Emmy-Nominated Editor Joanna Naugle on Managing the Controlled Chaos of ‘The Bear’

Editor Joanna Naugle had the good fortune of working with The Bear creator Christopher Storer on the groundbreaking show Ramy. Still, even with that shared working experience, little could prepare Joanna for editing The Bear, a show that can often be frenetic and then suddenly change tempo on a dime. The skill and effort required to make sure the show never lost sight of the audience in introducing the wonderful characters on the show and their circumstances comes with a great degree of difficulty.

Luckily, Naugle has clearly been up to the task, scoring her first Emmy nomination for editing the pilot episode, “System.” In our conversation, we discuss the choices required to keep the show moving while never losing sight of character development. The Bear is the best show on television, and Joanna Naugle is a big reason why.

Awards Daily: The episode that was submitted for Emmy nomination was the pilot, “System.” To put it mildly, a uniquely fast-paced piece of work. Did anything that you had done previously really prepare you for editing this show? Because this show has an energy that I think is unlike any other.

Joanna Naugle: The pace of The Bear is unlike anything I’ve gotten to edit, but I feel like it was a little bit of a culmination of a bunch of projects that I’ve worked on in the past and took little parts from. I got my start editing a bunch of online videos. All of them are really music driven, like stuff for Vevo or Vice. I feel like I got really comfortable cutting to a musical beat and making things fast paced. When it’s cut for the web, you want things to be as tight and fast as possible. I think that was always my inclination or my tendency, my natural taste. But never, obviously, to the level of craziness that is The Bear. )Laughs). I also had the opportunity to work on Big Mouth and Human Resources, which are animated shows. 

When I was working on those programs, I was basically cutting the first radio play and was using all dialogue sound effects in music to tell the story. I think that really encouraged me to think about sound as a tool. Even from our first editor’s cuts, Adam Epstein—the other editor, and I were really trying to build a temp sound bed that’s authentic to the world and really heightens the cutting and sells in the edits we’re making. That also prepped me for what would become a big part of editing The Bear and working on Ramy too. I worked with Chris Storer, the creator of the show, on Ramy, so I got to know his taste and the things that he liked. Figuring out the balance between comedy and drama on Ramy was kind of a natural extension to The Bear also. It’s a very intense and dramatic show at times, and then also incredibly light and there’s a lot of levity to certain moments too. That was something we really talked about a lot on Ramy and I think transferred to how we wanted to walk those lines between genres on The Bear as well.

Awards Daily: “System” asks a lot of the viewer out of the gate. Was there any concern that it might play too manic to the audience from the jump?

Joanna Naugle: Yeah. Originally when it was scripted, it definitely was not meant to be as much of an assault on the senses from the beginning. Originally it was supposed to be like he empties Ballbreaker, then he sells the jeans, then he cooks the beef, then Tina calls him a little bitch. It was supposed to be all these different things and Chris was like I just feel like the show really kicks in at minute ten, but I want it to kick in sooner. What can we do to condense that first section? So we basically built this montage of all these things happening simultaneously while also introducing Carmy. We have childhood photos of Jeremy. We have these stills of families in Chicago over the years. We’re obviously introducing the role of Chicago and we spent a ton of time going back and forth about that. There were a couple versions where we pushed it a little bit too far, where we added a couple too many elements and too many cuts. We did like the most extreme, most manic version and then were like okay, let’s strip away a few things. 

There’s one moment specifically in the montage where Carmy’s thinking and he’s basically going to offer up one more denim jacket and we hold on his face for a minute. I remember at one point we had crossfades of a bunch of things going on in the kitchen and that was a moment where we said okay, I think that’s too much. We need this one moment to hold on his face, see that this is a really big sacrifice he’s making by giving up this additional piece of denim that he loves. Hopefully we didn’t push it too far with where we ended up, but I think we definitely were flirting with that at one point. To Chris’s credit, as the director of the episode, I think he knew when it wasn’t just style for style’s sake. We still wanted the story to come through. We still wanted to have that character development, and nobody knows who Carmy is at this point. We’re trying to give the audience just enough exposition to hopefully have them hooked and want to learn more, but also not spoon feed them information in a way that might be a little bit more conventional in a pilot episode.

Awards Daily: Sometimes the speed of the show seems to have the intent of making you feel like you’re working in a kitchen, even when it’s not actually in the kitchen. Is there something to that?

