Peter Sciberras on Setting the Tone Through Editing in ‘Power of the Dog’

Peter Sciberras is the ACE Eddie Awards-nominated editor for Netflix’s The Power of the Dog. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jane Campion’s critically acclaimed drama relies heavily on the tension that great editing helps deliver. Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Sciberras discusses some of the most intense scenes of this story. He talks about creating the mood in the way a shot is cut, giving a scene time to build, and just basking in great acting. Plus, he reveals how he fell in love with the editing process and why it works so perfectly for him

Awards Daily: What was it like working with Jane Campion and how did you get involved in the project?

Peter Sciberras: I will start with getting involved. I was working with David Michôd, (and I’ve worked with him on three films) and I was just finishing up on The King. Then a few months later I got an email with the script from Libby Sharpe, one of the producers at See Saw Films. Then I found out later that David Michôd had said wonderful things about me to Jane while we were finishing up on The King. I didn’t actually realize she was looking for an editor so it was a really nice surprise. I had a good three hour meeting with Jane Campion, who I had never actually met before, so it was a getting-to-know-you kind of thing/interview that went pretty well. We talked about the script and saw things in a very similar way.

With Jane it is all about trying to see things from her point of view in a sense. It’s not that Jane has such a particular point of view of the world on her stories; a lot of it was getting on the same page and really learning how she sees this story and these characters, which was a really fun thing and a great way to get to know each other while we did that. That was the start of the collaboration. It was a really free environment. Jane is happy to explore ideas and she has such a good sense of what she is trying to do, which makes the process really great for an editor because when something’s working she knows and when it is not working she also knows it. It’s a real confidence in the room that is amazing to work with so you can be really free to get into ideas. One thing would always lead to another—it’s always hard to trace back where ideas start.

So it was a way to solve problems but we always had a good laugh as well. I always find it is really helpful in the end to actually be having a good time, even when you’re working with dark material sometimes, and keep things fun and exciting.

AD: There are so many great scenes but one stuck with me the longest because of its lack of an edit. It’s when Phil is listening to his brother on the wedding night, and all we do is move down away from his face. Do you recall what went into that one?

Peter Sciberras: That was a super fun scene to cut. We identified that performance from Benedict and the camerawork from Ari Wegner built-in this reset shot as it comes down to his lips in this wonderful pursing reaction. You can just feel the resentment, the anger, the sadness all bubbling up into this amazing performance from Benedict stop. For us it was just about finding the most elegant expression of the scene, and when you have a great performance like that you don’t cut away, you just find it and measure it as well as you can.

AD: So much of this film is creating a sense of unease from Benedict Cumberbatch whistling to the scenes of Benedict and Kodi Smit-McPhee just being in the same room and not knowing what’s going to happen. What was your thought process in creating that mood?

Peter Sciberras: The scenes between Peter and Phil are really fun because you’re jumping from point of view in the middle of them. You are in this weird place where one person is studying the other person. It’s that getting-to-know-you stage of an intense relationship, no one is quite sure what the other person is thinking and that great sense of unease that comes with that ambiguity or what someone’s thinking of you or what they are planning for you, where they are coming from. Living in that ambiguity is really fun. I think a lot of that comes from identifying what feeling you’re trying to create. And in those scenes a lot of it was just about really simple structural ideas where you would step out from Phil into a wider shot and then take Peter’s close up and then study Phil as Phil has been doing to Peter from the start of the scene.

Then there’s this turning point, especially where Pete is sitting on the saddle and Phil is starting to make the rope in the barn. So yeah, it’s just a beautiful little dance I find between those two characters and by the end of the whole relationship Pete is very much leading the charge and he owns the coverage by the end. But it starts very much with Phil leading those scenes and driving them, with little moments of Pete actually dragging Phil back in, bringing up Bronco Henry, which is worked out as a way to get Phil back on his side. We were really just trying to create a very human feeling that everyone can identify with, and Benedict and Kodi gave us such amazing material to craft, we could really just revel in the uncomfortable silences of those moments of human insecurity.

AD: There are so many shots and cuts that jumped out at me but was there any moment for you that particularly stood out?

Peter Sciberras: One of my favorite scenes where I feel that everything peaks at in the film is the nighttime barn scene. It has everything, it’s got the internal world and the external world of these characters all coming together in a really interesting, hopefully very sexually tense moment. It was a really delicate dance between the two characters, also this tactile sensitive sexual energy into the reining of the rope while this is all happening. It is a beautiful thing to work on where you can just totally lose yourself in that scene and just live in this nighttime barn in your head and just try to feel it. When that happens you start to feel the power of simple shots in the right place take on a whole other meaning. When you watch the dailies and put them in the right place they are full of meaning, full of Phil’s desire—that was a really beautiful one to work on. Hard to explain in a sense because so much is in the air. A lot of that is exploration, instinct and building to that scene in the right way so a lot of that tension is in the air when you walk into that room.

AD: This film has been a serious award contender all year, including your editing. What has that experience been like for you?

Peter Sciberras: It’s something I’ve had to get used to. It’s weird as an editor because even if you work on a film that people like you’re not necessarily a focus, which is a very comfortable place to be as an editor, at least this editor. I am used to talking with directors so communicating edit choices to people outside of the process is really a new thing for me. It was actually quite daunting at the start, but it has been a really lovely process for me to relive the film in a sense and identify and study my own work. The decisions that we made, there’s been something enriching about doing that. Plus it is nice to be appreciated.

AD: What got you interested in being an editor?

Peter Sciberras: I always knew I wanted to work in film. I’m the son of two Maltese people who moved to Australia so I’m a first-generation Australian and I grew up in an area that wasn’t very creative, a very blue-collar neighborhood. Doing anything creative kind of seems like a crazy thing to do, so I was trying to figure out what to do and film was always my passion, since I was a kid. In figuring out what I wanted to do I got a marketing degree and worked in advertising for a small amount of time. I studied illustration, and I thought the art department would be somewhere I would end up because I was into drawing and design. But I always loved the editing section of the behind-the-scenes on DVDs listening to all the post departments parts.

I was living with a good friend who has made music videos and I tried editing when he couldn’t find an editor for one of his music videos. Then the next day I started calling all the editors I could find in Melbourne and started interning straight away. I stopped all my other retail jobs and just did editing full-time from that day on and I haven’t done anything else since. I just instantly loved it the second I did it. Okay, I was like, this is perfect, this is everything that kind of suits me. It’s a collaboration and you can get really incredibly deep in a way that on set there’s a time pressure, and there is a time pressure in the edit but it feels (occasionally you don’t have enough time) so luxurious to really figure things out. Which I feel like on set you need to do right away when there is a problem. Just spending time with the director in that safe environment one on one for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and really getting the bond and figuring out the story is my favorite thing in the world to do.

The Power of the Dog streams exclusively on Netflix.