Two time Emmy-winning Andor editor Yan Miles’, ACE, feels worthy of receiving a third Emmy based on his brilliant cutting of the complex series. In its second of two seasons, Andor defied the odds and remained a fan-favorite, a rarity among the fickle Star Wars fans who are famously reluctant to embrace new takes on their beloved universe. Miles talks about the show in such a way that you realize he’s thought very deeply about not just his work as an editor but also about the plight of these characters. He’s also deeply aware of the overall high degree of honor viewers hold for the series. He, as with many Star Wars fans, still questions some characters’ actions in certain moments, and as any fan, he holds his own theories. Finally, he has very strong opinions about how the show chooses to end.
Check out our interview with Andor editor Yan Miles below!
The Contending: Your Emmy-nominated episode, “Who Are You,” was one of the most tense things I’ve seen on TV this year. The way the tension builds to the battle we know is coming and the way Syril watches it in slow motion. What was that like to put together in the editing process?
Yan Miles: From the very first scene of the episode I felt like we were already pointing at something. With the captain moving those barriers, we had set up that the cadets that were there in the previous episode were quite young and not fully trained. Then we have Cassian, who has come to Ghorman to assassinate Dedra. And he had failed to make the shot the night before and he wakes up, prepared to try again, and he sees that something has changed, that the Empire is not building barriers, they’re building a fortress. Then we have the people of Ghorman screaming that the plaza is open and people start going into it to protest. Most of the people there are just there to peacefully protest but there are Ghormans who have been purposely armed by the Imperials. It’s a horrible thing to say but it’s like lambs to the slaughter. You can sense where all this is heading.
A good example of it was when the crowds are coming into the plaza with flares and they are singing “We are the Ghor” in unison. I played it discordant so they’re not perfectly in time with each other, and rhythmically I cut them where we get two or three bars of that and then cut to another shot of two or three bars of that so it has a pulse. Then on the back of them going through into the Plaza I cut inside an alleyway where there’s a cafe and there’s a waiter watching them through the glass as they’re going in. Then another cut I go really far away to a random shot of just a profile of a stormtrooper who just slightly moves his head left to right. He is really quite far away, and the two shots are not connected geographically, but the presence of that Stormtrooper creates that tension. You as the audience see what’s in the crowd but we don’t see what the Stormtrooper sees, and we also know that even the soldiers on the ground don’t quite know what’s going on so all of that adds even more tension.
Another way I did that was I always maintained to see things through Cassian’s eyes so he becomes our point of view. As this starts unraveling he tries to stick to his plan to find Dedra. But in between all those moments, you can see he knows he’s watching something really wrong here. I think we channel that through him.
The Contending: The final moment with Dedra in that episode, where she has been facilitating all these terrible things, she has her own sense of tragedy at the end of it. It’s not a huge moment, but just seeing her composed herself for her superiors and then break down, it’s a very intimate moment. What challenges were there in editing that shot?
Yan Miles: Janus (Metz) shot a lot of footage in that back room, this comms room that at that point in the episode resembles a padded cell for Dedra. I was originally going to do it in one shot but I felt that it would be fascinating if I could jump cut to these different emotions from her. The first shot Dedra looks down and then looks up, and she has a particular look on her face that I thought was tragic and I felt emotionally connected to her. Then I cut to her reaching for her collar like it’s choking her, and for me that visually represented what Syril had done to her earlier, physically grabbing her. So now I’ve put Syril in the room, adding a level of tragedy. Then I cut to the shot of her over by the wall where she’s using it like a prop to hold herself up because she feels so frail. Then she turns and she has that shake in her hand and, Dedra being Dedra, she puts her hand on that shaking hand to control it.
Dedra through both seasons readjusts the lower part of her jacket underneath her belt quite often in many scenes but not as viciously and violently as she does in this scene. That just felt like the button on the end. Dedra is not going to change who she is; she’s a construction of her upbringing and her ambition. So in that sense she’s dusted Syril off as best she can. To allow that little vignette of her humanity was fascinating. I don’t think I could have conveyed that if I had done it in one shot. I think it was necessary to jump through time and I’m pleased I did.
The Contending: One of the other big scenes of this episode is Syril and Cassian fighting in that bar while we have all this chaos going on outside. We are watching these two characters going through so much emotion, especially Syril who is hating himself, hating Cassion creating this intimate fight in comparison to the slaughter going on outside. What was that like to craft?
