in a coma and when he came to, he asks the nurse if David and Maddie are back together yet, and when she replies no not yet, he slips back into a coma.

PN: Oh yes! I remember that. There’s another one with a crystal ball.

DM: That’s the episode where they were auditioning all these David Addisons. (Cool Hand Dave, Part 2) because David was missing, and so they had to find another David Addison because the real one was stuck in prison.

PN: Right. I remember editing that sequence where all of the different Davids are jump-cutting from one to the other.

DM: Yes, with the wanna-bees singing, "There she goes just walking down the street singing 'Do wa diddy...'"

PN: "...diddy dum diddy do." Yes. I remember that. I mean, I was not as involved with the direct contact with the network as much as Artie, Jay, and Glenn were, so I don’t know as much about that
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DM: What was your relationship with Glenn like?

PN: It was a lot of fun. It was rewarding to work for someone who demanded the best out of people. During the editing process, we would first do a pass for Artie. Artie definitely knew what Glenn preferred, and he would give us notes that would get the show pretty close to Glenn’s liking. Then we would go into a screening room with Glenn for his notes. Glenn’s acute eye for editing taught me a lot. His notes were more about the emotion of a scene. He might say this is Maddie’s scene or vice versa, this is David’s scene. That was an interesting approach and that might mean she gets more close-ups versus David’s shots, which would be wider shots taken over her shoulder. Maybe play more of David’s dialogue over her close-ups as well. As I mentioned earlier, after we had edited the show and it was locked, Glenn and Artie and I would sit in a room and spot the music with Alf Clausen. This is where Glenn would describe where he wanted music and what kind of music to score. Then after the show was mixed, I would sit with Glenn, usually on Monday morning when it would air on Tuesday, we would sit together at 8:30 in the morning and view the show on a three quarter inch tape, and Glenn would react to the mix and give me notes. Meanwhile, I had the dubbing stage starting at 10:30 that morning and I would go back to the stage to make the changes. While we’re talking about music, just for a second, I remember on Atomic Shakespeare, again, we were kind of under the gun, and we spotted with Alf Clausen on Wednesday the week before it aired. I’ll never forget, Neil (Mandelberg) had edited one side of a sword fight scene with David shot but not the other side. Neil just had one side so it was cut against "scene missing" banner. It’s extremely difficult to time what the final scene will look like, so for the composer, he doesn’t know how much music to write for a certain point or where the hits are going to happen. When Glenn got to that scene, he said to Alf, "Just give me ten yards of action adventure swash-buckling music." Obviously, Glenn knew that the scene was not ready for him at this point but just ordered enough yardage for the music editor to cut together once the rest of the footage came in.

DM: So the people you worked most closely on Moonlighting would be Glenn, Artie, and Neil?

PN: Yeah. Glenn, Artie, Neil and the other editors at the time were Harvey Rosenstock, Roger Bondelli and Curtis Frielich and then later we had…everyone called him "Large". Jerry Frizell. I want to mention that in the final season of Moonlighting, Neil left early to edit a pilot in Ireland, so we brought in an editor from LA Law I knew named Jonathan Pontell. He worked the final 2 months of the series, and technically edited the very last scene of the final show where David and Maddie are in the church. I mention this because Jonathan has been my boss for seven of my eight years at David E. Kelley Productions. Anyway, I also worked closely with the post houses, Compact Video, the sound effects editor and supervisors. Val Kuklowsky was our supervising sound editor and he was pretty unflappable. He had pretty much seen it all and it didn’t matter how late we gave him reels, their company would just drop everything and tackle Moonlighting as soon as it walked in the door.

DM: Did you interact with Bruce and Cybill?

PN: Yes, more in my first season (the show’s third). My only involvement would have been in having to loop them after we shot scenes because of bad sound or if there’s any dialogue that we needed to change because of rewriting. I would meet with them on the ADR stage and we would do looping. In later seasons, it was easier to just go to their trailers and record what we needed because their schedule was just so difficult. It was hard to get them off the stage when they were in so many of the scenes and so we would do the best we could with that and just drop the dialogue in. Also, because looping them became more and more difficult, as editors we all had to make sure the dialogue tracks were "dubbable", meaning we fixed as much of the bad sound as possible as we cut the scenes and we could air these tracks. Neil, who was the Supervising Editor, was the master at this. Neil was always the "go to" guy when scenes were in trouble.

