Alison Stewart: This is All of It. I'm Alison Stewart. We have an announcement about our February Get Lit with All of It book club event. This month, we are reading The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. The story follows a group of women and their friendship through good times and bad in New York City and LA. It's about chosen family, social justice, and navigating the challenging wilderness of young adulthood.

Angela Flournoy will be at the New York Public Library for a Get Lit event on Monday, February 23rd. Tickets are free, but the seats are first-come, first-served, and they go fast. We have an exciting update. Our February musical guest hand picked by Angela Flournoy, will be jazz musician Emmanuel Wilkins. Wilkins was a nominee for best alternative jazz album at the Grammys just last weekend. That's a live recording from our studio of Wilkins playing the song Motion from that album.

On February 23rd, you will get to see him live at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Angela Flournoy says of him, I love Emanuel Wilkins. Head to wnyc.org/getlit to get your tickets now and to find out how to borrow your copy from our partners at the New York Public Library. That's in the future. Now, let's get this hour started with One Battle after Another.

Oscar-nominated film editor Andy Jurgensen had a lot to contend with when working on Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. There are intense action sequences. There are funny moments coupled with terrifying moments. There's a large ensemble cast and lots of plot lines. There are big stars like Leo DiCaprio and newcomers like Chase Infiniti. There are larger-than-life characters like the revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills and the evil yet kind of stupid Colonel Lockjaw. He had to take all of those elements and make a story about a former revolutionary and his search for a kidnapped daughter.

One Battle After Another earned 13 total nominations. It's up for Best Picture, and Andy Jurgensen has earned his very first Oscar nomination. Yay. Andy joins me now as part of our ongoing series The Big Picture, which highlights Oscar nominees who worked behind the camera to make movie magic. Congratulations. First of all, Andy.

Andy Jurgensen: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Alison Stewart: You've worked with PTA Paul Thomas Anderson for a number of years. We're what have you learned about how he works that helped you on this project?

Andy Jurgensen: Well, it's interesting. I've been working with him for 12 years now. I actually started as an assistant editor on Inherent Vice and have worked on all of the projects since, including some of the music videos that he's done. I just feel like I've gotten a good sense of what he likes and what he doesn't like, his sensibilities. You were talking about the mix of genres. That's something that he really does so well in his movies. There's always humor. There's always sometimes absurdity. There's not really action. This is his first foray into action, but there always is usually a family element, too, like an emotional core.

That was something that was really important in this movie was making sure that this father daughter bond was the emotional core of the movie. Then everything else is swirling around it. I just feel like we just get each other, and we have developed a shorthand of how we work and how we judge performances. It's an instinct, and I feel like we just have become in tune.

Alison Stewart: What's the first thing you do when you get the script?

Andy Jurgensen: When he gave me the script, he actually didn't tell me anything about it.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Andy Jurgensen: He was like, "Here's the script." Which is, I think, good. It's better that way. I read it. I actually read it twice in one sitting, because I didn't really know-- As you're reading it, just like when you're watching the movie, you don't quite get that there's these Black comedy elements or these satirical elements. I remember getting to the Christmas adventure scenes and being like, "Okay, I see now the tone of the movie." I read it through and then rewatched it or reread it again in that light.

Going back to when I had my meeting with them, maybe a couple of days later, we were just sitting at the kitchen table, and we were of course talking about the father-daughter core being the most important thing. There's elements of-- It's like a Tarantino movie in a way, his take on that, and Coen brothers elements.

Alison Stewart: I see the Coen brothers, for sure.

Andy Jurgensen: Obviously, it is based on a Pynchon book, roughly, so there's those absurd names that you would get in a Pynchon novel. It still has the Paulisms, we call it. The things that are very--

Alison Stewart: Paulism. What's a Paulism?

Andy Jurgensen: It's the offbeat, quirky. Not quirky, because that's not a good word to use these days, but something's a little off. Unconventional, but I don't know, it's a politician. I think your listeners would know what that would be.

Alison Stewart: They would understand. It's like, I don't know, wearing two different colored socks, maybe. I don't know. Something like that.

