Jamie Kennedy (‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ editor) on getting to edit the ‘biopic’ of a favorite artist [Exclusive Video Interview]
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Before she was editing “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” Jamie Kennedy was already a massive fan of “Weird” Al Yankovic. “My partner and I are both huge fans of “Weird” Al. We’ve been to four of his concerts out here in L.A. since living out here. He is just our favorite artist,” she tells Gold Derby during our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above). She was able to land the gig of editing the film because of her work editing “Die Hart” for Eric Appel, who co-wrote and directed the film. Appel was still trying to get the project off the ground at the time. “I was like, please, please give me a call if that ever comes to fruition and he is like, I definitely will and then he definitely did and it was such an honor.”
SEELeo Birenberg and Zach Robinson interview: ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ composers
“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” which is streaming on The Roku Channel, tells the story of “Weird” Al Yankovic‘s life in the same manner as his song parodies. It tells the “true” story of how he defied his overbearing father to become a master accordion player and finds instant success writing song parodies. As he seeks to become known for something other than parodies he embarks on a disastrous relationship with Madonna, descends into alcohol abuse and fights against drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Daniel Radcliffe stars as “Weird” Al along with Rainn Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Julianne Nicholson and Toby Huss. Among the eight Emmy nominations the film earned were Best TV Movie, Movie/Limited Actor (Radcliffe) and Movie/Limited Picture Editing for Kennedy.
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Many scenes presented their own unique challenges in the editing room but the “I Love Rocky Road” scene was the first that came to Kennedy’s mind. “I cut together a rough assembly of it, sent it off to [Appel] and we both agreed that the one thing he was missing was a closeup of Dan and it’s not totally playing without this closeup of Dan.” The problem was that they weren’t able to go back to where the scene was shot as there were only 18 shooting days. They were finally able to get the shot while filming scenes in the set for “Weird” Al’s house. “They put up a curtain that matched the kind of curtain that was at the bar and they shot a closeup of Dan lip-syncing along to ‘I Love Rocky Road’ and I cut it in and we’re like, ‘That’s it!’”
Earlier this year, Kennedy won the ACE Eddie Award for Best Editing for a Non-Theatrical Feature Film, which was a huge honor for her. “I said, when I got up there, that I felt kind of like three kids in a trench coat and I meant it because when I went to the pre-ceremony, I was starstruck by everyone that was there. I admired every single person in that room.” Even now that she’s an Emmy nominee, she still finds it very hard to believe. “I maintain that a new level of imposter syndrome has been unlocked in navigating all of that but it’s also just been kind of fun to go along with it.”
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