After working on Derry Girls together, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is a delightful reunion for Nigel Williams with show runner Lisa McGee. It’s that relationship with Lisa and his past experience across popular comedies, including the UK version of The Office, that helped him bring to life the scripts that strike the perfect balance between humor and murder. He shared with us the importance of needle drops, breakdown of some of his favorite sequences, and why the talent agency he helped start has such a special mission.
You have some well-known comedies on your resume, including the UK version of The Office, but How To Get To Heaven to Belfast is unique in that it perfectly blends comedy and morbidity. Can you walk us through your process of putting the episodes together?
I was asked to work on series 1 of Derry Girls in 2017, but was out in California editing Episodes in David Crane’s back garden. Luckily, Derry Girls came back to me for series 3, where I met Lisa McGee and the team. I must have done an ok job, because I was then booked for Lisa’s ambitious next show, How To Get To Heaven From Belfast. The scripts were so engrossing, with big set pieces, an emphasis on drama, and above all, very funny. I started my block 2 episodes about a month after block 1 had started shooting, so I already had an idea of the tone Lisa and the team were after. The scripts were so tightly written, with a detailed story arc, that my first assemblies came together quite quickly. My director, George Kane, is a well-known name in the UK comedy world, so I was in safe hands with regard to the dailies being sent back from Ireland. (I was editing at the Hat Trick offices in London). I always put an awful lot of work into my first assemblies, not only for my own peace of mind, but also to put production at ease. I keep my edits as tight as I can, layering in temp music at quite an early stage to create the atmosphere I feel the scripts/rushes are dictating. Putting all this work in at this early stage allows my director to watch my first editor’s cut as a fully immersive viewing, allowing them to get a full sense of the episode.
Your episodes include an Irish talk show that starts realities, but quickly shifts the tone, how did you approach that?
This was such a fun episode 5 to piece together. It’s essentially a chase through Dublin that culminates in Saoirse taking too many painkillers and appearing on the live tv chat show, The Late Late Show, which is a staple of Friday night viewing in Ireland. RTE, which produces the show, was fully on board with the scene and couldn’t have been more helpful. We used their studio, crew, and gallery to recreate the show as it would normally be shot live. Adding shots of the main characters we’ve met throughout the series, sitting down to watch the broadcast, added a sense of ‘event’, as well as the jeopardy that most of Ireland is watching this broadcast as the show goes out live. George was in the gallery, making sure the opening of the scene was getting the output of all five studio cameras. He then went on to the studio floor to position our How To Get To Heaven From Belfast cameras in with our actors. As Saoirse trips out on the painkillers, there’s a studio lighting change, intercut with flashbacks, reverb, and abstract inserts, that culminates in the realization she’s broken the code to open the box. We then snap back to reality, and Saoirse is asleep on the sofa. This was one of the more challenging scenes to cut, mainly because of the sound design, but it seems to have resonated with the Netflix audience.
Another iconic moment is the St. Patrick’s parade, I read that you included footage from a real parade. Walk us through the process of putting it together?
Our producer had a big wide shot of the real event, 8 months before we shot this scene with our actors. It was meant as a guide for set design, and George was planning to go back to get more live coverage the following year, but production had done such an amazing job with our set. Wardrobe and the SAs were so convincing, we realised we had enough to sell the illusion of the day. So with sound design and all departments at the top of their game, it was just down to myself and George to create the energy in the cutting room. Using handheld close-ups of our main protagonists created a sense of panic, justifying the absence of wider shots of the event and focusing the audience’s attention on the danger facing the three characters. There’s even a little easter egg for Derry Girls fans, as our lead actors push past a schoolgirl dressed in the iconic costume. Saoirse, Robyn, and Dara then run into a pub where an Irish band is playing, as only an Irish band can. This is a cameo from the band The Mary Wallopers. I was a big fan of theirs after I saw them perform at Glastonbury, so to round off this scene with them was a joy.
Music plays an important role in the show, how did you approach those needle drops and what were some of your favorites?
Lisa is all over the music. It was such an important piece of the jigsaw for Derry Girls, and I’d kept the playlists from that show. There were a few tracks we re-used on How To Get To Heaven From Belfast; most are from that era, but new to our show. George chose the Girls Aloud track ‘Sounds of the Underground, which opens episode 6, as Greta is cycling through Belfast, which was then used as a tonal theme to replace a track in Episode 1. It’s a tricky track to edit. There’s a build to each verse and whenever I got it fitting pictures and dialogue perfectly, we’d action a tighten note or change the order, the house of cards would come tumbling down. I must have re-cut that scene over forty times. Safe to say that track is no longer one of my favorites!
The banana boat scene at the end of episode 5 was one of those times I tried to put a scored composition over the relief of them escaping the boat explosion. Lisa suggested ‘The Ketchup Song,” the infectious Latin hit from 2002. It works like a dream and gets a big laugh over that ridiculous image. Obviously, I’ll take the credit for that, but in reality, it was all Lisa. At the end of Episode 6, when Greta is dancing on her own at the party, after they’ve buried Jason Meadows, I’d used Nellie Furtado’s ‘All good things come to an end’ to cut to. It’s so haunting, and lyrically it fits perfectly. It stayed in the cut until the very last day of lock. We were lucky enough to get Gary Lightbody (lead singer of Snow Patrol) to write a number of tracks for the show. His track that appears in Episode 1, when our leads are dancing with their younger selves (so beautifully cut by Lucien Clayton), was repeated in this scene, and it’s better than my Nellie Furtado track. It just goes to show you should never settle for something you think can’t be bettered. It usually can!
Then there is the big reveal, how did you approach it?
My biggest challenge in the edit suite was cutting the scene where Jason Meadows is murdered by Jodie in episode 6. It’s all recorded on the dictaphone he was using to trap Greta. It starts as a quiet confrontation, then culminates in this violent act that will haunt the girls for the rest of their lives. My first cut was good, but lacked the violent crescendo George envisaged. He came up with the idea of introducing the analogue tape sound to whir, hiss, spin as the violence escalates. This, and a combination of visual Psycho-like pick-ups of close-up eyes, cutaways of the tape recorder, and flashes of the Celtic symbol, resulted in a very successful scene that is key to the series as a whole.
You are one of the founders of The Wrap Agency, which has a very important mission. Can you share how it came to be and what your intentions were behind it?
I’d been with a few agencies in the past and was always frustrated that problems I felt were obvious were never implemented. These include having too many editors for too few jobs, and the personal touch for editors who work in a solitary environment, to feel a part of something. This, coupled with the lack of diversity and inclusion, resulted in me playing a part in founding Wrap Party Agency, based in London. Post production suffers from a significant lack of equality, and when Bekki, who’s had years of experience as a successful agent, was on board, it was my chance to be proactive and address the issues that bothered me. It’s a tough mission, but we’re slowly making inroads. I’ve talked in schools and am always eager to answer questions for anyone who’s thinking of a career in post-production. On previous shows, I’ve tried to push my assistants. I’ve managed to agree with a few productions, to hand over an episode to my assistant, with me overseeing them all the way. It’s proved very successful, makes me feel good, and gives my assistants the editor credit, which is often hard to come by. It’s time to get the next generation of editors through the ranks.