DM: Was it the same thing with Allyce and Curtis? Did you have much interaction with them?

PN: Yeah, for the same reasons, just having to loop them, but I was not as involved with music playback and such as I have been with later series I’ve worked on. Chris Welch was more involved with those aspects. That’s the other area where post production might be involved with the actors, in pre-recording songs.

DM: We are promoting a reunion campaign for a motion picture. Although Bruce has expressed that it’s not likely to happen, what are your thoughts about it?

PN: Doing a movie?

DM: A movie bringing them all back together and give the show a better ending.

PN: I think it would be great! I think it would be loads of fun and be very popular with a huge, huge following. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who are in their twenties who follow reruns of the show religiously.

DM: Hey, that's great to hear! Now, the first two seasons of Moonlighting will be released in May 2005. I’m not sure when they’re going to release Seasons 3 through 5, but would you be interested in providing commentary?

PN: Oh sure! Absolutely!

DM: Have you worked or kept in touch with anyone from Moonlighting since it ended?

PN: Well, Neil Mandelberg is working right next door on Medium. Artie Mandelberg has directed two episodes of Medium so I’ve gone over and visited him. After Moonlighting was canceled, Artie and I worked together with Glenn on The Making of Me, which shows at Epcot in Florida. Chris Welch came by at the beginning of this season to have lunch with Neil but I couldn’t join them - I was too busy finishing a cut on Boston Legal. But I talk with him every now and then. I think I ran into Curtis Armstrong a couple years after Moonlighting ended and spoke to him for awhile. I’m trying to remember who else. Jay Daniel - I’ve spoken with Jay a couple of times over the phone when he’s been on other series and was asking questions about certain people that he was interested in hiring. I edited a pilot for Chic Eglee several years ago. And let’s see… Allan Arkush has been a show runner here with David Kelley on Snoops.

DM: Right.

PN: Allan Arkush also directed a couple of Ally McBeal’s – we worked together on one of them. Kerry Ehrin, we worked on Boston Public together and now on Boston Legal.

DM: Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn?

PN: I actually ran into Jeff Reno up in Lake Tahoe, probably three years after the show was out. And Roger Director and Artie worked together on a pilot that I came in and did some last minute editing on. But other than that, I have not really kept up on a real consistent basis
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DM: I think it’s kind of ironic how you guys are now working next door to each other…Is that weird, kind of fateful or what? You've got Glenn and Neil next door, and Artie and Peter Werner directed episodes.

PN: Actually, the way it worked out was last January (2004) I read that Glenn was writing a pilot for a new series called Medium. I called him in New York and said, "Wow! This sounds like a great story." After catching up on old news, he told me that if it went to series we should talk, or something to that effect. About a month later, it was February, I was on Boston Public and he called up and said, "Hey, are you available for some editing?" One of those last minute requests and I edited the screen test for Medium.

DM: Oh really!

PN: So Glenn came out here. I used one of the editing rooms - I was producing so I wasn’t really editing on the show. I used one of the editing rooms and cut the screen test with Glenn. We worked till midnight and Glenn, well, as soon as he walked in said, "This is a great lot!" He said, "If we sell the series, I want to bring it here," and sure enough!

DM: That's great! Now, you were an editor on Ally McBeal which was influenced by Moonlighting, so would you tell us what it was like working on that show?

