'Game Changer' Editor Sam Geer | Production Value
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00:00Every season of Game Changer, I get a little more nervous because I know we're always trying to raise the bar and it's like, I mean, how far can, how high can you raise the bar before it's just like insurmountable, but you know, we, we keep, we keep meeting our own goals and so hopefully, you know, whatever comes next will be a continuation of that. But yeah, it's a lot of fun.
00:30Sam says, propose a visual effect.
00:35All right. So here we are.
00:36We're back again. I'm snapping.
00:37All right.
00:38This is the core right here.
00:39Now, of course, we're going to have a little Steven Soderbergh box that kind of flies off into the corner.
00:43That's of my points because that's what it's always been about, baby.
00:46It's about getting those points back.
00:47Now we're going to have a little quick Steven Soderbergh box in my foot to remind everyone all the things we've done to get up to this point, how much it's taken to get here.
00:54Baby, here goes the heist.
00:55So now we're going to follow me, right?
00:57I'm on the move.
00:58I'm kind of the mastermind of this whole thing.
01:00And so I'm kind of walking and talking, explaining the heist to you guys because together we're all going to use our talents to make this happen.
01:08You're going to hack into the mainframe.
01:09You're the cat burglar who's going to do the cat burglar stuff.
01:12Meow.
01:13I'm sitting here.
01:14I've got the call.
01:15It's time.
01:16So then we're going to walk back down.
01:18This is now the main Steven Soderbergh box is me walking.
01:21We're seeing the points again.
01:22We're seeing the foot again.
01:24We're seeing Jacob on the computer.
01:25We're seeing Vic doing the thing.
01:27Meow.
01:28I'm going to have a cup of coffee because that's just how cool I am.
01:31Delicious.
01:32Now it's all going to crash into one.
01:35And we're going to do kind of like a transform effect.
01:38And we're going to see that this point total is no longer 42, but 43.
01:43And I love it when a plan comes together.
01:45Wow.
01:48When I was young, when I was like seven or eight, I decided that I wanted to be an animator.
01:54I was really into Looney Tunes cartoons.
01:57And there was a extracurricular art program that my parents signed me up for that got me into stop motion animation.
02:08And it was in that class that I first got to experiment with a very old version of Premiere, like pre-Adobe.
02:17From there, my interest just sort of started getting more into like filmmaking and making movies with my friends.
02:24I started out as an assistant editor at a trailer house.
02:29That was kind of my first job in post-production.
02:32I had a friend from film school who was doing editing for CollegeHumor when they were still primarily doing YouTube stuff.
02:42And he brought me on as an AE on a show that CollegeHumor was producing called Fatal Decision.
02:49I ended up working there or getting hired full time in 2016.
02:56And I was working there full time until January 2020 when all the layoffs happened.
03:02I wasn't super involved with Game Changer in the early days.
03:05I was freelancing for a bit and then the pandemic happened.
03:10And at some point, David Kearns, a dropout, reached out to me to help cut some of the virtual season of Game Changer,
03:19where everything was shot, you know, like we're shooting this right now on video chat.
03:25And then when the time came that they were going to go back in person to film, I think, season four, I believe, of Game Changer,
03:36Sam Reich had liked what I did on the virtual season and just reached out to see if I would be interested in editing the next season.
03:46And I said yes. And that was, you know, three years ago.
03:49And I'm still pretty much the sole editor on Game Changer at this point, with a few exceptions.
03:56Players, if none of those buzzers are working, you're just going to have to find one that...
04:01Oh, is there one? Is there one around? Oh, I know.
04:07Wait a minute. Why are there so many wires in here?
04:11Can you see in here?
04:13Could this count?
04:15That was a buzz in from Becca!
04:19Incredible.
04:20Sam, that would be an iceberg.
04:22That is correct, Becca. And so that brings you to four.
04:26I saw it walk in and I knew that wasn't right.
04:30There's definitely a difference between scripted and unscripted from an editing standpoint,
04:37especially with shows like Game Changer, where we really try not to take things back and to do things over.
04:43We try as much as possible not to stop things once they've started.
04:47So, you know, what you have is what you have.
04:50And the goal in unscripted is to find the most entertaining way to put those pieces together
04:57versus scripted where, you know, you have however many takes of a certain line to dial things in just right.
05:03Unscripted is really more about kind of like taking a big slab of clay
05:10and trying to kind of mold it into the most beautiful sculpture that you can.
05:16Up until this past season, I was just the editor.
05:22This past season that we're currently airing was a little bit different
05:26because I was actually on set as the director for that season as well.
05:30So I had a little bit better idea of what to expect.
05:34Generally, my process is I'll, you know, do a rough first pass while watching it down
05:40and then go back from there and kind of fine tune and finesse things.
05:44For the first cut, I don't generally make any big edits where I like lift something completely out
05:52because it feels superfluous.
05:54That's more the later part of the season.
05:58That's more the later cuts once Sam gets involved with the notes back and forth
06:02where we kind of decide, okay, this is lagging a little bit here
06:06or, you know, this is kind of a non sequitur and doesn't really help us.
