Kogonada on Editing After Yang: Crafting Memory and Meaning
Director and editor Kogonada, known for his visually distinct and emotionally resonant films like Columbus, offers a rare and insightful look into his creative process for the contemplative science-fiction drama, After Yang. In a detailed discussion originally featured in Frame.io’s “Art of the Cut” series, Kogonada delves into his decision to edit the film himself, his cinematic influences, and the specific techniques used to shape the unique temporal and emotional landscape of After Yang. His approach highlights a deep reverence for cinema history and a meticulous attention to how editing crafts the viewer’s experience of time, memory, and humanity.
Cinematic Conversations: Influences Shaping After Yang
Kogonada openly acknowledges the filmmakers whose work informs his own, creating a dialogue across cinematic history. He cites masters like Yasujirō Ozu, Edward Yang, and Wong Kar-wai as figures he aspires to be in conversation with, noting how Asian filmmakers have profoundly shaped his sense of identity. François Truffaut also numbers among his inspirations.
Specifically for After Yang, Kogonada points to Koreeda Hirokazu’s Afterlife as a significant point of dialogue. He also directly references the Japanese film All About Lily Chou-Chou and the documentary All in This Tea within After Yang itself. While acknowledging Ozu’s constant influence on his understanding of cinema, he notes After Yang diverges significantly from Ozu’s style.
The editing style, particularly concerning memory, draws heavily from Alain Resnais, Nicolas Roeg, and Steven Soderbergh. Kogonada expresses admiration for how these filmmakers manipulate editing – using echoes and repetition – to capture the subjective nature of time, experience, and memory, a formal element he was excited to explore in After Yang.
The Intimacy of the Cut: Why Kogonada Edits His Own Films
Kogonada views editing as the crucial “cooking” stage of filmmaking, the point where carefully gathered ingredients are transformed into a cohesive meal. Having entered the field through creating video essays, editing feels intuitive and deeply personal to him.
He equates the power of editing to documentary filmmaking, where editors often shape narrative and meaning from raw footage. The minute decisions involved – adjusting cuts by mere frames – create an intimacy he was initially unwilling to relinquish. “There’s something so intimate and so personal about it that at that point in my life, I wasn’t willing to give it up,” he explains. The potential awkwardness of directing another editor through such fine adjustments (“Could you try three frames back?”) reinforced his decision to handle the edit himself for his earlier films.
However, Kogonada acknowledges the immense value of collaboration. Having worked on the Apple TV+ series Pachinko without editing his own directed episodes, he saw the benefits of a skilled editor’s perspective and organizational process. He reflects on the isolation of editing After Yang largely alone for months, recognizing moments where another voice would have been beneficial. He now seeks a balance, wanting collaborators who offer their own sensibilities while still allowing him direct access to the material if needed. His personal editing style remains somewhat “DIY,” often favoring single video tracks and straight cuts, reminiscent of physical film editing. For After Yang, he used Premiere Pro, finding its interface closer to the older Final Cut Pro he initially learned on.
Justin H. Min portrays the domestic android Yang, central to the narrative of After Yang.
Crafting Subjectivity: Editing Techniques in After Yang
Kogonada’s background informs his distinct approach to editing After Yang, utilizing cinematic language itself to convey complex ideas about memory, perception, and time.
Limited Coverage and Compositional Intent
Knowing how he intends to cut scenes while directing allows Kogonada to shoot with very limited coverage. He focuses on capturing precisely the shots he needs, believing this allows for greater attention to detail within each frame. “Without having as much coverage, you can really make every shot count,” he states. This contrasts with productions requiring numerous options in the edit room, forcing a trade-off between flexibility and the specificity of each shot. He often sacrifices options to capture moments in the most deliberate way possible.
Jake (Colin Farrell) shows the non-responsive Yang to repair shop owner George (Clifton Collins Jr.) in After Yang.
An example is a museum scene involving exposition about techno-sapiens. Feeling the physical space lacked visual interest, Kogonada used separately shot footage of techno displays (captured during reshoots) to overlay the dialogue. This not only solved a visual problem but also gave the conversation “real visceral context.”
Editing Human vs. Android Memory
A key distinction in After Yang lies in the portrayal of memory. Kogonada chose to represent Yang’s memories as brief fragments, mere seconds long. The audience experiences Yang’s perspective through the accumulation of these moments, revealing what he valued – nature, family interactions, his attention to Mika. This contrasts sharply with the depiction of human memory.
Repairman Russ (Ritchie Coster) examines the android Yang in a scene from After Yang.