PN: Before I answer that I just want to clarify that they were both very original shows in their own right. I can’t really say that Moonlighting influenced Ally McBeal. Editorially, they were similar; some of what I learned on Moonlighting I applied to Ally McBeal, in the sense of keeping the comedy pace crisp. Anyway, the two series that I’ve had the most fun working on have been Ally McBeal and Moonlighting. And Boston Legal is getting right up there with them, as far as I’m concerned. It’s been a lot of fun mostly because of the challenges the shows present to editors. It’s like I said, Ally McBeal had that three-way style going on. It was a dramatic show, we used music, and we used comedy. The sense of timing for humor was crucial. Calista (Flockhart) was very talented and had a very good sense of comedy, just like Bruce and Cybill did.

DM: How did your work on Moonlighting enable you to make suggestions on how to edit dream sequences and music cues?

PN: David Kelley had a very astute sense of what he wanted as far as the dream sequences were concerned, and he would write in the script a lot of the needle drop music, in ways that would comment on the scene. But in Ally McBeal, there were occasionally sections that lent themselves to music after the fact so I would experiment and try needle drop songs similar to what I learned on Moonlighting. Steve Robin, our Producer on Ally McBeal, also came up with some good songs. I would try them out and sometimes they stuck and sometimes they didn’t but the large majority David already had in mind how it was going to work. The dream sequences were pretty well scripted and we had a visual supervisor named Mike Most who helped bring them to light.

DM: Now you are one of three editors on Boston Legal, which is another David Kelley show. What is it like working on this series?

PN: To quote another editor, "If it’s this much fun, how can we call this work?" Like all of David Kelley’s shows, Boston Legal is extremely keen-witted, has the comedy mixed with drama, and very distinctive music. I thoroughly enjoy it. I think James Spader and William Shatner are tremendous together. There’s just real talent going on there. They’re able to do comedy and drama and have exceptional skills in both.

DM: And James Spader is not really known for comedy.

PN: It’s fun to see how he handles it and how he can just present things so deadpan and do it so well.

DM: Do you interact with any of the cast members? James and William or the others?

PN: I worked with William Shatner briefly on SeaQuest when I was one of the producers on that. I had to loop him for an episode he did - I don’t know how much he remembers that. I’ve talked with Monica Potter and Mark Valley, but I’m definitely not as involved as if I was producing. There's not as much interaction that goes on from the editing room.

DM: Who’s singing (in the underscored music), who’s got that R&B craggy voice?

PN: His name is Billy Valentine. He works with Danny Lux, our composer, and he’ll embellish the score a bit where it’s needed. I think musically the series has a really distinct feel. I’ve needle-dropped songs here and there when I’m editing Boston Legal, and sometimes they stay and sometimes they don’t. There’s an episode that aired just before Christmas about a woman who may or may not have killed her husband and his lover after she catches them in bed. She has hysterical amnesia and doesn’t know for sure if she killed them or came home and discovered them already dead. Anyway, in the end there’s a really good scene in the witness room. I like that scene because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the players immediately after the verdict. David Kelley has been a lawyer so of course the lawyer stories are very genuine. The woman is found innocent and Brad and Lori tell her, "The doctor said it may take you awhile to get over this," and you can see the woman is tormented like "Is this for real? Could I have done this and not know it?" They say, "Yes." And the look on her face reads ambivalence like "What do I do? Did this really happen or didn’t it?" It’s something that’s going to haunt her. And I remember it's the Christmas episode and I would hum to myself Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, as we studied this woman’s face. Just the irony of it. So I went on ITunes and listened to a bunch of versions and I found one I liked because it was acapella at the beginning and that’s what seemed to work best, just the voice with no instruments for the first half-verse. I edited with this song, transitioning it to the scene where Shore and Denny Crane are out on the balcony and that just wrapped up the episode nicely. Although at other times you drop in music and they say, "Get rid of that. That's horrible. We’ll get something else." But again, I’d say working on Moonlighting has helped me think in those terms as I edit.

DM: You’re talking about the episode Hired Guns, which I believe is the best episode that has aired, so far.

PN: Oh great!

DM: It was both funny and tense and I loved the way you cut back and forth between Alan Shore being held hostage and Brad Chase arguing a case before the jury.

PN: Right.

