Four-time Oscar winner Sean Baker explains his unusual approach to editing his New York-set anti-Cinderella story, which involves setting the footage aside for months after wrapping and building a cut in chronological order.
The winner of five Oscars – including Best Picture – at the 2025 Academy Awards, Anora is the eighth feature by Sean Baker and third since his international breakout hit, the iPhone-shot, LA-set trans comedy Tangerine (2015). Like all of his recent work, Anora is a non-judgemental journey into the lives of sex workers. It follows Ani, brilliantly portrayed by Mikey Madison, a Brooklyn stripper who is drawn into the hedonistic orbit of Ivan (Mark Eydelsteyn), a Russian oligarch’s spoiled son. Alongside writing, casting, directing and co-producing the film, Baker edited it – a practice he has continued since his directorial debut Four Letter Words (2000).
The filmmaker made his first feature at a moment of seismic change in film technology. ‘The film was stuck in a strange time between analogue and digital. Half of it was edited on a Steenbeck [an analogue flatbed editing system]. It was taking so long that we ended up completing the film on Avid [the industry standard for digital editing]. That change opened my eyes. I’m glad I had access to analogue editing, but I never want to repeat that process. I think the best part of our digital revolution is how it transformed post production. Nonlinear digital editing changed everything in terms of speed and the choices one can make.’
Even if digital technology has made editing films like Anora easier, Baker’s working process is demanding. ‘I always edit in chronological order. I don’t do an assembly cut,’ Baker notes of an approach many filmmakers employ, whereby they create a (usually longer) rough cut of a film. ‘I go from one scene to the next and I need to have it polished as I go along, even with the sound design. Some [audio] will be replaced by better effects down the line. But at this stage, I am filling in each scene with the required sounds, background ambience and even music if I have to. Essentially, I’m watching the film grow, from beginning to end.’ It’s a method that his colleagues at FilmNation Entertainment, who produced Anora, would nervously joke about. ‘They said, “We don’t know if Sean has made a good film until the last day of editing.” Because you never really know whether a movie works or not until it cuts to the end credits. And that’s at the end of my edit.’
Anora (2024)
Baker also gives himself breathing space after a production has wrapped before stepping into the editing room. ‘I take a long time off. As long as possible,’ Baker admits, ‘just to distance myself from the project. When I go into the edit, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. But I don’t reference my script supervisor book unless I’m really stuck and have to find a shot.’ Baker acknowledges how similar his system is to that of non-fiction filmmaking. ‘I have all this footage to work with and I have to find a way for it to make sense. Of course, because it’s plot-driven and there’s still the slate for the scene at the start of each take, it’s not like I’m telling a completely different story in the edit. But I’m hopefully approaching it from a different perspective to the way I shot it – a little more removed from it.’
Sean Baker behind the scenes on Anora
There is a similarity between Baker’s work and documentary filmmaking that seeps into how Anora is pieced together. ‘In the way we shoot our films, there are sometimes set-pieces that rely heavily on docu techniques. Sometimes that line between a docu style and drama is completely blurred. In Anora, the crawl through Brighton Beach in search of Ivan is pretty hybrid. You’re putting actors in real situations with real locals. And sometimes the locals don’t even know we’re filming because we’re shooting “candid camera” style. It mixes our fiction with the real world. When it comes to a scene like that, you’re capturing it like a documentary. And you have to approach those scenes as a documentarian would in the edit. The success of it lies in how a series of random shots, capturing this world, are cut together.’ The effectiveness of these sequences is then magnified by a combination of sound design and some choice, often eclectic, tracks.
Anora (2024)
Throughout his work, Baker has always made bold use of music, whether it’s Kool & the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ at the start of The Florida Project (2017), NSYNC’s ‘Bye Bye Bye’ opening Red Rocket (2021) or the stark contrast of Beethoven and EDM on Tangerine. Showstopping needle drops have become a trademark of a Sean Baker film, and his latest is no exception. But how the music features in certain scenes has become more complex. Take the t.A.T.u. song ‘All The Things She Said’. ‘It starts out following Mark into the club and is non-diegetic [playing over the unfolding scene]. Then in the club, the track is mixed so it becomes part of the club environment. We do that a few times in the film.’
Baker on set
Baker also employs Iggy Azalea’s 2019 banger ‘Sally Walker’ as a hard cut. ‘I use it when Ani is being driven into the city and the bridge is behind them. It’s fully non-diegetic. That’s using a needle drop as score. It’s a rarity in my movies. It just worked and so far nobody’s called me out on the change to my usual style.’ Most importantly, Baker’s evolving approach is always in the service of his characters – not only making them real, but making us care for them. It was fitting then, in announcing Anora as the winner of the top prize at the 2024 edition of Cannes, that jury president Greta Gerwig compared the film to the work of Ernst Lubitsch, one of the great filmmakers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, who understood that a film’s success is based as much on us feeling as enjoying what we’re watching.
This article originally appeared in the Awards Journal. You can pick up a free copy at your local Curzon cinema while stocks last.
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