06:10So let's pull those things out.
06:12Once we get past the first cut, it's really a collaboration between me and Sam
06:16to really tighten things up as much as possible.
06:19The Game Changer shoots are generally an hour and a half long.
06:24The Game Changer shoots are generally an hour and a half to two hours.
06:29That's how much like raw footage I'm working with to start.
06:32And then we try our best to whittle it down to like 35 to 45 minutes.
06:38Although this past season, they've just gotten a little bit longer
06:43as the show has gotten more ambitious and crazy.
06:48Random podium inspection!
06:50I'm sorry?
06:51Random podium inspection.
06:53I didn't know we were due for a podium inspection.
06:55Well, if you knew it, it wouldn't be random, would it, Sam?
06:58Hello.
06:59Hi.
07:00Clean as a whistle.
07:01Thank you.
07:03Clean as a whistle.
07:04Okay.
07:05Nice.
07:06Clean as a whistle.
07:07Well done, all of you.
07:09A point across the board!
07:13Wow!
07:14Fantastic.
07:15Well done, players.
07:17I have like four theories in my head of what's going on
07:19and I can't confirm any of them yet.
07:21So I'm just like holding four separate realities.
07:24With Game Changer, we shoot two episodes in a day.
07:28So we have basically half of a 12-hour day to do one episode.
07:33And in Deja Vu, in that case,
07:35we were planning on running through the same cycle of events.
07:40Our original plan was seven times.
07:42And so from a production standpoint, I was just nervous.
07:45Like, are we going to be able to get through this
07:48in the amount of time we have?
07:50And thankfully, we did.
07:51And then the editing part of it was just a lot of fun for me
07:55because it was an exercise in like gradually speeding things up
08:01as the players get more familiar with what to expect.
08:04We start the game over five times throughout the episode
08:07and every one of those intros that we repeated,
08:10I was trying to make it like as fast, like faster and faster as we went along.
08:15And there was a point where on the last one,
08:18late in the edit, Sam was like,
08:21can we just try to make this even a little bit faster?
08:24And some of the cuts in that segment are like three or four frames.
08:28Like they're just the shortest cuts.
08:31It was also great to work with our DP, Kevin Stiller,
08:35and his team as to like how to adjust on the fly
08:39to whatever chaos is going on on set,
08:43especially in an episode like Beat the Buzzer,
08:45where we had like 20 cameras.
08:48We had, I think, eight or nine operated cameras
08:52and then we had a dozen remotely operated cameras for that one.
08:57So, you know, it was a challenge for sure,
09:00but it also gave me a better sense of what to expect in the edit.
09:05Next up, players.
09:09Everybody do the weenus.
09:11The weenus is a dance.
09:13Everybody is a genius who knows it in advance.
09:17Everybody do the weenus.
09:19The weenus is a dance.
09:21Everybody is a genius who knows it in advance.
09:25Oh, Kevin.
09:27Oh, yikes.
09:28I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
09:31Are you okay? I don't care about the equipment.
09:33Yeah, I think we might just need to take that again.
09:36I'm so sorry, Marge.
09:37No, it's okay. Kevin, how much time?
09:39Two minutes. Two minutes.
09:41Hey, everybody, we're on a hold real quick.
09:43Okay, yeah. Players, if you could just reset where we left off.
09:46Thank you so much.
09:47Okay.
09:48Was that a very expensive camera?
09:50Yep.
09:52The thing about Game Changer is by its very nature,
09:55every episode has a different challenge.
09:58You know, the format is always different.
10:01One episode, the challenge might be like,
10:03how do I make this as funny as possible?
10:06And the next episode might be,
10:08how do I emulate, you know, like, the Bachelor's tonality?
10:13You know, like, last season, we did this Bachelor parody,
10:16so it's like I'm having to, like,
10:18learn how to cut different kinds of reality formats on the fly.
10:24Working in sketch comedy at CollegeHumor
10:27was a great education in being adaptable like that
10:31because, obviously, at the end of the day,
10:34the comedy is kind of the most paramount thing.
10:37But in sketch, there was, like, times where we're doing
10:40something that's, like, super dramatic or super melodramatic
10:43or an action parody type thing.
10:47So I got to explore a lot of different styles
10:52when I was working at CollegeHumor.
10:54And I think that education has helped me in Game Changer
10:58where, like, every episode is going to be slightly different tonally.
11:03There's a lot of things I love about editing.
11:06I love how editing can be musical.
11:09Rhythm is a big thing for me.
11:12And there's a real satisfaction in, you know,
11:16shaving just the right amount of frames
11:18off of the beginning or end of a clip
11:20to get that rhythm just right.
11:23I come from a family of, like, half engineers and half creatives.
11:29And I feel like editing is a nice marriage
11:32of those two sides of my brain
11:35because there's definitely a technical aspect,
11:38but there's also this really intuitive aspect.
11:41And I think that is what I'm most drawn to about editing.