Interview: Discussing the Challenges of ‘F1’ with Editor Stephen Mirrione

F1 marks editor Stephen Mirrione’s third collaboration with director Joseph Kosinski, after the Academy Award-winning editor did some additional work on Top Gun: Maverick before working on Spiderhead. As he explains to Awards Radar during a virtual press day, Mirrione got to know Kosinski’s creative process and “really appreciated how he thinks, how he puts things together, and how the different parts of the crew collaborate. He has a tremendous team surrounding him. I knew going into this that I would be spoiled, so to speak.”

Another significant advantage of Kosinski’s filmmaking DNA is how he is interested in the smallest details of what he shoots, alongside the big picture of his films: 

“He is not only able to see the big picture and feel the flow of the whole movie, but also to get glimpses of details so that you’re really dialed in when you need to be. In order to effectively cut that way and not get paralyzed, it is necessary to work in layers. You start putting a scene together in a normal fashion: don’t think about it too much, put it together very quickly, react to it, and then, as it begins to take shape, slowly look for the details. Is there something that can highlight or illuminate this moment, which I can now weave into the scene we’ve already created? Joe understands how I work and my rhythm. We’re able to get through that process in a pretty efficient way, I would say, having done it several times.”

Mirrione, who was recently nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for his editing work on the film, described the process of working on such a massive production as “tremendously difficult in terms of the challenge, the puzzle of how to put it all together technically, but super fun all the way through working on it. It’s exceptionally fun to see people watching the film, enjoying it, and getting excited about it.”

While we didn’t have much time to discuss some of the intricacies of his work on the film, Mirrione still gave lots of insight about the process of editing the racing sequences, not only in the sheer volume of material that Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda shot for the movie, but also in how each racing sequence has to communicate with the story and the characters’ emotional journey in the film. 

You can listen to the full conversation below and stream F1 on Apple TV+ today: 

[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]