Yan Miles: If this fight had happened on any other day I think Cassian would be way stronger than Syril, because let’s not forget that Cassian Andor is a cold-blooded killer and Syril is definitely not. But what’s fascinating about that fight is that Syril has gone to a place where there is nothing left. He shows that when he’s in the plaza dodging laser cannons without even realizing it, with people bumping into him and dying. I think it’s the first time we’ve used slow motion in Andor with that spin around with Syril, and I use just three or four shots. But it showed he was in a place where he wouldn’t have cared if he was killed. Then when you translate that emotion into him, then seeing Cassian, his sort of nemesis, and Cassian blissfully unaware, with Cassian frustrated trying to find Dedra and he’s finally got her in his sight, and then Syril attacking Cassian and not even knowing he saved Dedra’s life. That was such great storytelling from Dan and Tony Gilroy.
Then it turned into the fight with Syril on top of Cassian, first choking him out, and I don’t think I changed much. I think I just cut it once. Then the stunt with a grenade goes off was extraordinary, with some low floor camera shots where Cassian looks slightly stunned. And I remember we filmed this in February, and so we see these cold breaths coming out of him with all this debris falling around him. I really admire that on the Andor team we get really dirty with the people, under the nails and on the costumes. We literally had two stunt people getting blown up there. I was more focused on the emotional aspect than the geography of where they were, but when Cassian does get the better of Syril and gives him that final blow, Cassian stands up, then that laser cannon bolt comes in and obliterates the wall in the bar. He runs for cover and makes that error of not taking his gun.
So when we see Syril now holding the gun on Andor, the shot was originally far away and I brought it up like it was around the corner. We know Cassian has plot armor but you still wonder how this scene is going to end and then he just asks Syril, “Who are you?” That line means so many things on so many levels. For Cassian it’s literally, who the fuck are you? But for Syril it becomes this moment of realizing that his ambition and everything he worked for, and knowing he was on the wrong side and It’s devastating. Then Rylanz shoots him in the neck.
I don’t think you get a hand-to-hand fight like that in Star Wars very often. But between those two characters it felt worthy. It was at the right place, and with all the horrible things going on in the plaza that you were seeing through these little back frames. Then going back to Syril, upon hearing “Who are you?” we see that he lowered the gun just a little, and it was the actor Kyle Soller who decided to do that. That leaves an even bigger question in my mind, what went through Syril’s head at that moment? Has he decided he’s not going to kill him? I feel like he’s thinking, I’m in the wrong and you’re not, but who knows what he was thinking?
The Contending: You’re in the Star Wars universe, but it is such a different version of Star Wars, so what was it like being with the show like that for two seasons?
Yan Miles: I remember when I first came on to the show it was through director Ben Caron, who I had worked with on Sherlock and The Crown. He told me he was doing this Andor and asked if I wanted to come with and I said yeah, because I grew up with Star Wars. But first I had to meet John Gilroy, Tony’s brother and one of the writers. He asked me what I think of Star Wars. I said I loved the original Star Wars; when I was a kid they blew me away. Then I said I really liked Rogue One, that those four films really stood out to me. He said great, you’re hired.
So, while I’m not rushed out into the Star Wars universe as an adult, but to be able to work on a Star Wars show was just kind of cool. Then when I was on the set and seeing that they had Nicholas Britell doing the music score I thought, this is kind of different. Then when I met Tony the first thing we were doing was this funeral march with a marching band. Then we had to shoot it on our phones and plot it all out before the real shoot to get the timing because he and Nicholas had already written the music. I was like, “This is really cool! We’re doing this New Orleans funeral band in the Star Wars universe.” But of course at the end of it a hologram comes out of a droid revealing a dead woman to deliver a monologue to the people and to the audience. That’s when I realized it has all this little bit of Star Wars in it and then some.
Seeing the droid made me think of R2D2 and the things I know from Star Wars but, as I mentioned before, Tony, Ben, and the rest of the crew gave us that feeling of getting the dirt under our nails. It felt like we were inhabiting the space with these characters and I think that’s Tony’s strength. Everyone showed up and made the world feel like it was lived in and not too glossy. Another thing, if someone calls you up and says you’re going to do a prequel and that’s challenging enough, but then you say you’re going to do it about Cassian Andor where we know his end so he has all this plot armor, but Tony wrote stories that just really let you go on a journey with him. Tony also just let us play with this as well. He didn’t dictate exactly how it should be; he’d say show me what you have done, and he would just say I love it. It was such great creativity for me.
The Contending: Final thoughts?
Yan Miles: The fact that the show did end is what made it so much more enjoyable. If I was on this now into season 6 and you’re asking about this I’d be like, where are we in the story? I have done shows where I’ve gotten up to four or five seasons and I think the brilliance of Tony and Diego (Luna) was saying we’re doing two and we’re out. I know that feeling, and I know there’s some audience members who say it’s not enough. But it is neat that it isn’t. It’s bold and it’s brave and forward thinking knowing we mustn’t overtell stories. If we kept going it could have been the show’s demise.
Stream Andor in its entirety on Disney+.