DM: Defending the woman who may or may not have killed her husband and his lover. So can you describe some of the challenges telling the story? And by the way, you said you were nominated for…

PN: The ACE Eddie, American Cinema Editors. They have what they call the Eddie Awards every year. I was nominated for Hired Guns and I’m running against The Sopranos and the pilot for Desperate Housewives, so we’ll see.
(Note: Phil won the ACE Eddie Award for BEST EDITED ONE-HOUR SERIES FOR TELEVISION on February 20, and deservedly so! Congrats!)

DM: When it came to editing Hired Guns, can you tell us a little bit about it?

PN: There’s one part where David Kelley scripted intercuts between the closing arguments and the SWAT team arriving. I thought this was very effective. Using this idea, the Producers suggested I try inter-cutting more, with Alan Shore being held hostage. We broke up the sequences more with Shore and the gunman, and it was a challenge to find good moments to transition from one segment to the next. In finding music that would fit all three of those stories, we discovered that it was best to keep it one piece of music even though it went against the grain with the SWAT team. It seemed that when you see the SWAT guys you expect the music to become more aggressive and a little bit more biting, but we just kept it with this percussive, driving piece that sort of pushed the closing scenes along, and playing over the SWAT team. It added this dimension that made it feel like everything’s going to culminate at once.

DM: And what I also liked about this episode was in the beginning with the court case you had like a long…it felt like it went on for five minutes, the questioning of the police detective about the blood spatter.

PN: That was a tough scene. Yeah.

DM: I mean, just to hold it without editing and let the actors keep going and build momentum.

PN: Yes. That was a tough scene because it's long and it’s courtroom, which is hard to edit anyway and it’s the beginning of the show so you don’t want it to be too long and slow. But the way it was written, it was so compelling that it didn’t feel nearly as long as it was.

DM: Yes, definitely.

PN: What helped, too, was Mark Valley as Brad; David wanted him to look professional, in control of his domain. This is where he should shine, and he should always know where he’s going with this witness. It was important to have him be aggressive at certain points and then to slow it down and take those beats so that you knew he was moving on to the next chapter, how he was going to cross-examine this guy. The actor who they got for the detective was excellent, and Dennis Smith, the director, shot great stuff as far as different angles and performances. We always shoot courtroom with three cameras so there were probably six or seven hours of film that came in on that scene. There were always areas to drop back wide and the camera was always moving. The other thing, when we are editing the show, is to give it that Boston Legal look where the camera hands off, you know, fast pans and hand-offs with the camera always moving around. So you’re trying to intermingle all three of those things, worry about the story, worry about the look, and the performance. It’s a big challenge. In the end, editorially, I was very happy with that scene.

DM: The other memorable scene was when Denny Crane rescued Alan Shore.

PN: Loved it! When I read it, I just busted out laughing and I said, "Oh god! "This is a challenge!" because if it reads that funny, it doesn’t always end up looking funny. But it was great the way it was shot, the way William Shatner played it, the way that James Spader played it; it just all culminated beautifully. And for fun when I put it together I used The Good, The Bad and the Ugly theme to get him (Denny Crane) up out of the chair, and walk over, but we just thought it was too cute for the scene. This was one of those scenes where it had to build, build, build, and then there’s very quick cuts at the end. Of course, all the scenes prior to the gun shooting are what help make it work so well, like when William Shatner says, "It's okay; I'm an ex-Marine. I was a trained sniper. Or was I a pilot?" Moments like that are just wonderful.

DM: And when he sees Tara and Sally cowering in his office, he thinks they are there for other reasons (as in sex).

PN: Yes - "Let’s take off our clothes." I mean, it’s fun because there’s a serious situation going on outside with Shore being held at gun point and at the same time you’ve got this whole comedy thing going on. I don’t want to say comedy routine, but you’ve got Crane being Crane in his office and that’s what David does so well because it’s comedy mixed with drama. Then it sort of comes together in the end. I also like the camaraderie that develops between Shore and Crane. There’s a wonderful moment at the very end when, out of relief, Shore sort of leans his head against Crane, and also, prior to that, the timing of William Shatner saying "Denny Crane" as he walks forward, is wonderful. By the way, the script that I’m going to start editing next, Episode 17, is every bit as good as Hired Guns. (Death Be Not Proud). It’s such a good one. Same kind of writing and everything, just mixing it up. It’s a very serious subject matter but also very funny.

