{"id":137523,"date":"2020-12-09T10:20:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T15:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=137523"},"modified":"2020-12-11T12:00:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T17:00:50","slug":"oh-henry-bill-henry-85-wins-emmy-for-editing-hbo-hit-succession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2020\/12\/09\/oh-henry-bill-henry-85-wins-emmy-for-editing-hbo-hit-succession\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Henry! Bill Henry \u201985 wins editing Emmy for HBO’s ‘Succession’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In September, when Bill Henry \u201985 won an Emmy for his editing work on HBO\u2019s Succession<\/em>, he thanked his cousin Stuart Cooper during his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 35 years ago, in April 1985, Henry was a month shy of his Bates graduation when he traveled to New York City with his parents to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, a baroque Italian painter about whom Henry had done his senior art history thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also had dinner, where Henry met Cooper, his mother\u2019s first cousin, for the first time. Cooper was not just a cousin but a Hollywood filmmaker, too, whose credits included 1975\u2019s highly regarded World War II film Overlord<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bill Henry ’85 and his husband, Gabriel Garay. Henry’s career as a film editor has seen the complete \u201cshift from 100 years on acetate film to a completely digital medium.\u201d (Photography courtesy of Bill Henry ’85)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cooper asked his young cousin, \u201cWhat are you going to do after graduation?\u201d To which Henry replied, \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know.\u201d As moms do, Henry\u2019s mother saw an opening: \u201cHe\u2019s going to come work for you in the movie business!\u201d As Henry recalls, \u201cStuart really perked up and said, \u2018Oh, really?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cousins stayed in touch, and when Henry graduated in May, he moved to Los Angeles. \u201cI started as an apprentice film editor, on 35-millimeter film.\u201d One of his first credits was as an apprentice editor for David Byrne\u2019s True Stories<\/em> (1986).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was it. It stuck,\u201d he says. \u201cI initially thought I would give it that first summer after graduation. I stayed for 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working primarily as an assistant and associate editor, Henry traveled the world and worked with big names. Along the way, he was mentored by John Bloom, who had won the Oscar for film editing on 1982\u2019s Gandhi<\/em>. \u201cI met him in the early \u201990s on a forgettable Mel Gibson \/ Robert Downey vehicle called Air America<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mid-1990s, homesick for the East Coast (he\u2019d grown up in Cohasset, Mass.), Henry left L.A. for New York City, where he began to transition from theatrical films to television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early 2000s, Henry worked with the legendary Mike Nichols on three projects, including HBO\u2019s adaptation of the play Angels in America<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> as an associate editor. (In fact, Henry was slated to cut Nichols\u2019 2014 adaptation of Master Class<\/em>, the Terrence McNally play about opera star Maria Callas and starring Meryl Streep, when the director died at age 83.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the early 2000s, Henry worked with the legendary Mike Nichols on three projects, including the HBO adaptation of Angels in America<\/em>. (HBO image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Along the way, Henry witnessed first-hand the industry’s \u201cshift from 100 years on acetate film to a completely digital medium.\u201d And that fundamentally changed how films were edited. Though a movie might be shot on traditional 35-millimeter film, the editing became digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt changed the workflow in the cutting room from what was a labor-intensive job\u201d of splicing, filing \u201cfilm trims\u201d (sections of film removed during editing), and cleaning reels as an assistant to \u201cdigital-media management on a computer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He got his first editor\u2019s credit on a TV show for the 2012\u201313 NBC series Smash<\/em>. \u201cI had to really talk my way into getting that job,\u201d he says. \u201cDreamWorks was hesitant because I had never done a musical before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He uses the example of landing the job when he talks to aspiring editors. \u201cYou just have to boldly say, \u2018Look, I know I can do this,\u2019 and then hard-sell your abilities. They bought it, I got it, and it went exceptionally well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring a large ensemble cast, including Debra Messing, Anjelica Huston, and Broadway star Megan Hilty, Smash<\/em> told the story of the creation of a new Broadway musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe through storylines about everyone involved: writers, producers, actors, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Henry earned his first TV editor’s credit for the 2012\u201313 NBC series Smash.<\/em> (NBC image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Editing musical sequences is a different animal than straightforward narrative, Henry says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were at least three musical numbers integrated with the narrative, and they routinely shot with three cameras. They would shoot an extraordinary amount of footage to cover that three-minute sequence,” he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When editing a dance sequence, you’re always trying to maintain and clarify the geography of the scene\u201d \u2014 think Gene Kelley splashing about in Dancing in the Rain<\/em> \u2014 \u201cwhile also visually earmarking character arcs and featuring the best of the choreography. Many of them were quite complex.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo willfully manipulate time, protracting those moments of quiet that are full of unbearable tension \u2014 that is exceptionally satisfying.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Henry won his Succession<\/em> Emmy in the \u201csingle-camera picture editing\u201d category for the final episode of the show’s second season, “This Is Not for Tears.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term \u201csingle camera\u201d refers to a more cinematic style of filming, in which a scene might be shot and reshot from several angles with a single camera, compared to how a studio TV show might be shot, with multiple cameras capturing each scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This scene from <\/em>Succession displays the single-camera editing techniques that won Bill Henry ’85 an Emmy.<\/em><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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