When characters like Jake or Kyra recall past events, Kogonada employs repetition and slight variations in performance across different takes. This technique reflects the fluid, subjective nature of human recollection. “My own study of human memory is that every time you recall it, it changes you… You never recall the same memory the same way,” Kogonada explains. As Jake’s affection for Yang grows, his recalled memories feel warmer. Similarly, Kyra’s grief potentially colors her memory of Yang’s emotions during a conversation about death. This non-linear, multi-take approach, inspired by Resnais and Soderbergh, places the viewer directly within the character’s subjective experience without relying on visual effects. “It’s all about the cut,” he emphasizes.
The Power of Stillness and Sound
Kogonada values moments of stillness and the “in-between,” allowing characters time to move through space or audiences a chance to process information – what he and his DP call “palate cleansers.” He references Vittorio De Sica and Jacques Tati, filmmakers who embraced these seemingly non-essential moments. An example in After Yang is watching a character walk away after a significant conversation at the museum. While trimmed slightly after its Cannes premiere, the duration remains intentional, giving weight to the preceding dialogue and grounding the film in a sense of real space and time.
Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawijaja) and Yang (Justin H. Min) share a quiet moment outdoors in After Yang.
Sound design plays a crucial role, particularly in Yang’s memory sequences. Kogonada collaborated with Raoul Marks (Antibody.tv) for the visual interface, wanting something emotive and mysterious rather than a standard computer display. Marks’ initial designs included musical elements that influenced the final sound direction. Sound designer Ruy Garcia then built upon this, avoiding sci-fi tropes and focusing on organic, spatial sounds – birds, wind, atmospheric elements located within the Atmos mix to evoke the feeling of searching through memory.
Strategic Use of Score and Silence
While initially leaning towards minimal, ambient scores, Kogonada embraced more prominent music in After Yang, partly due to collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto (who provided a theme) and composer Aska Matsumiya. He sought a balance between score and silence, recognizing the power of both. Matsumiya adapted a song she loved, adding strings that became a recurring motif, echoing Sakamoto’s theme.
Ada (Haley Lu Richardson), a figure from Yang's past memories, shown in After Yang.
However, silence and ambient sound remain vital. A particularly emotional car scene where Yang discusses his identity features no music, allowing the intimacy of the conversation and the natural sounds of the tunnel to dominate. Kogonada finds ambient sounds, like birdsong or the rhythm of transport systems, inherently musical (“concrete music”), contributing significantly to the film’s atmosphere.
Dissolves and Challenging Convention
Though generally preferring straight cuts, Kogonada utilized dissolves in After Yang, notably in the sequence where Jake explores Yang’s memories of Ada. He felt the linear presentation of their relationship lacked depth. By using dissolves, he could blend time, layering the beginning of their connection with more established moments, creating a sense of mystery and elongated experience that suited the discovery of this unknown relationship. “As soon as I opened myself up to the dissolve, it all started to work,” he notes.
He also consciously plays with conventions like the 180-degree rule, drawing inspiration from Ozu, who prioritized individual shot composition over strict continuity. In a car scene between Jake and Ada, they face opposite directions in the shot/reverse shot sequence. Kogonada chose the strongest compositions, privileging the visual impact and reflection over rigid continuity rules, trusting the audience’s orientation.
The Value of Every Moment
Even seemingly minor scenes, like Jake experiencing tea crystals, serve a purpose beyond plot. While acknowledging it could be cut for pacing, Kogonada kept it as a “palate cleanser,” a moment of quiet observation that reveals Jake’s character – his connection to traditional craft amidst a futuristic world, his internal struggles, and his preoccupation with his failing business. It provides a valuable moment with Jake before the narrative intensifies.
Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawijaja) sits pensively in the car beside the inert Yang in After Yang.
Pre-lapping sound and picture, as seen when Kyra accesses Yang’s memories, was conceived in the writing stage. The idea of her sitting where Yang sat, seeing what he saw, and connecting his recorded memory fragment to the conversation that immediately followed, was built into the scene’s structure, creating a seamless transition between observer and participant in memory.
The family unit in After Yang: (L-R) Colin Farrell as Jake, Jodie Turner-Smith as Kyra, Malea Emma Tjandrawijaja as Mika, and Justin H. Min as Yang.
Conclusion: Editing as Interpretation
Kogonada’s detailed reflections reveal an approach to filmmaking where directing and editing are deeply intertwined, with each choice meticulously considered for its impact on theme and audience experience. His work on After Yang demonstrates how editing techniques, from the handling of coverage and composition to the nuanced portrayal of memory and the strategic use of sound and silence, are not mere technical exercises but fundamental tools for interpreting and conveying complex ideas about life, connection, and the passage of time. Through his deliberate and often unconventional editing choices, Kogonada crafts a unique cinematic language that invites contemplation and resonates long after the credits roll.