Andy Jurgensen: All of his movies are not too polished or overly polished.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting.

Andy Jurgensen: There's imperfections throughout. I think that that's something that he likes to kind of keep, that kind of stuff in, because it makes the movie feel more human.

Alison Stewart: Is that hard for you as an editor?

Andy Jurgensen: Sometimes. Sometimes you're like, "Oh, I really want to fix this camera bump," or something like that. Of course, we'll fix something that's really bad. Sometimes, let's say if an actor maybe stumbles over a line or something, trips them up, or they get distracted by something, sometimes can add something interesting to the performance. It's like those little moments or things that they maybe do with their mouth, or walks, or like maybe trips, or things that just feel more real. We always like to see what we can use.

Even in just the production tracks, the tracks that we record on set. Sometimes there's just weird sounds that a chair will make or things that were on set, like a weird wood. Someone stepped on something, something weird happened. He's always like, "Let's keep that in. Let's try to keep it in." Just because it feels real.

Alison Stewart: It adds extra texture to it, actually.

Andy Jurgensen: Yes. It's a texture thing.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Oscar-nominated editor, one of One Battle After Another, Andy Jurgensen. We're discussing how he helped craft the best picture nominee as part of our annual Oscar series, The Big Picture. This film was shot on VistaVision, which appeared in several films recently, like The Brutalist last year, and I think Begonia this year.

With it, we just get to see more. We get to see a lot of everything. What does that mean for you as an editor?

Andy Jurgensen: Well, VistaVision was something that he had been experimenting with. We shot this, it's like a 15-minute music video thing with Netflix for Tom York called ANIMA. It was three songs together, and we shot one section of that using a VistaVision camera. It was something that he was testing out, and it didn't quite work because it was a little out of sync. That, I think, started in his mind thinking this would be really cool to shoot with.

What's so interesting about it is that-- VistaVision is going through the camera horizontally rather than vertically. It's like a still camera, the old 35-millimeter still cameras. It's going through that way. That's the size of the negative. You get basically double the size of a normal 35-millimeter motion picture negative. What you get with that is you get, instead of just the 185 aspect ratio, which is what we normally see in theaters, you get an extra height and extra top and bottom.

What we could do is we discovered that we could use this VistaVision camera, and we could blow it up to IMAX. We did some tests beforehand, but we could still do our normal 185 for normal theaters, but because we were going to be accessing the extra top and bottom, we could translate that into the full 143 IMAX theaters and have like kind of a different kind of experience. We had multiple cameras that we were using. They were breaking down from time to time. We were just doing the best we could.

We actually traveled with a VistaVision projector on location, and we would send film down to Photochem, which is in Los Angeles, the only place that you can process and print film nowadays. We would send it back to wherever we were on set. I would travel with the production, and we would have daily screenings in VistaVision-

Alison Stewart: It's so analog.

Andy Jurgensen: -each time, we had to review the footage. Oh yes. Paul's very into analog. We did that, and it gave us an idea of just what it would look like big. That was the beginning of us ultimately doing special VistaVision screenings, which we were able to do one in Los Angeles, one in New York, and one in London, which mirrored how we originally saw the movie in dailies. Then we could still do IMAX, and we could just still-- Then we also converted to 70 millimeter.

This movie called for a grander scope. Just bigger images. Especially all the back tank cross with Sensei and Bob, that sequence and the riots, it felt great to be big. Then, of course, the end chase, we knew that that was going to look amazing on IMAX and VistaVision. It was a dream. I'm so happy. He really pushed for it, and technically it was difficult at times, but luckily we were able to pull it off.

Alison Stewart: When you're editing, did you start editing while the film was being filmed, or did you wait till it was finished?

