Post-production, explained by the people doing it.
The Rough Cut treats post-production as the place where movies and series become themselves. Editors, sound designers, mixers, and dialogue specialists explain choices around pacing, performance, tone, structure, comedy, suspense, and feeling.
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The Rough Cut is a craft-interview show for people who care about what happens after the camera stops rolling. Its focus is editing, sound, dialogue, mixing, structure, pacing, and the thousands of judgment calls that make a finished film or series feel inevitable. The format is straightforward. A project brings in the people who shaped it, and the conversation works backward from the finished scene to the choices behind it. That can mean Joel Negron explaining collaboration on Project Hail Mary, or sound designers describing how feeling matters more than pure engineering. It can mean Tim Squires talking about how not to over-explain a time-travel comedy. It can mean Hoppers editors and collaborators tracing the push and pull between dark humor, absurdity, story screenings, and audience response. The show is brisk, but it gives guests room. Long answers are part of the texture, especially when someone is describing bins, dailies, alternate cuts, screenings, reactions, flashbacks, or the moment a scene finally starts behaving. The tone is warm and lightly jokey. The work is taken seriously without turning precious. Episodes show the range clearly. How to Get to Heaven from Belfast opens questions about reaction shots, mystery structure, and keeping different episode blocks tonally aligned. Heated Rivalry brings the conversation toward tension, intimacy, character investment, and what an edit should or should not show. Sinners becomes a discussion of runtime, genre pressure, performance, and the risk of cutting a story down until its meaning goes with it. Black Rabbit shifts into darker television and the relationship between performance, cinematic intent, and production pressure. Alien Romulus foregrounds sound, dialogue preservation, franchise memory, and the problem of returning to a world without flattening it into imitation. The show is especially strong when it catches small decisions with large consequences. Removing a line, holding a look, changing a sound cue, or refusing a shorter cut can alter the whole emotional contract with the audience. The Rough Cut makes those decisions legible. It is not a gossip show, and it is not a theory lecture. It is a practical, conversational record of how professional editors and sound teams think when story, schedule, taste, and audience expectation all meet in the edit room.
Made for: Best for film and television fans, editors, sound designers, students, and working creatives who want scene-level insight into how finished stories are built. It also suits curious viewers who like hearing professionals talk through practical choices without heavy academic framing.
What sets it apart: The Rough Cut stands out by staying close to the edit room: bins, screenings, reactions, dub stages, alternate runtimes, and the exact moment a scene starts working. Its guests are not decoration; their workflow and judgment are the point.
The Rough Cut features in-depth interviews with the film and tv industry's top post production professionals on the topics of film editing, video editing, sound design and more. Hosted by @MattFeury.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Editors and sound designers explain how scene-level choices shape comedy, tension, clarity, and emotion.
The Rough Cut follows the decisions that turn footage into a finished story. Matt Fury interviews editors and sound designers about choices usually felt rather than noticed: when to hold on an emotion, how reaction shots set comic timing, and what a cut can reveal without…
A Pixar brain trust becomes practical editing wisdom before you can say, "hold that reaction shot."
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded craft review of how collaboration and alien sound shape Project Hail Mary's emotional language.
The Rough Cut's Project Hail Mary conversation is strongest when it shows how big-scale science fiction gets built from small, precise craft choices.
A practical look at how timing, music, and restraint shape Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.
The Rough Cut keeps its focus on editorial judgment in Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice, using Tim Squires's comments to show how assembly cuts and crew screenings can protect the thing that made a film work in the first place.
Pixar's Hoppers comes into focus through editorial talk about tone, timing, and the odd usefulness of a brain trust.
The Rough Cut's discussion of Pixar's Hoppers is most engaging when it stays with the editors and collaborators shaping the film through tone, timing, and revision.
Nigel Williams shows how reaction timing, pacing, and flashback style help comedy and mystery share the frame.
The Rough Cut's talk with editor Nigel Williams works best as a close look at how How to Get to Heaven from Belfast balances comedy with mystery.
Arthur Tarnofsky and Veronique Barb trace how emotion, tension, and rewatch clues shape Heated Rivalry.
Heated Rivalry comes through as a clear look at how editing lets private feeling become legible after the fact. Arthur Tarnofsky and Veronique Barb frame emotion as the reason to hold on a moment, then tie that instinct to the pressure around intimate scenes.
Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant explain one topic per episode, from the bicameral mind to Boeing's MCAS.
Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.
Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins dissect Oscar races, new releases, and Hollywood news.
Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen debate new releases, classics, and their own film rankings.
The episode features interviews with the editing and sound team behind the film Alien Romulus, discussing their work and the film's production.
An interview with editor Eric Kisak about his work on the Apple TV Plus series The Studio, a comedy about a film studio head trying to balance art and commerce.
Editors of Marvel's Daredevil Born Again discuss the unique challenge of retrofitting the show with existing footage after a creative overhaul.
Editors Vix Patel, Cedric Nairn Smith, and Kyle Writer discuss their work on the Netflix series Black Rabbit.
The host introduces an episode of The Rough Cut featuring interviews with the editor and sound designers of the movie Project Hail Mary, discussing their work and the film's success.
Tim Squires discusses Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice, the Ben David Grabinski film that premiered at South by Southwest and is streaming on Hulu later this week.
The Rough Cut’s Hoppers episode brings together editor Axel Geddes, second editor Tony Greenberg, additional editors Chloe Klozman and Jeffrey Sledge, and first assistant editor Aisha Yohannes.
An interview with editor Nigel Williams about his work on the Netflix series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, discussing his editing process and the importance of reactions in comedy.
The Rough Cut on February 2nd, 2026 centers on Heated Rivalry, a six-episode Montreal series about Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov, two hockey stars whose private relationship stays hidden from the public.
Editor Michael Chauver discusses his work on Ryan Coogler's genre-blending film Sinners, including the editing process and the importance of listening to actors.