DM: Another very good one you edited was It Girls and Beyond. The episode about the "l…l…lesbians." I just love saying that word now!

PN: Yes, yes. L…l…lesbians! The show turned out great and Mike Listo, our Co-Executive Producer did a very nice job directing it.

DM: I liked how Lori was drilling Brad about what was it about the case that he had a problem with.

PN: Yes. That’s right. I think Lori was there to keep an eye on Brad’s interest in the one lesbian he’s attracted to.

DM: And she kind of ridicules him in the staff meeting by asking him what the case is about (and giving Alan Shore an opening to taunt him by saying the word "L...l...lesbian" many times over).

PN: Yeah, just sort of exposes him and finds out what his hang up is.

DM: And now you have Shirley mixed into it now. Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen).

PN: Yes, exactly, what an outstanding actress! Watching dailies everyday is never a dull moment. And it was a great scene in It Girls and Beyond with William Shatner when he discloses that he’s taking medication.

DM: And also in that scene when he has that showdown with Rene’s character in the men’s room.

PN: Right.

DM: That was excellent, too.

PN: Yeah, that was really well done.

DM: Now, even though the show is described as a dramedy, it has screwball elements to it and it’s continuing to evolve. I think it’s trying to find its tone. Some episodes would be very dramatic, and others would be more comical. Maybe that’s what David wants. To be a little unpredictable with the tone of the episodes. So what would you like to see the show evolve into?

PN: I think at the end of the day it can’t be as serious as The Practice was. I think that the strongest episodes are those that have the undercurrent of a serious theme, but definitely lifted with these light-hearted moments. I think that the show remains topical. There’s always a story that they’re talking about that ends up in the newspapers pretty shortly either before or after the episode. I think that it’s important to keep in that direction. The one that I just finished editing is a more serious show. That one airs next Sunday (Tortured Souls on 2/20). I like the direction that it has been going in – a good balance between dark and light and I like the way that David uses the cast. If it’s too much of the screwball element, ultimately it’s not going to be as interesting. I like the fact that we see the serious side of Crane every now and then and the serious side of Shore every now and then. I’d like to learn more about Schmidt and some of the other characters that are coming on board. I like Mark Valley. I think they’re all interesting characters and we actually have Kerry Washington (from Ray) for several episodes. If she stays on board a little more, she’d be an interesting character to investigate.

DM: A couple of things I could say about the show is you really don’t know everyone’s background or what their history is so maybe that needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

PN: I liked it when Donnie Crane (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) came on board. We learned a lot about Denny’s background. And Shore is a very interesting character as well, but I just don’t know how much I really want to learn because sometimes if you don’t know enough, the mystique is what keeps it interesting.

DM: The other thing is that Alan was supposed to butt heads with Brad, which can be really explosive, but you’re not seeing that as much. Then you have a lot of guest stars being added to the cast and it squeezes the regulars’ time on screen.

PN: Yes. That’s true. That does happen. It is true that the Brad/Shore element is less prevalent than it used to be. But maybe it’s sort of played its course out. I like Paul Lewiston. I like Rene as a character because he’s very important in the show. He’s the grounded person who’s there to keep the company looking legitimate. Schmidt is the same way so she’s a great element to have in this whole ensemble. I really like the fact that she had a prior relationship with Crane – this raises the stakes for fun, nervous moments whenever they’re together.

DM: Now, you went into this earlier. The shooting style of the series is like a documentary with hand held cameras, swift zooms, and I also noticed the directors like to focus on the hands. You see a lot of hand shots. Can you shed some light on some of these choices? The shooting style of the series?

