Editor Kali Kahn on Crafting 'After This Death' in Premiere Pro

When Elliot abruptly disappears after their dangerous dance of longing and attraction, Isabel is forced to confront the haunting aftershocks of their vanished love.

Editor Kali Kahn brought this narrative to life in Adobe Premiere Pro, leveraging its intuitive software and flexibility to experiment with story structure and different kinds of media. Notably, Kahn said she couldn’t have edited this project without the Essential Sound Panel, since sound design was so key to creating its unique tone and feel.

Check out our full interview with Kahn below for even more insights into her creative process.

How and where did you first learn to edit?

Kali Kahn: I taught myself how to edit on Premiere Pro back in 2018 by editing my own short films and films for my friends. A lot of editors I know have a similar self-taught origin story with Premiere Pro because it’s such intuitive software. I really feel like it’s the NLE system of the people because it’s one that works for you, not the other way around.

How do you begin a project/set up your workspace?

KK: I’ll start off by re-reading the script two or three times to metabolize the director’s intentions. I think it was David Lynch who said something like, “My intuition throws the ball and my rationality is the dog that retrieves it.” I feel like that sort of sums up the director/editor relationship. Lucio [Castro], especially, has such rich intuition, so our process involved so much chatting and philosophizing about the themes and emotions in the story.

When the footage comes in, I like to watch it scene by scene and start loosely throwing some cuts together that make me feel something, which is kind of my general MO as I’m editing. For “After This Death,” I tried something a little new at the beginning, where I jotted down every single thought that came to me as I was watching the footage for the first time, kind of like a catalogue of first impressions of the movie. I would often revisit this 60-page document when I was lost in the weeds of a scene or if my senses got dulled after hours in front of the monitor.

Tell us about a favorite scene or moment from this project and why it stands out to you.

KK: There’s a scene in the movie where Isabel reunites with Elliot in the green room of a concert venue where his band has just performed. It’s one of those scenes where every department is firing on all cylinders: the production design is so fun, the actors are magnetic, the cinematography pulls you into the world. I especially love the sound design in that scene because it adds so much texture and dynamism. Lucio crafted such a beautiful audiovisual experience, and I also have to shout out multi-hyphenate sound extraordinaires Rob Lombardo and Yegang Yoo, who created the band’s original music as well.

I especially love that scene because it was really tricky to cut; there’s all this action being condensed into such a tiny space on top of the numerous dramatic threads that are unraveling simultaneously. It’s easy for a scene like that to devolve into chaos, so you have to know how to use sound and cuts to guide the audience’s attention. Luckily, I didn’t do it alone – I was working with Julia Bloch, our consulting editor, who famously edited a movie set entirely in a green room, so I was fortunate enough to be able to lean on her as I was cutting the scene.

What were some specific post-production challenges you faced that were unique to your project? How did you go about solving them?

KK: The movie was written nonlinearly, so Lucio and I tried our hand at a bunch of different structures until the right one clicked into place, which ended up being linear in the end. We would audition structural changes by creating an animatic of sorts in a timeline, which was basically just a digital version of notecards and a corkboard that we could scrub through. This is the kind of thing Premiere Pro is particularly good at because of its drag-and-drop workflow and its flexibility with different kinds of media. It allows for so much more trial and error and experimentation, which really helped us along the way.

What Adobe tools did you use on this project, and why did you originally choose them?

KK: I love the Essential Sound Panel. I actually couldn’t edit without it. A lot of people say that an edit should work with and without the sound on, and I agree, but I’d add that sound can either save or kill a scene. It’s also what elevates an edit from just “working” to being something that you feel in your bones, so I’m constantly playing around with sound as I’m editing. Especially on this film, because it has the soul of an arthouse film in the body of a thriller, sound design played a huge role in helping us dial in the unique tone and feel of the movie. Not to mention just how sonically rich the movie is in general, between the band’s music and the original score and all the gorgeous autumnal landscapes. The dropdown presets gave us so much autonomy to play around with all those elements.

Who is your creative inspiration and why?

KK: I really look up to Joe Bini. He’s sort of my editing hero, and he’s a genius with story structure. When I’m stuck on an edit, I’ll revisit the movies he’s cut for inspiration, or I’ll rewatch his BFI masterclass. He has this quote I love where he says in order to be a good editor, you have to “long for a reunion with ideas.” That’s exactly what editing is to me: it’s about staying curious and opening yourself up to what the movie wants to be, rather than imposing some preconceived agenda onto it.