While the cast and crew were accustomed to many aspects of the storytelling—the multiple plotlines, the trend-setting fashion, the hip songs—there were some obstacles in translating the typical half-hour episodes of Sex and the City to a feature film. The primary challenge was determining how to open the story up on a big screen while giving the audience what they are used to on a small one. Judging by the impressive opening of Sex and the City: The Movie in June, the team was successful in its undertaking.

Michael Berenbaum, one of the series' longtime editors and a veteran of feature film projects (Before Night Falls, Barton Fink), was delighted to accept the task when he got the call to cut the film. "We had the first read-through with the actors, the producers and the writers, and it was completely déjà vu for everyone," he says.

One of Berenbaum's trickiest tasks was to ensure that each character was presented fully without exceeding the standard length of a feature film. "It's not like we can cut out one of the girls," he explains. "In a normal romantic comedy you might have one main character and one sidekick. Here, there are four different main characters that we have to juggle and balance and keep active."

Laptops Lighten the Load
After shooting for three months in New York City, where Berenbaum and first assistant editor Carrie Puchkoff were on location to cut dailies, the editing team moved to Los Angeles to complete the post work. The bicoastal setup consisted of as many as three Avid Media Composer systems linked through an Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage setup with fully mirrored storage. Puchkoff and her colleague, assistant editor Stuart Sperling, also used Media Composer software on Macintosh laptops to augment the workflow.

It was the first time that Puchkoff had used the software-only Media Composer solution. She was particularly eager to try the ScriptSync editing tool, which uses phonetic indexing of text and dialogue to "sync" source clips automatically with the script itself. "The script imported perfectly," she explains about her first test usage. In addition to automatically indexing the entire script, she used the ScriptSync feature to help manage the extensive voiceovers that are a trademark of the show. "Sarah Jessica Parker had recorded all of her voiceovers in one long take, so we imported them. ScriptSync gave us the first locator and then helped automatically separate [all of the lines and takes.] It gave us a great kick-start in terms of organization."

The Media Composer software offered overall time savings as well, creating a more efficient editing workflow during crunch times. When the main editing systems were tied up, creating turnover tapes for other departments, the laptops were used to create cut lists and OMF exports. "We started turnovers to three departments before noon one day and were done by 7 p.m. If we hadn't been using the laptops, it would have taken two days," Puchkoff says.

Berenbaum enjoyed experimenting with aspects of the editing as well, particularly for the score, which was a new element for this story. "We always had this great new music on the show. For the film, we also have a composer, Aaron Zigman, writing a full score," says Berenbaum.

As usual for a film project, Berenbaum created a temp score, finding existing songs and using them as placeholders during editing, though the process held some surprises for him. He explains, "In the dramatic parts, where we would normally play the score, I tried some typical romantic comedy-type music, and the movie just rejected it. It was as if the movie was too sophisticated for the kind of music normally used in that situation. It was difficult to find songs that worked. When Aaron eventually heard [the temp score we had created], he was totally inspired, which was great."