Joanna Naugle: Yeah, definitely. Not everybody has worked in a kitchen and can relate specifically to being in that environment, but I think everybody has had deadlines they’re trying to hit, has been introduced to a new team of people and is trying to work with them in an efficient and quick manner–managing different personalities while working towards a common goal. I think everyone can relate to that feeling of trying to get something done quickly even if it’s not specifically in the kitchen. I think the way that they shoot almost mirrors the environment on the show in that everything’s really fast paced, everything’s really efficient. 

The same way that we have lingo on a film set, obviously the same thing is true in a kitchen. Every industry, or even every family, has their own shorthand or terms that they use for how they communicate. I love that they don’t really spend time explaining a lot of those things in the show. It’s just like okay, you’re going to pick up on this by repetition, you’re going to use context clues. So like you said, I think the audience is like a fly on the wall or an extra person standing in the kitchen who’s just soaking it all in and learning as they go and hopefully falling in love with the characters along the way.

Awards Daily: The show is blessed with great personalities that come through even in quick cutting. But you also do little things that I’ve noticed after watching the show four times. I picked up on the second time around where there’s a slight linger of an expression that tells you more than actually having the character say anything. How do you make sure that you’re always keeping performance front of mind within the energy of the show?

Joanna Naugle: That’s a great question. We’re so lucky that the performances on this show are extraordinary. So we never have to cut around a bad take or anything. We always have something amazing. One thing that I’ve fallen in love with as an editor, but specifically on this show, is just having amazing reaction shots. People think acting is like I am saying a line and that is a performance, which obviously it is. The way that some of these actors just look at each other as they’re delivering the lines, you’re almost learning more. People share histories and how they feel about a situation by seeing how they react to what someone else is saying as opposed to just seeing everybody say their lines. Something that I definitely try to do on The Bear more often than not, is if we see someone start to say a line, a lot of the time we don’t need to see them finish it. They want to check in with how is Richie responding to what Carmy is saying? What is Sydney’s reaction to Tina finally letting her guard down? 

That’s what creates some of these really strong relationships that hopefully people feel while watching the show. It’s an ensemble cast and they each have their own very specific relationship and we really want to build that. It’s not just Carmy versus everyone. It’s that Carmy has his own beef with everybody, excuse the bad pun, (Laughs) and methods of connection between them as he is communicating with them. So watching the dailies, we’re not only looking at who is speaking, but also looking for that moment, that micro expression that all of our actors are so good at giving us. Just having a little bit of a lip quiver or even choosing when someone’s blinking or when someone looks away and breaks eye contact, that’s such a powerful thing. As you’re watching a cut over a hundred times, those are the things the editors start to notice. Even as you’re watching the cut, if you can’t articulate exactly what’s happening, hopefully you feel that coming through by how we’re choosing to cut away and what coverage we’re using as we’re building a conversation.

Awards Daily: Speaking of holding expressions for just the right amount of time, the last shot in season one: as “Let Down” by Radiohead is playing and this whole season is kind of culminating and you have Jon Bernthal as Mikey just looking over his shoulder, tell me how you decided how long to hold that before you hit cut.

Joanna Naugle: Oh my gosh. Yeah. That moment is just so beautiful, and talk about reaction shots too. That look from Michael after he’s been like this angel looming over the entire season. Obviously we see a little bit of him at the beginning of episode six, but he’s kind of a showman in that scene. It’s not him connecting with Carmy. That very last moment, seeing the way Carmy looks at him and then the way he looks at Carmy and just having this little hint of pride in his face was so beautiful. We definitely didn’t want to milk it too much. I think the place that I cut was at the peak of his smile. He looks over at Carmy, you see his face start to change, you get to the widest of his grin and then we cut away timing it on this perfect note from this gorgeous Radiohead song. Even when I’m cutting a fast-paced montage, I always try to look at what’s the peak of the motion? What’s the peak of the performance where we’re getting the most information at once? And I think choosing to cut away at that time, you don’t have any denouement. You’re cutting away at the apex of the action or apex of the performance, and I think that just leaves people wanting more in a really satisfying way.

Awards Daily: Oddly enough, it made me think of the end of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. When I was watching the show, I was like this is so incredibly good, please stick the landing. In Moonlight, what you see is this little boy on the beach and he turns his head back at just the right moment before the cut and it’s just this perfectly timed and composed final shot. In the same way we see Jon look back. It was one of those times where, even though there’s a lot of great work out there, sometimes you feel like something has actually been made for you–”Let Down” is my favorite Radiohead song too, by the way. I felt like you guys were in my head making that moment for me. It’s really beautiful and that’s not a question. I’m sorry. (Laughs).

