{"id":1186057,"date":"2026-01-12T11:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/?p=1186057"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:20:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:20:42","slug":"frankenstein-editor-evan-schiff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/frankenstein-editor-evan-schiff\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankenstein Editor Evan Schiff on the Hand-Crafted Heart of the Monster Epic"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Editor Evan Schiff Slid Into Guillermo del Toro&#039;s DMs to Secure His Job on Frankenstein\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-kzjfPUpgo0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Editor Evan Schiff got hired on <em>Frankenstein <\/em>by putting himself out there: Though he hoped his representatives and his resume would be enough to capture the attention of writer-director Guillermo del Toro, Schiff also DM&#8217;d the director directly to tell him how much it would mean to him to edit his monster epic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Del Toro remembered Schiff from his work as an assistant editor on the director&#8217;s 2006 film <em>Pan&#8217;s Labyrinth<\/em> and his 2008 <em>Hellboy 2: The Golden Army<\/em>. Since working on those hits, Schiff had also become a high-profile editor of films including <em>Nobody<\/em>, <em>Birds of Prey<\/em>, <em>The Marvels<\/em>, <em>John Wick: Chapter 2<\/em>, and<em> John Wick: Chapter 3 \u2014 Parabellum<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think everybody is looking to help everybody else rise up the ladder, but if they don&#8217;t know what you want, they can&#8217;t help you do that,&#8221; he says in our interview about hand-crafting the Oscar contender, which you can watch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-kzjfPUpgo0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> or above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium_large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"788\" height=\"468\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-788x468.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1186060\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-788x468.jpg 788w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-1180x701.jpg 1180w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-428x254.jpg 428w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-1536x912.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-and-GDT-on-the-mix-stage-2048x1217.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 788px) 100vw, 788px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Evan Schiff, left, and Guillermo del Toro on the mix stage for <\/em>Frankenstein<em>. Courtesy of Netflix.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After his extensive experience with action movies, Schiff was eager to work on an &#8220;epic drama \u2014 and a Guillermo del Toro movie on top of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While many editors shape a film after shooting, Schiff had a significant hand in <em>Frankenstein <\/em>even on the set. Del Toro <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/guillermo-del-toro-listens-to-frankenstein\/\">likes to show his cast and crew scenes from the film very soon after he shoots them<\/a>, which meant Schiff would routinely start editing the past days&#8217; footage four hours before the crew call, and del Toro would arrive after two hours to look over his edits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;And we would spend those two hours, usually from like six to 8 a.m., refining the cut and getting into the state where it&#8217;s actually pretty solid,&#8221; Schiff recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About three months into shooting, del Toro invited the entire cast and crew to start looking at edited footage each morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The next day, there were like six people outside my office door at 6 a.m., and it was great,&#8221; Schiff recalls. &#8220;And that lasted for like the whole next month.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because Schiff edited so much on the Toronto and Scotland sets of the film, the film was fairly far along in the editing by the time it finished shooting. He edited on Avid Media Composer software, and praised his first assistant editor, Brit DeLillo, as &#8220;a genius.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium_large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"788\" height=\"1295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-788x1295.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1186062\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-788x1295.jpeg 788w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-1180x1938.jpeg 1180w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-428x703.jpeg 428w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-935x1536.jpeg 935w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-1247x2048.jpeg 1247w, https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_4619-1-scaled.jpeg 1558w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 788px) 100vw, 788px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Jacob Elordi, dressed as The Creature, reviews footage from <\/em>Frankenstein<em>. Photo by Guillermo del Toro<\/em>, <em>courtesy of Evan Schiff.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evan Schiff on Understanding Every Department on a Film<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Syracuse native recounts on his website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.evanschiff.