After collaborating with Tim Burton on Netflix’s Wednesday, editor Jay Prychidny earned the job of a lifetime — and afterlifetime — cutting Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
“It’s so crazy, because Tim Burton was an idol for me growing up, and Beetlejuice was my favorite movie when it came out. I was like 7 years old when it came out and I was obsessed with it. I just thought it was the coolest, most imaginative, most amazing thing I’d ever seen. It really blew my mind,” he explains.
“I had just worked with Tim on Wednesday season one, so I had cut all of his episodes of that show. I heard Beetlejuice was coming up, and I was just super excited about it. The way Tim works, he doesn’t usually talk about projects in advance. I didn’t really have any information. I was just kind of hoping and praying that they would want me to do that as well — and thankfully they did,” Prychidny smiles.
“We got along really well on Wednesday. I think I was able to tap into a lot of what he was going for in a lot of places, so I guess that’s why he wanted me on Beetlejuice.” He adds, “Working on the sequel was such a strange trip. A lot of the time it felt like it wasn’t real. It was so mind blowing.”
Prychidny, like everyone involved in the production, felt the pressure to deliver on the long-awaited sequel. “It’s kind of a self-pressure, but everyone was putting that pressure on themselves to really live up to the original. The last thing anyone wants is for people to say you ruined their childhood or the movie should have just been left alone. I was definitely worried about that.
“I’m always thinking about the audience and what the fans will think. Obviously, you can’t please everyone, but just trying to make the movie that the fans would want to see — as much as you can. I’m a fan of the movie, so that gave me my own perspective on what these characters are like, what the movie is like, what the tone should be like, what the pace should be like, and the style of it. A lot of that is what I put into it.”
Burton chose not to rewatch the original Beetlejuice before making the sequel. “He was not interested in copying things too specifically. I think he was going off of his emotional memory of the original film and what that world is like from a more instinctual perspective. I did kind of take his lead on that.”
In the edit, Prychidny was tasked with juggling the various characters and plot threads. “One thing that evolved in the editing was to structure the film as much as possible — when there are so many characters, it’s inevitable that there’s going to be a lot of different worlds that you’re popping into — so one scene drives to the next. It’s not just cutting to an unrelated scene; it’s connected to the scene that came before. A lot of those transitions developed in the editing process.”
The tonal shifts came naturally for him. “A lot of things that I work on have very wide ranges of tone. I think that really engages audiences a lot more. It’s more surprising to not be in one mode of storytelling. Something I think about a lot is where you switch styles, just to keep it fresh and fun and unexpected. Beetlejuice, the character, is just this manic, wild, anarchic kind of character, and I took some cues from that at times in terms of what the feeling of the editing should be.”
The biggest editorial challenge came from the finale, which echoes the original movie’s iconic “Day-O” scene with Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park.” “That song is so crazy. It’s like seven and a half minutes, and it has all these weird changes in tone and rhythm and key, and things were recorded at different times and the quality changes. It’s just an utterly bizarre piece of music that defies editing,” he points out.
“Tim had this real vision about what piece of the song goes with what footage, and the song becomes this bizarre mashup. It had me and the music producer on the film bashing our heads against, how do we make this song work in any kind of musical way that makes sense? That was definitely one of the most stressful and difficult sequences on the film.”
Despite the struggle, Prychidny was able to make it work. “You watch it now, and it seems quite seamless. It makes sense why you go to this part of the song, then to that part of the song, and to that part of the song — but the process of getting there, to make it seem natural and normal, was a lot of stress and anxiety on all of us behind the scenes.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had six preview screenings in Los Angeles prior to the premiere. “It’s so wild seeing it with an audience. As the film got more and more refined, the audience engagement got higher and higher. The electric energy in the cinema and the laughter and the applause, that’s so gratifying. That’s really what you’re doing it for: to entertain the audience.”
Despite the cuts, there are no deleted scenes. “The movie is the version that Tim wanted to make. It’s essentially his director’s cut,” the editor notes.
Prychidny previously cut another sequel with a passionate fan base, Scream VI. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice proved to be a very different experience, as Burton’s approach is quite different than the way Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett work.
“They have very specific styles which are almost polar opposite. Matt and Tyler shoot a lot of footage. A lot of coverage, a lot of different angles and versions, and that gives you an incredible amount of freedom in the edit. They shoot with the intention to be able to have freedom in the edit. That’s really fun and creative.
“Tim doesn’t shoot that way. He shoots a lot less footage, a lot less options. You have creative freedom, but not in the same way. You can’t completely kind of change a scene from what it was. You have to make the scenes as polished and as good as you can in those confines.”
Prychidny’s resume includes a lot of high-profile television like Altered Carbon, Orphan Black, and Snowpiercer, but he doesn’t have a preference between working in film or TV. “What I look for mainly is just exciting projects that will engage an audience,” he says.
“With film, you get to focus a little more. You have one thing on your plate, as opposed to juggling multiple episodes. And it’s super nice that you can have this communal experience with watching them. That’s a big benefit of doing film, but in terms of the creative aspect of editing, it’s kind of the same for me. You’re always looking for the way to make something the most engaging and emotionally accessible for the audience.”
Prychidny will be back for the second season of Wednesday, which is expected to premiere next year. “It’s been really fun to work on, because there’s a lot of new actors — Steve Buscemi, Joanna Lumley, Billie Piper, Christopher Lloyd — who are bringing so much creative energy into it.
“It’s the same with Beetlejuice; both the returning actors from season one and the new actors, everyone is bringing such an excitement to the project. Because season one was such a hit, now there are those pressures to follow it up. I think that inspires people and puts a fire under them to do their best. In many ways, I think season two is a step up from season one.”
Until then, Prychidny encourages fans to experience Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on the big screen. “I know it’s a sequel, so it’s not original in that way, but in the marketplace of movies, it feels like a really unique piece of work. Despite it being too wild and crazy, it really is a personal film in a lot of ways. It really is dawn out of Tim’s imagination, his emotions, his perspective on things.
“I think it’s so cool that such a personal film can make it to the marketplace in a really big way, and have this unique artist stamp on it. It’s pure Tim — with all its imperfections and glories and all of it. I think it’s just really a fun, fresh, unusual film, unlike a lot of other sequels that are out there.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is now playing in theaters nationwide.