Joanna Naugle: No, no. I just love knowing when all the pieces come together for someone. Chris Storer, who created the show, and Josh Senior, one of our EPs, they’re also the music supervisors. Sometimes they’ll be like okay, let’s try out this song and I’m just like oh, it’s like they’re reading my mind. I have so many personal emotions and connections to that. I wasn’t as familiar with that Radiohead song, but knowing that it just spoke to you so deeply, I’m just like wow. I know what that feels like to be watching a scene and be like I would’ve picked this song too. This is perfect.

Awards Daily: I don’t want people who maybe haven’t seen the show to get the impression that it’s constantly cutting because it’s not. Sometimes the best editing is the least editing, right? That six minute long shot on Jeremy in the last episode of season one, and then also in “Honeydew” that conversation between Marcus and Luca, you guys let those moments play out. As an editor, especially with a show that often does have a lot of cutting in it, when you get moments like that do you ever concern yourself with whether it is too much of a dial change or are you kind of grateful to show this change of pace?

Joanna Naugle: I think we definitely always want it to feel warranted, so it’s something that we choose to use at very specific moments where we intentionally want to slow down the pace and give people a moment to catch their breath. I remember when Adam Epstein joined, we really talked about creating that contrast. Something I’ve said before is that if we were always going at a hundred miles per hour, people would become numb to that feeling, that pace. What I think people really respond to is the change in momentum, the change in acceleration or deceleration. In episode two, season one, there’s a moment where Carmy’s scrubbing the floor for like a really extended time. He’s smoking a cigarette, he’s at home, he’s kind of falling asleep on the couch, and then all of a sudden snap, we’re in a nightmare situation. He’s dreaming about burning his house down, he’s screaming orders in a kitchen, saying the F word over and over again, the ticket machine is saying all this horrible stuff. I think the reason that’s so effective is because we’re kind of lulled into a certain pace and it’s like okay, the day is winding down and then all of a sudden bam, we’re back into this intense frenetic cutting. 

Choosing those moments where we give people a breath, but also have a slow down so that we can build it back up in a more effective way. Specifically, I think what you’re talking about in episode eight of season one, that long monologue Carmy has, we did have other coverage. It wasn’t originally envisioned just as a oner. We had a couple cuts to people listening. We used his wider angle and every time I showed the cut to Chris Storer, he was like let’s lose two more cuts, let’s lose two more. Finally he was like I think it does just need to be a oner. We obviously had the option because Jeremy’s so talented. It was an amazing performance. At the same time it was like okay, let’s give ourselves the options and we’ll decide in the edit room. It just felt like a moment that we would just want to be there with him. We wanted to be like a person sitting in that room listening to this person finally bear his soul. It’s the most honest he is the entire season and hearing him talk about what cooking means to him. 

We’ve seen that, but he hasn’t explicitly said it. Same thing for that conversation in “Honeydew” in season two, episode four. We actually tried playing that in a oner for the whole thing, like a wide. It worked in some ways, but you just wanted to build in a few more pauses between them. You wanted to be closer to them. We definitely were like okay, this should still be a slower pace than we would normally do. That entire episode is meant to be more meditative, a little bit more calm because that’s so much Marcus’s presence. This is the first time we’re stepping outside Chicago. This is the first time we’re getting to have Marcus driving the story. We wanted to feel like a departure from what we’ve been doing in Chicago and that was one of the conversations that lent itself to that kind of slow pace. These are two people just enjoying each other’s company, learning a little bit more about each other and talking about their passions. To really live in it and feel comfortable, and get close to them. So, it wasn’t so much let’s stay in the wide the whole time, it was like let’s see them really thinking about what people are saying and making the decisive choice to be a little vulnerable too. Something that just feels really warm and cozy between them. I absolutely love their performances and that scene in general.

Awards Daily: When Tina gets asked to become the sous chef, Liza Colon-Zayas has such a wonderfully expressive face, and you chose to hang and linger on her smile an extra beat in a way that just you recognized that she was a person who had probably spent a lot of her life maybe being overlooked just as a hand in the kitchen. Now she was seen. I assume that was what your intention was, to recognize that moment for her.