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EvanSchiff.com<\/a>, he started interning at Stan Winston Studio (now&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacyefx.com\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Legacy EFX<\/a>) at the age of 16. He later attended USC&#8217;s film production program, where he developed his love for editing. Then he worked in VFX and became an assistant editor, which led to his work as an editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Understanding other departments helps him be a better team player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Working with sound crews and script supervisors and talking with DPs and things like that is all very informative to me as I start editing, because it allows me to not only have knowledgeable conversations with those department heads when I need something from them, but also to keep an eye out for things that they&#8217;re sending my way that may need a little bit of love from me, in order to make them the best that they can possibly be,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early in his career, he learned a lesson from reading interviews with another of Syracuse&#8217;s favorite sons, Tom Cruise. The actor talked about how when he first started working on film sets, he would talk to everyone about what they did, in order to better understand the entirety of filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2011, Schiff worked on Cruise&#8217;s film <em>Mission: Impossible \u2014 Ghost Protocol<\/em>, and was dispatched on a secret late-night mission to Pittsburgh, as part of a team showing Cruise edits from the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;So that was pretty fun,&#8221; Schiff laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>Frankenstein<\/em> Editor Evan Schiff on the Limits of AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, as del Toro accepted the Vanguard Tribute for <em>Frankenstein<\/em> at the Gotham Awards, the director famously quipped, \u201cF&#8212; AI.\u201d He noted: \u201cI\u2019d like to tell the rest of our extraordinary cast and our crew that the artistry of all of them shines on every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans, for humans.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s certainly true of Schiff&#8217;s work. While he says AI might be capable to some elements of editing, it isn&#8217;t capable of heart or the complexities of understanding what a filmmaker \u2014 or an audience \u2014 wants and needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;So much of my job is managing the politics of what goes on in my room, managing multiple interested parties, people who have conflicting notes,&#8221; he says. &#8220;This is <em>not<\/em> Guillermo, but sometimes you get a director that doesn&#8217;t know what they want, and you&#8217;ve got to kind of interpret the note behind the note. Or they just come in like, &#8216;Something feels wrong here, but I don&#8217;t know what it is.&#8217; And I don&#8217;t think that artificial intelligence is that intuitive. It&#8217;s also trained on past problems and past scenarios, and that, by definition, prevents it from coming up with something new.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Frankenstein <em>is now streaming on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Main image: Evan Schiff while editing <\/em>Frankenstein.<em> Courtesy of Evan Schiff and Netflix.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor Evan Schiff got hired on Frankenstein by putting himself out there: Though he hoped his representatives and his resume","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":1186058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_comments":false,"cm_data":"","cpt_newsletter_id":0,"tpd_coauthor":[],"tpd_feed_delay":{"delay_type":"default"},"is_tpd_lists_single_post":false,"tpd_featured_posts_arr":"","tpd_franchise_content":"","hide_featured_img_single_post":false,"msn_featured_video":[],"_msn_custom_title":"","tpd_featured_video":[],"tpd_sponsored_post_logo":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_link":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_width":0,"tpd_sponsored_enable_nofollow":true,"tpd_disable_incontent_ads":false,"tpd_disable_right_rail_ads":false,"tpd_disable_after_content_ads":false,"tpd_disable_header_ads":false,"tpd_disable_sticky_footer_ads":false,"tpd_disable_video_ads":false,"tpd_disable_outbrain":false,"tpd_affiliate_disclaimer":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[41543],"tags":[42216],"coauthor":[],"feeds":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1186057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interview","8":"tag-evan-schiff"},"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-Schiff-headshot-428x241.jpg","fimg_url_thumb":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-Schiff-headshot-428x241.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-Schiff-headshot-788x444.jpg","author_name":"Tim Molloy","author_avatar":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_1078-100x100.jpg","author_link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/author\/tim-molloy\/","coauthors":[],"primary_category":{"term_id":41543,"name":"Interview","slug":"interview","taxonomy":"category","url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/category\/interview\/"},"featured_img_medium":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Evan-Schiff-headshot-788x444.jpg","post_categories":["Interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186057"},{"taxonomy":"coauthor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthor?post=1186057"},{"taxonomy":"feeds","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feeds?post=1186057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}