BEAR NECESSITIES

Having been involved with the project for more than six years, Sundance Film Festival doc Nuisance Bear became more than just a job for editor Andres Landau.

At what point in the process did the film truly “find itself” in the edit and how different did it look from the version you imagined on set?

There were two important moments in the edit, using Adobe Premiere Pro and Frame.io, where I felt we started to find the film, one was when we found our thread to our main bear story,  and the other one was finding the Inuit Elder voice of the main participant that laid the foundation of the narrative and it became our storytelling device of the film. We understood both journeys and how they collided with one another.

Was there a specific scene or sequence where the edit became the storytelling engine rather than the script or performances?

Editing this film was a discovery journey, one that happens often in the documentary world, where you can’t be afraid of trying things and throwing them away. The film found its shape after many iterations and I couldn’t have imagined what it became when we started this feature version two years ago. 

One of my favourite moments is when our bear gets taken out of jail, and Gabriela placed the camera up very close to our bear on a stretcher, he was looking straight into the lens, straight into my eyes, for quite some time. I felt that I was able to feel his emotions, it really impacted me. That’s when I started to think about the POV aspect of the bear in the film, his perspective. The scene I cut after, “the airlift”, was a decompression, a moment of reflection, and my approach changed after that.

A big amount of the material was captured with special camera rigs mounted on cars and trucks, which made it safer for the crew to be around bears

How did you manage rhythm and pacing when balancing emotional intimacy with narrative momentum in the edit?

One of the things I often try when watching dailies is to connect emotionally with the participants, subjects or moments that move me.  In this case, I spent a lot of time watching all kinds of polar bears, and I started to learn about them. I also spent a lot of my time listening to the people from these communities that live with the bears or interact with them constantly, that are part of their lives.

A big amount of the material was captured with special camera rigs mounted on cars and trucks, which made it safer for the crew to be around bears, spending a lot of time under extreme weather conditions. There were a lot of moving shots that flowed beautifully, and I leaned on that style when necessary instead of fighting it. I was able to create a very immersive edit, finding the balance and pacing, and at the same time bringing those emotional beats so the audience can connect and take the time to process what they just experienced.

What role did archival, found, or non-traditional material play in shaping the structure of the film and how did you integrate it into a coherent timeline?

The final film doesn’t contain any of these. The material captured in many different trips to these communities during the last decade allowed us to create the visuals for the film. During an exploration phase, we tried different things in the edit where we looked at archival material and cut a few sequences, but pretty rapidly we all realised that it didn’t belong to this film. Every exercise we did was informative and gave us more tools and understanding moving forward in the direction of the film we wanted to make.

How early were editorial decisions influencing other post-production elements like sound design, music, or visual effects?

Making films is a collaborative process, there’s no question about that. In this case sound effects and music became very important for this feature version. I say this because the short film version we made five years ago had no music and no dialogue, it contained a very powerful soundscape created by the talented Dave Rose, who continued working very closely on this feature version. 

We were able to collaborate with him through the edits, feeding him scenes, field recordings and integrating his work and inspiration to cuts moving forward. It has been a seamless creative process which kept elevating the film on every iteration and allowed us to have a lot of fun in the final mixing stage where we had an advanced SFX edit in place with the talented re-recording mix master, Lou Solakofski.

Our music score was another aspect of the creative process where we got very lucky.  I love playing with my favourite tracks from artists I like, and music libraries I have access to in the edit, placing temp cues when cutting scenes and experimenting. Jack [Weisman], the co-director of the film, is also musically trained and we often liked and placed temp music together. It was hard to place any music sometimes, given our approach to no music on the short that was very successful.

My first pass cutting scenes and trying to work towards a first assembly meant spending months editing the verité scenes

When we decided to look for a composer, we stripped all the temp tracks we had in our current cut and sent it to a few composers that we admire and wished we could work with. One of them was Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, who loved the work, and after we sent him the edit, he responded right away and wanted to be a part of it.

The magic happened once we started jamming with him, we sent him some bear sounds from the field, and inspirations. It was a matter of time once he started feeding us music compositions. We were blown away and inspired at the same time. It became this constant creative feed, elevating each moment, each scene and sparked lots of ideas on our end moving forward.

Did the edit reveal anything unexpected about the characters or themes that wasn’t apparent during production?

My first pass cutting scenes and trying to work towards a first assembly meant spending months editing the verité scenes. This process allowed me to have a better understanding of the narratives, the participants and story gaps that we were going to need.

A good discovery was when, after months of editing, we deconstructed the film, reassessed all the storylines we had, and we opened up and relistened to all the main interviews with our main Inuit Elder participant now we had a better perspective of his story, what we needed and were able to find and write what became the fundamentals of the film.

How did collaboration between editor and director evolve over the course of post-production, particularly when difficult cuts had to be made?

Having been involved with this project for more than six years, I have talked extensively with co-directors Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden after every trip they made out to Churchill and Arviat, editing the short film and sharing a creative studio space in Toronto – we became very close friends and were able to constantly think of creative ideas for the film. 

I’m so humbled for the opportunity, their trust and the collaboration process. They are also the directors of photography of the film, and have spent a decade travelling to these communities, gaining their trust and putting everything on the line. 

As an editor, you also become a very good listener, a therapist, and learn to navigate the creative journey, respecting their vision but also bringing your creative input. Discovering the film in the edit suite was fun, creative, frustrating, emotional, and very powerful, but at the end, if you have a core of people that you trust and stick together through the process, beautiful things happen.

What were the biggest technical or creative challenges you faced in post and how did your editing tools help you work through them efficiently?

Filming for 10 years means a lot of material to go through. The editing technology has evolved during this time, and so have the cameras that we used to film, bringing in all kinds of resolutions, codecs and frame rates. The organisation of the material was a key aspect. The assistant editor built a robust system, creating selects per every single kind of bear, animal, location and participant of the film and made it easier to find things along the way.

We edited a few key scenes at the beginning of the process that allowed us to build signpost moments, and helped us to develop the story later. I built a server where all the footage was placed and had edit computers connected allowing Jack and Gabriela to have access to all the material at all times, we spent a lot of time discussing and trying things together. 

We have a network of trusted people and consultants from the communities that we share the edits with and receive feedback along the way

We built proxies of everything and had producer Will Miller and editor Jocelyn Chaput in other cities collaborating with us, and supporting the edit journey as a team. It was a truly collaborative experience that elevated the film to another dimension with every conversation.

For films dealing with memory, trauma, or complex social realities, how did you approach ethical responsibility in the edit?

I’ve been working with indigenous communities throughout my career in Canada, but every film, each interview, each story that I’ve been told makes me understand the world a bit more.

We have a network of trusted people and consultants from the communities that we share the edits with and receive feedback along the way. I’m truly honoured to be a part of this film, and in my position as an editor I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility. I become a vessel for these stories and all I want is to represent the participants of the film the best possible way and stay true to them. Very personal stories, involving trauma and sensitive topics were revealed that I had never imagined when I first got involved in this film. I think about them as the first audience and how I can make them proud after sharing their life stories with us.

Looking back, what’s one editorial decision you now see as pivotal to the film’s final emotional impact?

I never gave up trying things out, and fought for scenes and emotional moments that really impacted me when I first watched the raw material. I followed my instincts. At the end, I want audiences to have a conversation and hopefully take action after watching a film of this calibre and importance.