Andy Jurgensen: Yes. Typically, an editor's on during production just to start assessing the footage, just doing an assembly. Since I was on set to run these daily screenings, I would be taking notes of things that Paul liked, didn't like. The whole crew, or whoever wanted to come as part of the crew, could come to these screenings, so we could judge laughs or which things were working with the audience.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Andy Jurgensen: Little small audience. Then we could be like, "That's great. That's the moment. We're going to put that in the movie." While they're shooting, then I could be assembling the movie digitally on the Avid and just start building stuff. Then we actually had a hiatus. We shot maybe for like a month and a half. We had a hiatus because we were waiting for Benicio to be finished with Phoenician Scheme. Paul and I had two months to cut the stuff we had already shot and fine-tune it. That really helped figure out the pace of the movie and figure out things that we needed to shoot and give us a head start.

Then the second half is when we. We shot the sisters with the baby and then the final chase, and then the Benicio section in El Paso.

Alison Stewart: What did you discover during that "time off" that you and Paul, what did you discover about the film and about its pacing?

Andy Jurgensen: Well, we had a lot of footage from the prologue, which is the first 20, 25 minutes. What I think we really learned was it set what the pace of the whole movie was going to be like because we had to figure out the speed and the pace of the prologue, which was tricky because you're setting up the French 75. You're setting up Perfidia. She's such an important character that lives through the entire movie. Even though we don't really see her, we feel her. The prologue has got to be substantial enough, but it also can't be too long because we have the whole second half of the movie.

It made us think about how we could overlap audio and prelap audio and show passage of time. I don't want to say it set the whole pace of the movie, but it showed how we were going to jump into this momentum. Throw the audience into the story and then figure out, as we were continuing the production process, like figuring out where you could build the tension and build things up and up and up and up. Then you need to have a scene where the audience can breathe, relax for a second, and laugh or whatever it is, and then be able to build it up again. It has to be this up and down, because if it's at 100% the whole movie, it's not going to be as effective.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's talk about editing humor into the theme. It's also a very funny movie, I should say. Let's listen to it a little bit. This is Bob and Sensei, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro. In this clip, you can hear that Bob, he's on the phone with one of the revolutionaries. He's trying to figure out where his daughter's going to be, and he doesn't remember the codes because he's a little fried, frankly. Let's listen.

Sensei: Rise and shine.

Bob Ferguson: Bat an eyelash.

Sensei: Good morning.

Bob Ferguson: There are no hands on the clock.

Sensei: Why?

Bob Ferguson: Because they're non-needed.

Sensei: What time is it?

Bob Ferguson: I don't remember that part. All right, let's just not nitpick over the password stuff. Look, this is Bob Ferguson, all right? You just called my house. Let's cut the-- I need the rendezvous point.

Sensei: What time is it?

Bob Ferguson: Look, Steve Lockjaw just attacked my Home. I lost my daughter. This is Bob Ferguson. You understand?

Sensei: Right. Yes.

Bob Ferguson: I don't remember any more of this code speak. Right? Let's just get on with it. What is the rendezvous point?

Alison Stewart: Was that as funny on paper as it is in the film?

Andy Jurgensen: Yes, it was funny, but just Leo brought so much to it, and the other actor, too, playing Josh. That scene works so well, I think, because of all of Leo's expressions, the frustrations that he's showing and screaming into the phone silently, and all sorts of stuff. What was great--

Alison Stewart: I'm sorry, did you have a lot of takes of that?

Andy Jurgensen: We had a good amount, but I think we really honed in on a couple. Sometimes, if you cut to all the different takes, you can tell that it's manipulated too much.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Andy Jurgensen: We had a couple, I think, that were the best ones, and. Josh, the guy on the phone, was on set in the other room, so they could really banter back and forth and change things. It was nice. They had rehearsed a little bit, but I think Paul just let them loose, and they came up with lines and various things. Honestly, that. That scene and that sequence, the Benico sequence, came together pretty quickly, I will say, just because everyone was so good and the cameras moving around in the space, and we had control over that entire building, so the camera could move around. We just had so much energy.

It's a dream when you have just footage with so much energy and momentum, and the actors are just giving it their all because it's not like you're hunting for the good moments. There were just so many good gems. You're starting at already a high point, and then you're just trying to make it even better.

