Posted in: Netflix, streaming, TV | Tagged: exclusive, interview, Jay Prychidny, Jenna Ortega, netflix, the addams family, tim burton, wednesday

Wednesday Editor Jay Prychidny Talks Tim Burton, Jenna Ortega & More

Jay Prychidny has worked on several major TV projects throughout his career as editor and producer. Among them include Orphan Black, The Next Step, and Snowpiercer. His latest is the Netflix series Wednesday, which is based on The Addams Family and follows the title character, played by Jenna Ortega, and her years as a student when she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability while solving a mystery to save her family's name… and some lives. Prychidny spoke with Bleeding Cool about working with creator Tim Burton, bringing his vision to life, action sequences & incorporating Ortega's quirks into the show.

On Bringing 'Wednesday' to Life

Bleeding Cool: How did you get involved with 'Wednesday?'

Prychidny: I heard about the project when I was going to be filming in Toronto, and I'm from Toronto. I was excited by the project since I loved Wednesday Addams since I was a kid, and Tim Burton was such a hero of mine. I heard about it many months before it started filming, and I had a few connections in the production.

Did any of the previous adaptations of 'The Addams Family' help serve as inspiration for the show?

It's interesting because I learned pretty quickly that Tim wasn't interested in making it feel like his other films or projects. If you use music that was too similar to his other films, he was interested in exploring new ideas. That was what Tim responded to. He would often be surprised if there was a kind of out-of-the-box choice, like using an unusual kind of music or editing choice. He wanted to be surprised and for things to feel different. He didn't want everything to feel like his other films, and he wanted to find how 'Wednesday' felt unique.

What were some of the obstacles when establishing the show's voice distinguishing the character and her world?

I came into it wanting to ground into her perspective as much as possible. Jenna is such an amazing performer, and she gave so many different shades to this character Wednesday and was able to express so many different kinds of emotions with hardly ever doing any apparent acting. A lot of the time, her face is still, yet she was able to express so many different emotions, which I found incredible. I don't know how that worked. Relying on her, grounding it from her perspective, taking the things from her performance that were surprising or unique, and trying to focus on her and how she perceives the world. That's how she just approached the footage, using her as a real touchstone for everything.

I heard that Jenna made a conscious effort not to blink during takes. Was it hard to ensure consistency?

It was something Tim was aware of in editing too. It was interesting because I thought about the blinks a lot since they happened so rarely. If she does blink at a critical moment, that might be interesting. Everything with Wednesday, it's always the little things that are more important because there's so little that's being given. I thought about it how it might be interesting to strategically place some blinks in some places. In the beginning, Tim was very much like, "No blinking."

Sometimes, a blink is something pretty easy to remove in editing as well. You cut out a few frames, and usually, you can just put a little morph effect on the cut, so you get past it, and it does it. I did that a few times in certain scenes. At the beginning of episode two, she's in a psychiatrist's office, and she's staring into the lens for a big portion of it. There were a few blinks in that take I took out. Then you put it together, but it's a funny thing to think about because you wanted the blinks to be where you want them to be as opposed to wherever [laughs].

Does the show have any formidable challenges that you didn't normally do for your previous projects?

Some sequences evolved over a long period. The Poe Cup in episode two is an example of that, with the action sequence being one that evolved pretty much over the entire course of production. We did the initial photography early on. That was one of the first things we shot. It would have been in the first few weeks or so that we started shooting The Poe Cup, and we quickly learned that a canoeing sequence is a hard thing to make. It's not inherently cinematic to see people canoeing. That was a sequence we continued working on. We rewrote a little bit and kept shooting little bits and pieces throughout production to try to pull that together into a fun and exciting sequence. By the end of production, it was winter, so we couldn't go out on the lake anymore. Some of that sequence was all shot in a tank on a canoe in front of a blue screen because we had just run out of fall. That was probably the most challenging sequence. There aren't a lot of canoe action sequences in movies and we might know why that is now [laughs].

Were there any sequences that stood out to you that you had to begrudgingly had to cut?

The scripts were tight. The episodes themselves, other than the first episode, are around 43-44 minutes in terms of content. There's not a lot that was cut. There's all the shaping, trimming, line cuts, and stuff that happens. The scripts were so well constructed, and I edited the first four. They had so much time to hone the scripts. Also, because production was delayed for several months, they had time to look at every word and cut out any fat ahead of time. There was also a worry the scripts and episodes were going to be too long. That was another reason why they trimmed down the scripts ahead of time, but they ended up coming in much shorter than expected. They were worried they were going to run over an hour, and they ended up running for 45 minutes.

Was there a sequence that was cut from one episode and repurposed for another?

No. but that happens on a lot of TV shows. I've cut some TV shows where the original director shot less than half of the show. Things get moved around so much, completely manipulated, and edited. That wasn't a thing on this show. The scripts were in good condition, and Tim shot very leanly. There's not a lot of fat to how he shoots things. He shoots things efficiently and cleanly. There wasn't a lot of that happening on 'Wednesday.'

With the initial reception, have you heard anything about a possible second season?

I haven't heard anything. Everyone is talking about it and what that might look like. Well, Jenna, Tim, and the writers, we've all had discussions about that. In terms of being greenlit. No, there hasn't been anything like that yet.

Wednesday also stars Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, Emma Myers, Joy Sunda, Georgie Farmer, Naomi J. Ogawa, Christina Ricci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, is available to stream on Netflix.

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