A friendship’s energy is often confirmed throughout arduous occasions: Will they run away or present help? For Harper Steele, the query turned a urgent one after popping out as a trans girl, questioning how family and friends would react, together with her good friend of three many years, “Saturday Night time Reside” colleague Will Ferrell. Ferrell’s help was instant — and included a cross-country street journey from New York to California to introduce Harper to the world and vice versa. Chronicling the 17-day odyssey had been filmmaker Josh Greenbaum and cinematographer Zoë White, with the ensuing footage assembled by editor Monique Zavistovski into the Netflix documentary “Will & Harper.”
As with all good street journey movies, “Will & Harper” is extra concerning the journey reasonably than the vacation spot. “One of many issues that I found from enhancing ‘Will & Harper’ is not like different movies the place there’s a race to an occasion or to the end, this was extra about listening, and the psychological and emotional progress of Will Ferrell and Harper Steele,” editor Zavistovski instructed IndieWire. “It was necessary to maintain that in thoughts when structuring movie, in any other case it may have been 17 days of state to state. We had to determine what had been these pivotal inflection factors in Harper’s and Will’s journey and construct from there.”
Automotive photographs had been unavoidable, given the character of the subject material. “The excellent news is that Will and Harper bought snug having all of those cameras round. It took a few days.” A routine developed between the 2 buddies whereas driving. “Will and Harper begin with a joke or a operating gag that lasts for some time, then have an emotional dialog about their emotions, anxieties, fears, joys, goals, hopes, and after they get too near the sting of deep emotion, they crack a joke; their conversations and the camerawork had a rhythm,” Zavistovski mentioned. “It took a little bit of time to research what that sample was and to crack it.”
The need was to have the viewer chortle and cry concurrently. “While you’re coping with two comedian geniuses as your fundamental topic, it’s tempting to lean into the jokes,” Zavistovski mentioned. “Nonetheless, I discovered that once you lean into the emotion and avoid the comedy, the jokes are funnier. Bursting out laughing typically got here after the deepest emotional moments within the edit. Additionally, there’s not lots of humorous documentaries so it was an enormous studying curve for me to take care of this quantity of comedy within the dailies.”
A manufacturing footage breakdown took some time to provide however was definitely worth the effort. “It was a color-coded spreadsheet and our most necessary useful resource in submit,” Zavistovski mentioned. “It was cross-referenced to transcripts and b-roll so I may discover any shot, remark or topic of dialog.” Since Ferrell and Harper love to speak, there was no want for a voiceover. “They talked about the whole lot and gave me the instruments essential to fill within the story without having any narration. If I couldn’t discover it on Day 10, it was on Day 7 and possibly many different days as properly.” An necessary sequence of the movie was Harper assembly together with her daughters, accompanied by Ferrell. “As a result of Josh thought of how tough it may be to talk overtly in entrance of the cameras about this subject material, all people felt snug. What you see within the diner scene is as genuine as if no cameras had been there.”
At one other level, Harper ventures into an unfamiliar bar alone whereas Ferrell stays exterior as a security precaution. “That scene is a testomony to Harper’s view of the world and her braveness, adventurous spirit, and reference to locations like that bar in the midst of Oklahoma. When watching the dailies and within the enhancing, I used to be like, ‘What are you doing on this bar?’ It felt harmful to me from the start, however it was emotionally necessary for Harper to really feel that she may return to those locations. Within the edit, I needed to honor Harper’s standpoint. The best way she got here away from that have was profoundly transferring. Harper was reminded that at our core, once we’re not on social media, individuals have an incredible capability to deal with one another properly.”