Alison Stewart: Some of the scenes in this movie are chaotic, especially when Bob goes with Sensei to this building, and it's filled with a bunch of people that Sensei, Benicio del Toro, is hiding, and he wants to introduce Bob to each of them. People are coming and going. Bob's totally stressed. Let's listen to a quick moment of that scene, and we'll navigate it on the other side.

Bob Ferguson: Must have traced your calls. What's the plan? What's the plan, man?

Sensei: B.G.

Bob Ferguson: What's the plan?

Sensei: I'm thinking.

Bob Ferguson: Is that my weapon? Hang on.

Sensei: B. G.

Bob Ferguson: What's the plan? We gotta go, man. We gotta go.

Sensei: Okay. You're going to take him up on the roof across to my car in Lapham's Alley. Here are my keys. You drop him off. You call me. Latino Heat, come with me.

Bob Ferguson: No, no, no, man. I'm not going with him. No, I'm not going with him. I'm supposed to go with you. I need you, brother. Please, Sensei. Sensei. Sensei, please.

Sensei: Courage. Courage, Bob.

Bob Ferguson: That's it. Courage. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Hey, thank you, Sensei. Thank you, Sensei. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: How do you edit a scene that has so much going on? Where do you start?

Andy Jurgensen: You start by watching all the dailies. Instinctually, you mark the things that pop out at you. That's how I start, at least. The things that feel real. It just almost comes out at the screen at you, and it's like, this, me, me, me. You just start with those things. It's not going to come together perfect on the first try. It's an evolution. You start with a couple of things that you really like, and then you are like, "Okay, well, there's this other thing I want to try to fit in. How do I fit that in?" It's a puzzle piece. They're a puzzle. You have all these pieces, and you're trying to figure out the best version of what the scene could be.

Alison Stewart: I'm curious about a convent scene with Regina Hall. It seemed like there was more to that character than we got to see. Was there more to that character? Was there more to the convention?

Andy Jurgensen: There wasn't. There was a little bit more at the convent, but it wasn't really with Regina's character. There was some scenes. You remember the young nun that takes Willa into the room. There was a scene at a breakfast table where there's a standoff between her and Willa. The thing is, at that point in the movie, we've already gone through so much. It's like we had to breeze through that a little bit, and we came to the realization that once they're at the convent, and once Lockjaw and his team figure out where they are, it's like, they're so all-powerful, they're going to get in there.

Because I think even in the script, there was a scene where the nuns were like fighting with the soldiers and the guns and all this whole other standoff. We realized, you know what? We don't need that. It's like he's going to overpower them, and he's going to get Willa. He's that powerful. It's knowing where you can jump time and move along with the story that's important.

There was a little bit more of Deandra in the prologue that we had to get rid of. Again, that was trying to figure out the perfect length of that prologue and just navigating what the important parts were. There were a few bits of her that had to go, but we tried to keep her alive as much as possible. That interrogation scene between Deandra and Danvers, who's like the military guy with Lockjaw, I think, gave her a lot. We actually did have that in the movie at one point. Then it came back.

As that DNA test was evolving, we ended up using it as a way to cross-cut so that we could reorder stuff that happened in the DNA test scene. It ended up being a nice contrast between Willa and Lockjaw in the church, and then Deandra and Danvers, and just a different dynamic. It's a sad ending to Deandra's character, unfortunately. Even though she becomes a mother figure to Willa at the end, in a sense, this is.

Alison Stewart: Your first Oscar nomination. How'd you hear?

Andy Jurgensen: Thank you. I actually was at Skywalker Ranch because we had done a screening the night before, and so we were staying over there. I was actually exhausted because we had done two screenings. The next morning I woke up early, but I had 50 text messages. Then I read and found out. It was very exciting, but it was fun because I was there with Chase and with Paul, and so we got to celebrate that morning.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Oscar-nominated editor of One Battle After Another, Andy Jurgensen. He was part of our series The Big Picture. Congratulations again to you, and thanks for being with us.

Andy Jurgensen: Thank you, Alison. I appreciate it. This was fun.