Joanna Naugle: Absolutely. I love the timing of when her turn comes in the first season. After the first three episodes, it’s like all right, we get it. This woman’s being mean to Sydney, she doesn’t like change. Then there’s that moment in episode four, season one where I think Sydney compliments her potatoes and you just see the smile kind of creep across her face. It’s the first time we’re seeing that crack in the armor and thinking why is she fighting this so much? She loves this and she’s actually really good at it. She’s just had these defensive walls up for so long. To see where she started, episode one, season one to where she is, episode one, season two. Her million watt smile is just gorgeous. I remember Chris saying what’s the longest we can hold on that shot? Because you feel her smile. It’s infectious, it’s contagious. I think the camera even loses focus a little bit and he’s like don’t worry, stay on it. Maybe it’s a little bit imperfect, but that’s where we’re choosing performance over the crisp, perfect take. We were still feeling that wave of happiness coming through. Why would we cut away faster?

Awards Daily: Then in season two you go from “Fishes” to “Forks”, which I always think is funny because there’s fork throwing in “Fishes.” (Laughs). “Fishes” is as manic an episode as I think there probably is and appropriately so. I was watching it for the fourth time with my wife for her first time around. She said this is giving me such anxiety. I said I know it’s because it’s like you’re in the room with them, right? And then you go to “Forks,” which is much more elegant and is an expression of the restaurant that Richie is training at. So from that sort of mini-movie of “Fishes” where there’s all this chaos and then to go to “Forks,” can you say how you and Adam approached each episode so that they would connect together and remain part of the piece?

Joanna Naugle: I have to give a shout out to Adam Epstein because he cut episode seven, the “Forks” episode. We were definitely watching each other’s work. We definitely still talked about the themes and to come from the end of episode five, without giving anything away, it’s kind of this big win. We called that our John Hughes episode, because it’s the closest we get to The Bear being like a high school rom-com. You end on this warm fuzzy feeling and then it’s just “Fishes,” the Christmas from hell. So it felt like it came in at the right point in the season where we’ve seen Carmy start to grow a little bit. Maybe he’s entertaining this romance. Richie is at peak Richie. He’s frustrating everyone. For us to then have this flashback where the two loudest people at The Bear, Carmy and Richie, in this Christmas episode are some of the quietest people. It just kind of shows you the environment that they grew up in and how did these people become the people they are today? 

One of the most heartbreaking scenes to me in “Fishes” is when Richie’s talking to Cicero about how he has so much wasted potential and he doesn’t want to be at The Beef his whole life, but he’s keeping his voice down because he doesn’t want Michael to hear. That scene, even though it’s not the most stressful one in the episode, just shows how far Richie has come. We’ve only ever seen him in the present day. To see where he started from and what he expected from his life, I think having that information going into episode seven is so important. When he says you know, I’m good with people, and Cicero’s not sure that he agrees with him. Getting to see that in episode seven and getting the chance for him to gain some confidence and try something else and realize what his part in the kitchen could be. Before that he only thought okay, you cook and you work at a restaurant, but that’s not really his thing. I think falling in love with the hospitality aspect is such a huge part of his growth throughout the season and figuring out what makes him special and how he fits into the team. I just think that’s so great and to build in the themes of the menu, I feel like that was a great time to introduce the cannolis and the Seven

Fishes. As you know, we’ve seen Sydney struggling with the menu and not really sure what to do. Then seeing these moments from Carmy’s past and now he tries to reclaim them into the menu for the new restaurant. Having that flashback at that moment before they start to lock in on what the menu is, comes at the perfect time too.

Awards Daily: Editing a show like this, is there any particular type of equipment that you’re using? How do you edit a show like this? Tech heads want to know. (Laughs).

Joanna Naugle: We’re cutting in Adobe Premiere and primarily using Adobe Productions and LucidLink. We’re hosting all the media on LucidLink and then using Adobe Productions to spread out between our team of editors and assistant editors who are all fantastic. Basically, while everyone’s shooting in Chicago, we’re getting the dailies the night of after they wrap or the morning after, and then immediately the AEs are prepping it and organizing it, putting it into their different episode folders. Then Adam and I are digging in as soon as possible. It’s really helpful to be able to get the footage so quickly and be able to dive in so fast because that way if we notice something is missing, chances are they could probably still pick it up on another day because they’re shooting in the same locations and they’re able to just say oh, we need some more chopping footage, or can we get some more coverage of Marcus baking, you know? The chances are they’ll be able to make it happen. 

