‘Shrinking’ editor James Renfroe: ‘Working with Bill Lawrence is like a master class in editing’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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The challenge in editing an episode of “Shrinking,” the seriocomic AppleTV+ series, is that the tone so seamlessly shifts between comedy and pathos. “Getting the pace was really the biggest thing,” says show editor James Renfroe. “We did a lot of dirty (edits). We did a lot of split screens for visual effects and stuff to move things along, but fortunately the tone was present already. Credit to (star) Jason Siegel, who helped develop the project and is a lead on it. He crushed it. Watching him in dailies was impressive…He was really guiding them when we had these montage sequences in the pilot. He was great with feeding them and then getting stiff out of them.” Renfroe spoke to Gold Derby as part of our “Meet the Experts” editors roundtable. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“Shrinking” stars Siegel as Jimmy, a therapist grieving the recent death of his wife in a car accident while struggling to find his way as a single dad and as a professional. Its very talented cast also features Christa Miller, Jessica Williams – and a fellow named Harrison Ford. The fact that Ford was involved in the series (his first regular role on television) made it often difficult for Renfroe to function. “I had photos of me with Harrison on my monitors,” her admits. “It was like, I couldn’t get past it. I didn’t know about him when I said yes to the project, either. So it was just like…it just kept leveling up.”
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Ford aside, Renfroe acknowledges that the first three episodes of “Shrinking” proved the biggest obstacle for him “in terms of time and pace. We reshot some stuff that helped elevate the tone a little bit so that it wasn’t quite so depressing and added a little bit of comedy. The fourth script was really funny, and the five sort of gave us an opportunity for growth in the story. Once we got to that point, things started to ease up a little bit.” It also didn’t hurt that the show’s co-creator and showrunner is Bill Lawrence, the closest thing to a comedy genius working in TV today. “Working with Bill Lawrence is like a master class in editing,” Renfroe praises. “Getting his attention was difficult – he was doing ‘Ted Lasso’ and a new Vince Vaughn show at the same time. But once we got it, it was great.”
What did Lawrence do, specifically? He just knows what to keep and what to trim, Renfroe emphasizes. “Part of the task as editor was finding the ability to let things breathe so that we felt the emotion,” he says. “I think Bill at one point was like, ‘I want to punch somebody in the gut with emotion and then make them laugh after.’ It was a nice challenge and a pleasure to work on…A lot of our challenge was getting the audience to care about the characters. I think we did a really good job of landing them, Jimmy (Siegel) in particular. In the first episode, he was a terrible person at a terrible point in his life. He’s bad as a dad, bad as a person, and certainly bad at his career. So it was gratifying to see his growth and evolution throughout the season after what we established in the pilot.”
Speaking of the pilot, that’s the episode that Renfroe has submitted for Emmy consideration. Why that one?
“The producers told me to submit that one,” he replies. “The benefit of the pilot is that it really does establish the show. But the truth is that I enjoyed working on all of the episodes, so it was hard to pick one.”
All episodes of “Shrinking” are available to stream on Apple TV+.
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