The highly-acclaimed biopic A Complete Unknown tells the story of Bob Dylan’s rise to fame—from his arrival in New York City as an enigmatic 19-year-old to his iconic, controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet, the story is set against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and the tumultuous cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The film is nominated in eight categories at the 2025 Academy Awards, among many other accolades so far.

We were fortunate to connect with the talented editor team, Andrew Buckland, ACE and Scott Morris, and visual effects editor, Matt Blouin, to learn how they brought Dylan’s story to the big screen, technically and creatively.

‍This interview has been edited for clarity.

We’ll start off with a question for editorial. Sound and music are obviously so central to this story. How did that play a role in the pacing, rhythm, and the relationship between audio and visual?

Andrew Buckland, ACE, editor:  We like to think everything is tied together throughout the movie, so we didn’t approach it like we’re going to have dramatic scenes and then we’re going to have musical scenes. We wanted to integrate all of those elements, even within the musical numbers, so there are dramatic elements taking place during the performance.

Scott Morris, editor:  Well, and it was so great the way [director James “Jim” Mangold] works, having [sound editor, Donald Sylvester, and music editor, Ted Caplan], in the cutting rooms with us throughout the whole process. It’s a music movie, so we’re obviously cutting a lot of music, but the sound design is also being incorporated, even in the early stages while we’re doing dailies, as we’re designing scenes. So it really informs—like for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis sequence has a lot of archival material with radios and TV in the background, on top of cityscapes. It really helps fill in the rhythm to have a sonic space like that. We move into Bob Dylan performing “Masters of War” in a cafe, and we transition seamlessly into music. We had this philosophy of “falling into scenes,” moving from one scene to the next. In these transitions, we would always have some sort of sonic element carrying us through. We discovered we could have a live performance, and then post-slap into the next sequence. As Drew put together the scene, there’s a big cocktail party where Pete Seeger performs with Bob; there’s a live performance, and then the music continues through as Bob leaves and is accosted by all of the people at the party. It’s just a way to keep the momentum going. So we used techniques, whether it be sound design, cityscape, motorcycle, or music of course, to carry us through.

I love that. And for the big moment of Dylan “going electric,” you’re really playing with the dynamic of the audience versus Dylan. How did you approach finding that balance?

Andrew:  The scene at Newport ‘65 took the longest to cut because of all the many elements at play: Dylan performing, the audience’s reaction, and the other dramatic moments offstage. We had to find the balance of all those elements—the audience specifically because we needed to shape their progression from the initial sort of stunned silence, to the anger beginning to rise, and then the eventual explosion of chaos, where half the audience is hating it and half the audience is loving it, and it’s just that cacophony, that chaos that Dylan is creating with his music. And the challenge was to find that balance within the performance, and also to live with the footage long enough to really understand and find those specific visual moments where the audience reacts a certain way and figure out where that all sits in the cut. At the same time, you’re juggling the story of Alan Lomax going for the soundboard and the fight breaking out, and then Pete Seeger goes for the board and tries to stop it… But at the same time, we were always aware of keeping Bob Dylan involved, even in those other separate moments. He’s always a presence, not only musically, but visually as well. It was a lot.

Sounds like it. And what was your favorite scene to work on or the one you’re most proud of?

Scott:  I really loved working on the montage earlier in the film where Bob Dylan is rising to fame. The musical performance is “A Hard Rain’s A‐Gonna Fall,” and it starts off with him in town hall, a smaller venue, and then eventually it’s Carnegie Hall, so we had two live musical performances that were different performances from [Timothée Chalamet]. We also had all this montage material that was originally planned as a smaller sequence, but we incorporated other elements into it and started to weave a more complex story. So, it’s not just Bob Dylan’s rise to fame, but also his relationship with Johnny Cash forming via letters and how they affect him and their dynamic together, as well as his relationship with Sylvie and the distance between them. And then Pete Seeger is kind of excited about the fame, but also has complicated feelings as he’s watching the rise. Oh, and we had the March on Washington in there, and we would go in and out of lyrical performance with vocals, then just the music, the guitar as a bed, and we even brought in vocals from the March on Washington where he performs a different song. It was very complex to weave together editorially, sonically, musically. But it was fun, and I’m happy with how it came out.

Andrew:  For me, I would say the end. But also, I’m really proud of the first scene where Dylan plays in the hospital for Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger for the first time. I love discovering Bob, because this is the first time everyone is hearing him play, and Timmy [Chalamet] is playing for the first time. He actually really played and sang in those moments. It was a very emotional moment for him, how everyone is reacting to hearing Bob for the first time. I really enjoyed discovering that scene.

Matt Blouin, visual effects editor:  I liked the Newport ‘64 scene where they’re doing “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for the first time. There’s just a lot of interplay between the audience, between him and Sylvie, and then Pete Seeger is watching the crowd react to this wunderkind or whatever it is, it’s just really emotional and powerful. It was cool to be a part of that because our whole goal is just to make it feel like you’re there. This isn’t one of those movies where it’s like, “Let’s be showy with the visual effects!”—we just don’t want to take you out of the drama. We just want to drop you there and leave you there, and let the music and the picture do the rest.