PN: Bill D’Elia, our executive producer, is an excellent director. He directed the first show, which is sort of our pilot, and he directed episode number fourteen, ’Till We Meat Again. The style was his idea and I think it’s a great choice because it differentiates us from other shows. I like the way the camera has movement, even if it’s subtle movement with the slight push-ins when the actors say certain dialogue, it gives it a texture that’s really interesting and can emphasize what’s being said. The idea of quick cuts coming into a scene when you see the hands, or the coffee mug, or the books or whatever, was Bill D’Elia’s idea. Steve Robin, our supervising producer, was also involved in that as well. He’s given us some ideas about the quick cuts that transition us to the scenes. Steve also worked with Danny Lux on the musical cues that give energy to the cuts. Craig Bench edited the first show so I’m sure that the three of them together refined this technique. But the original idea came from Bill. The film crew will first shoot the scenes conventionally with all the proper sizes and angles and every scene is shot with two or three cameras at once. They’ll maybe do the first couple of takes without moving the camera a lot. And then they’ll go in and start moving the camera around so you really have to look at every take, because no two takes will be exactly alike, as far as where the camera will be at certain points of the dialogue.

DM: Now, based on various message boards that I have read, there is a demand for Boston Legal to be released on DVD, but it seems like David Kelley doesn’t really put his shows out on DVD. Any discussions about Boston Legal on DVD?

PN: I’m unaware of any discussions now about DVD’s for Boston Legal; that’s usually handled by business affairs. I know from experience that music is an important factor in the process.

DM: Music rights are expensive...

PN: Yes. But I hope that sometime in the future we have many seasons of Boston Legal to release on DVD.

DM: Me too. Now, you’ve been in the business for over 20 years. How has it changed?

PN: Well, post production has gone through an electronic revolution that the rest of the industry hasn’t experienced yet. There’s a bit of a revolution happening with the cameras on set because more and more shows are being shot on 24P, which is a high definition video format that is looking more and more like film. We still shoot on film, most shows do still shoot on film. But as they get better with the 24P look, then that will sort of revolutionize the way things are shot on set. Makeup will have to be done differently, art directors will have to adjust the way they do things. But as far as post production is concerned, in my lifetime as a film editor/producer, I’ve seen us go from film to high-tech digital editing. There was a five year period where there were all kinds of editing systems being tried out, like Ediflex, and Editdroid, Montage, Lightworks, and so on. Now Avid is the standard and that’s what 90% of the business is cutting on, for features as well as television. So there’s been a re-learning curve for many editors in how to edit electronically. I’ve edited both on film and computer. I prefer computer far more because you can come up with many, many different versions of a scene in a short amount of time and also have the ability to play music with it and sound effects and that’s made me a better editor because I’m able to finesse scenes. When you’re cutting on film, you’re really limited by time and how many versions you can have, so I just think you can make things ultimately better. Obviously, I’m working with some editors and assistant editors who have never been involved with film. But they’re just as good at their job, if not better, than if they’d worked with film. So I don’t think that that’s made a big difference. It’s just something I have in my background. One big difference over the years is that the editorial style in general is definitely more aggressive. I think MTV has made an impact. I think shows like NYPD Blue, ER, and Homicide have made an impact. I mean, if you look at something the way it was cut 20 years ago it looks to me a lot different from the way things are edited now, with the exception of Moonlighting. Moonlighting really was ahead of its time. It was very aggressive and it was thoughtful and unique.

DM: Any other upcoming projects you would like to discuss?

PN: Well, at this point, the other projects that I’ve heard about have all been pilots that will be shooting this spring. There might be a movie of the week that I get on during the hiatus. Another new David Kelley show is Haley’s Comet, which Jonathan Pontell has developed and is executive producer of, and he’s directing the pilot as well. It’s about a young woman who is a medical student and she’s recovering from a devastating disease. She works as an intern in an ER as part of her medical training. They‘ll be shooting the pilot in March and hopefully the series will be picked up. But I’m very happy here on Boston Legal.

Boston Legal is currently on hiatus and will return in the fall of 2005-'06 on ABC.


Moonlighting DVDs for seasons 1 & 2 will go on sale on May 31, 2005. You can pre-order your copy at Amazon.com

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