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The Bondsman Editor on Oleson Reunion, "Once Upon a Time" & More

Editor Geofrey Hildrew (Once Upon a Time) spoke with us about his work on Prime Video's The Bondsman, Kevin Bacon, Erik Oleson, and more.

Editor Geofrey Hildrew is a veteran of TV for nearly 25 years working on a variety of genres from reality, sci-fi, drama, fantasy, supernatural, and comedy involved in such projects like ABC's V reboot and fantasy Once Upon a Time, the Prime Video cult classic superhero comedy The Tick and fatasy epic Carnival Row, AMC's The Walking Dead, and FX's drama American Sports Story. His latest is the Prime Video series from Grainger David and showrunner Erik Oleson in The Bondsman, which stars Kevin Bacon as Hub Halloran, a bounty hunter, whose dangerous lifestyle finally catches up to him, but is given a second chance at life, hunting demons for the devil. Hildrew spoke to Bleeding Cool about how he was eager to reunite with Oleson, with whom he had previously collaborated on the Travis Beacham and René Echevarria-created series, working with Bacon, coordinating with the other editors and directors for season one, and picking the appropriate Cranberries song for the climax.

The Bondsman Editor Hildrew on Embracing a Blend of Horror & Comedy

How'd you get involved with 'The Bondsman' and what intrigued you about the series?

I got involved in this project through Erik Oleson, who is the showrunner on the project, and this is the third time now we have collaborated. When Eric came on board this project, I voiced my enthusiasm for not only working with him again but having the opportunity to work on something with Kevin Bacon, who I've always been a huge fan of, especially in the horror genre space. Tonally, this was a unique project combining elements of humor and horror. Being a big fan of this genre work in particular, and it was something I was excited about.

How do you compare a show like 'The Bondsman' to your previous work as far as challenges go?

I would say one of the unique things about this project was the blending of the horror elements and comedy. One thing people don't realize is that horror and comedy, especially editorially, are similar types of beasts in how it's set up and pays off. Timing-wise, a lot of my editorial skills came into play with finding a nice balance between those two. I had previously worked on a project I did called 'Once Upon a Time' with Ron Underwood, who famously directed 'Tremors' (1990) that Kevin starred in. That's one of my all-time favorite kinds of horror comedy projects.

Over the years working with Ron, I've had lots of conversations with him about that project and the difficulties of balancing those two elements. ['The Bondsman'] was my first opportunity to take a stab at that myself. Every project has its unique challenges. One thing that was evident reading these scripts for the first time, and what surprised me in a good way, was how much the humor came through. One of the elements we used to enhance that was the music. I love having the opportunity to juxtapose these themes against the crazy wacky different types of songs so we could keep the performances grounded and sincere, but also elevate the humor through the situational moments enhanced by music.

You split duties editing among four episodes with three other editors, who did the remaining episodes. Were there any guidelines that Erik wanted to set as far as standards, or is it something you guys worked on autonomously and worked with each director?

We had four separate directors, each director worked on blocks of two episodes. There were a lot of conversations tonally between the three of us about how we were going to approach the show. It was an evolving process, if that makes sense, because as episodes were starting to come in, we were finding what worked and what didn't work in the cutting room. The three of us were able to bounce ideas off each other, and then maybe one of us would sort of find a sweet spot of, "Okay, this type of feeling is…" We would be able to run ideas off each other, and by the time we came to episodes, they were constantly evolving. We were able to create a similar feeling to unite all the episodes, if that makes sense.

How would you break down the directing styles and working with Sanaa [Hamri], Thor [Freudenthal], and Lauren [Wolkenstein] during your stretch?

This is my third time working with Thor. The first time was on this comedy series for Amazon [Prime Video] a few years ago called 'The Tick,' which is like a superhero comedy series we did. That was my first opportunity to work with Thor, and then I worked with him again and Erik on 'Carnival Row' we did a few years ago. I was very excited when I found out Thor would be directing the second block (of 'The Bondsman'] because Thor is like a (Steven) Spielberg fanatic, and he's always looking for interesting creative ways to utilize the camera and tell the story visually. There was going to be an embarrassment of riches in the cutting room, just stylistically, the way that he directs.

This is the first time I've worked with Lauren, and I got to cut both of her episodes, five ('Slypharis') and six ('Revelations'). She did a beautiful job coming up with visual ways to tell the story and doing some nice, long character work. Episodes five and six are two of my favorite episodes, because episode five takes a little bit of a detour and is a mythology episode. We get to dive into Midge's (Jolene Purdy) character, learn a little bit more about how she came into the fold, and a little more about this wacky universe we're thrown into. We did a lot of world-building and mythology stuff on a series I did years ago called 'Once Upon a Time.' It was like a comfortable blanket to wrap myself in and come back to that type of storytelling.

Six is my favorite episode, because it's the first time in the series we did a double demon battle, and Kevin Bacon has a chainsaw. I was really excited about cutting that fight sequence, which had total 'Evil Dead' vibes, and like I said, I'm a big genre fan. After reading that, I couldn't wait to get in. My favorite sequence in that episode, and Lauren did such a beautiful job directing when we learn the sin that sent Hub to hell when he murders Cheryl.

In the script, it had a simple line, we hear The Cranberries playing, and I was like, "Oh, okay, what's that going to mean?" The Cranberries have a lot of different songs, and there were a lot of different opportunities to choose things, but there wasn't a whole lot of direction there. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, we're going to see our hero commit a murder. How are we going to make sure that we keep Kevin Bacon likable and sympathetic?"

This is a delicate moment, and piecing it together, the way that Kevin acted and the way Lauren directed the moment in that final piece, when I put in the song, I ultimately chose The Cranberries' "Dreams." It had this magical sort of effect, like this haunting feeling with the vocals, and there's this wailing that naturally occurs in the track as Cheryl's dying and Kevin's cradling her in his arms, so I'm proud of the work we did on that sequence and moment.

Season one of The Bondsman, which also stars Jennifer Nettles, Beth Grant, Damon Herriman, Maxwell Jenkins, and Denitra Isler, is available on Prime Video.

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