Speaking of which, the authenticity of the setting and all the details of the Village in the ‘60s were really impressive. What kind of digital work contributed to capturing that place and time?

Matt:  Well, 99.9 percent of that was all the production supervisor, François Audouy. They just nailed that. They did so much research and just meticulously put that together. I saw all the set ref and everything that went into it, and it was just incredible. We did do some additions, but nothing major. Pretty much everything you see on the screen is in camera.

Scott:  Yeah, it’s so impressive. MacDougal Street was recreated in New Jersey. I think the only change was we added the Washington Square [Arch] in the background. It’s pretty subtle, it’s just kind of there to place you—if you’re a New Yorker, you may catch it. But it’s all there in production design. We had all of those period cars and costumes. Incredible production.

Matt:  Yeah, if anything, it was just little skyline elements, or removal of some modern elements that you can’t eliminate during production. But really, it was just an amazing job by production design.

Very cool. Leaning more into the technical side of things, what would you say were the unique challenges you faced in production?

Scott:  It was my first time working with Jim (Andrew has been with him for many years). But Jim likes to cut during production, so we were cutting in Los Angeles back at his offices on the Fox set, and they were shooting in New Jersey. So they would shoot a long day, and then Jim would hop on Evercast in the evening, and we were able to move quickly using that process. Just a few days after wrapping the shoot, he got back to Los Angeles and we were able to watch the editors’ assembly put together. But it was really more than the editors’ assembly because we had gone through it with Jim and done passes on scenes, thanks to Evercast.

Andrew:  Yes, we could cut from home and then connect with Jim through Evercast after they shot. It was very convenient.

Matt:  From a visual effects perspective, our main vendor for the entire show, Rising Sun Pictures, was based in Australia. So we had a very different schedule that we needed to maintain. They wouldn’t get up until five or six in the evening our time, and we still needed to get shots in front of Jim. At this point, Jim was back in LA, but sometimes he’d start off the day in the office or still be working with these guys. But it was very easy because we could just have him hop on Evercast to review the shots or play them in the cut. We were able to get Jim’s feedback and not skip a beat—as much as you can when you have the time difference and such a delay between notes being given and implemented. We could hop on whenever shots came in, or when the visual effects supervisor needed to have a meeting, or get something in front of Jim… it just allowed us the flexibility to not stop our day. We could keep going. If we didn’t have those tools, it would have been impossible.

What kind of hardware and software were you all using?

Scott:  We were using Avid Media Composer, cutting in DNxSQ, on a Mac Pro “cheese grater.”

Matt:  That’s kind of the beauty of it, right? You don’t really need anything crazy to run Media Composer or Evercast, really.

Scott:  Simple, yeah.

Matt: I’m not sure what Jim’s setup is at home, but I’m assuming it’s just a laptop with a nice monitor to view the shots on. As far as what we’re driving in the office, it’s just Media Composer on a Mac “cheese grater.” Sometimes we’d be doing a review in-office with Jim, where he’s sitting on a couch watching it on the TV and then we’re Evercasting with the people in Australia. Or he’d be at home sitting in his office watching on a monitor with the guys in Australia. But we’d use an AJA Box to get the signal out so that we can watch it in the room. As far as software goes, I just use After Effects, but the visual effects guys use Mocha, Maya, etc. to generate the actual material.

And how were you guys streaming through Evercast?

Matt:  We were just streaming DVI, like a native stream out of the Avid, using a Blackmagic DeckLink to convert that.

What value do you think Evercast brought to the table for this particular project?

Andrew:  We got to work with Jim and cut with him. We were able to work on and refine scenes while they were shooting, and that was the most valuable. And even when he returned to LA, we were able to jump on with him in the evening while we were still working to review something, and that was very useful.

Scott:  Yeah, it definitely allowed us to work really quickly and efficiently and not lose any time. So definitely an advantage that way.

Matt:  Same for us—just to keep the ball rolling because we couldn’t afford delays on this production, to be perfectly honest. We had to turn this around quite quickly.

Scott:  Yeah, the whole project I think was about nine months from start to release of the film.

Wow. I would imagine that you’d have to fly to New Jersey if you wanted to cut during production without a tool like this?

Andrew:  Yeah, you would have to be on location.

So do you see a strong future for remote work in post?

Matt:  God, I hope so.

Andrew:  I think it’s an inevitable future.

Scott:  Yeah, it’s our current reality. It keeps expanding as more productions realize it’s necessary to keep speeds up.

Andrew:  I don’t even see any other alternative. Not doing it doesn’t make sense.

Matt:  Oh yeah, to go back to even just a few years ago where you’re cutting video tape or something in order to get a jump on dailies… I remember being in situations like that prior to these tools, and it was kind of absurd, and an insane amount of work too, because you’re not actually cutting the dailies—you’ve got to go back and recut them. So, yeah, I think it’s great. It allows us to be more productive in general, whether it’s a hybrid situation or a fully remote situation, it’s really helpful. Being able to get answers and cut after hours, at least with the director, or the vendor in my case, it’s really nice. Without it, I don’t think you could pull off these schedules, which keep getting tighter and tighter.

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