Being able to jump into Premiere so quickly and have things prepped so fast is really great. That’s kind of our main thing. We’re using After Effects a bit too to do some temp screen replacements. It’s really just being able to share all the media in one place that makes it so essential because we dip into other episodes whenever we’re building out a flashback or a panic attack. We definitely are stealing footage from season one, sometimes stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor. Actually one of my favorite reusing footage stories is in the finale, there’s this moment where Carmy’s imagining what could be going wrong and we use some footage we shot for the pilot that didn’t make it into the episode. There’s footage of him throwing a pot of gravy against the wall. That was originally shot to be part of the pilot. To Chris Storer’s credit, he said this is too much to do straight out of the gate. I don’t think we’ve earned his meltdown. So we were able to find a spot for it in the finale. We only really were able to do that because we had access to all of the media in one place and we’re saying okay, what haven’t we used that could really build up this moment? Being able to have access to everything remotely and then have it all in a place for when we worked in person at the end of the season, we could just pick up where we left off and not have to worry about media management or bringing drives or copying over project files. It all just was hosted in one place where we could all access it.

Awards Daily: How does one be an editor on an episode like “Review,” which is all shot in one take?

Joanna Naugle: That was kind of an unconventional editing experience because it actually is just a oner. We didn’t have to try to find hidden cuts or anything. They shot it five times. We used take number two and just ran with it. My job on that episode was first of all trying to spend a lot of time building up that initial Chicago montage, which kind of introduces us into the episode. We have credits at the beginning, which is the first time we do that in the series. Originally, that was something we were envisioning in the first episode in the pilot, but it just felt a little bit unnecessary. Now that we were into the season a little bit, it was like okay, let’s talk about the history of Chicago and maybe people can draw their own references about the city and the story we’re telling. Once we get into the one take, I spent a ton of time doing temp sound design to really build out the environment. Because we were able to create this intensity in previous episodes by changing the pace and by cutting, Chris really wanted to make sure we could achieve that effect without relying on changing the angle. 

I was trying to think of every possible thing you could be hearing in the space, whether that’s the L train outside, construction down the block, the hum of the lights, a phone ringing, an alarm going off in the back room, somebody dropping a pot or a pan. So really trying to make it feel full and lived in and depending on where we were in the space, as things were getting more and more intense, you’re also hearing people call out 10 minutes to open Chef, four minutes to open Chef. Really trying to reinforce this ticking time bomb like something is going to go wrong. As Carmy kind of escalates to the worst version of himself and the bear comes out, so to speak, just making sure that Wilco song “Kidsmoke” was building perfectly to mirror that. It almost sounds like a boiling kettle, that song. And I feel like timing out the way that it escalates to get it to fall on certain beats narratively, felt like it was all this culmination to this big meltdown from everybody.

Awards Daily: You probably could not have anticipated the level of response to this show. This is a show about a young guy taking over his dead brother’s struggling restaurant. That’s the flattest description you can probably give of it, right? But it has turned into something so much more for people. What has it done for you to be a part of The Bear?

Joanna Naugle: It’s been a life changing experience, to tell you the truth. It’s a show that I love so deeply. I love the people who work on it so much and I feel like I have so much agency and freedom as a collaborator. Chris is so enthusiastic and supportive and always down to say make it crazier. Like, what else can we do? He is so willing to experiment and try stuff. If something doesn’t work, he’s very quick to say all good, this part was cool about it, let’s run in this direction instead. I think it has just helped me gain so much confidence as an editor and really be open-minded in terms of all the different creative solutions and problem solving that I’ve learned throughout my career. I feel like all of that has helped me to put together these episodes and figure out the best way to effectively tell this story that I feel so close to. 

To see it blow up and connect with so many people is so gratifying because I’m watching these episodes and I’m thinking about all these connections to my own life and hoping that that will resonate with other people. When you put out a show, you’re like all right, there’s so much great TV out there. Who knows if this will find an audience. We’re a relatively small show. The fact that it seems to have such a devoted and loyal fan base and so many people are making memes about it or fan art, it’s just so awesome that this thing that started with me cutting this pilot at home in summer of 2021, has now gone on to win so many awards and jumpstart people’s careers. It just makes me feel so lucky and inspired to be part of this creative process. It’s a dream come true.