How ‘Surviving Ohio State’ Editor Unpacked Institutional Betrayal and Corruption

When acclaimed documentary editor Charles Olivier first stepped into the modifying bay for HBO’s Surviving Ohio State, he was met with a mountain of footage and the monumental job of giving voice to a narrative of profound trauma. What he uncovered had been the makings of a strong and shockingly resonant narrative that demanded to be informed. In collaboration with Grant Heslov and George Clooney’s Smokehouse Productions, Olivier meticulously crafted a deeply transferring and unflinching testimony to the lots of of males who survived sexual abuse by the hands of Dr. Richard Strauss, a staff physician in Ohio State College’s athletics program.It was an honor to get to talk to him as we speak about that doc and about a few of the different landmark collection, like The Jinx, which he is labored on. Let’s dive into the interview.   – YouTube  www.youtube.com   NFS: Hey Charlie! Surviving Ohio State has maintained a powerful presence because the #1 collection on HBO Max since its launch. How does it really feel to work on such a preferred title?Charles Olivier: Hey Jason, thanks so much. Yeah, I suppose in a phrase, Surviving Ohio State’s recognition is, I’d say, bittersweet. It’s sophisticated. I’m so completely satisfied that the story of all these males is lastly getting the viewers it deserves, and that feels actually good, if not additionally a bit of painful, in that their a long time of tragedy have for therefore lengthy been ignored, or worse. The movie isn’t a smoking gun of hidden proof, one thing that, you already know, we abruptly discovered and revealed. It’s not a gotcha piece. We organized a strategy of bearing witness to tales that had been on the market, tales of abuse that so many for therefore lengthy both ignored or simply straight up lampooned. Moving into the explanations for that mocking and total avoidance is an enormous a part of the movie, and I feel it very a lot strikes an important dialog ahead. So for me, there’s a swirl of sorrow for these survivors and for therefore many younger males who’ve been abused or frankly are being abused and maintain that secret due to a Man Code tradition. Collaborating with the boys on this movie to undertake that strategy of, I pray, dismantling that code is one thing for which I’m very proud. NFS: How acquainted had been you with the documentary’s story previous to becoming a member of the undertaking? What sort of analysis went into your work each earlier than and in the course of the edit?CO: I didn’t know something in regards to the story after I was first approached. I used to be, like so many, simply kind of incredulous when introduced with the numbers. I imply, hundreds of youngsters had been abused by this one physician over a long time. And from the start, there have been rumors, and people rumors turned substantiated, and but the abuse continued for many years extra. It was past perception for me…. As I then started on the edit, I did deep dives into analysis. With the tasks I reduce, any undertaking, I all the time get very concerned with the analysis. With this one, I did so much. So, to reply the type of analysis I do, I mainly do most of what you’d do when stepping into one thing. I’ll lookup movies or different docs, in fact, I’ll look into interviews, and many others., however I’d say the vast majority of what I do is learn: books, articles, all method of paperwork. I actually immerse myself within the analysis. Normally, that is in off-hours. However, to me, basically, it’s the explanation I obtained into documentary. Making documentaries, modifying documentaries, is a portal into fascinating, if generally heartbreaking, worlds I didn’t know. Making documentaries reveals the world to me in ways in which change me, and I actually search that out. This OSU doc gut-punched me personally, and so I used to be particularly pushed to study it, however actually, with any undertaking I work on, I’ll get very concerned with analysis. However as I write all of that, there are a bunch of caveats that needs to be splatter-painted throughout the phrases; the largest of them for me is that I’ve a job to do, and that my job in movie and TV is about creating and sustaining emotional connection. The medium of movie / TV isn’t the medium I’d say that’s most attuned to conveying uncooked information. Movie and TV are at their strongest once they’re in what I’d say is resonance. “Resonance” as a phrase signifies reverberating; it’s about how we vibrate in several states. And movie elicits these vibrations. Man, I promise we’re not heading into “woowoo-dreamcatcher-teal is essentially the most harmonious hue yada yada.” That is about how we as viewers reply to those tales, how we emotionally interact (or don’t) with info and figures, the informational base stuff of docs. One other facet of that phrase “resonance” is {an electrical} state. As an editor, you’re how one can, à la Dr. Frankenstein, produce the biggest potential emotional response to inanimate numbers and figures. You’re searching for to create life and coronary heart and soul from a mass of knowledge that has been found from analysis. So, what’s actually necessary to me by way of any analysis I do is that as I am going alongside, I’m protecting monitor of my emotional and psychological states. So I’m all the time jotting notes about my private expertise as I do analysis. I’ll do my utmost to maintain all of that in thoughts as I’m later structuring the movie total and/or after I’m structuring explicit sequences and scenes. The way you inform a narrative, the way you construct it, determines what an total story’s viewer expertise will probably be. The way it vibrates with them, the way it lingers. Most of a viewer’s life isn’t going to be them watching your film. It’s going to be how they keep in mind it. So, you wish to be sure to’re constructing one thing that may be a reside reminiscence. Construction is essential. So, sure, it’s in regards to the info, and an editor does herself a favor by understanding her topic, however greater than something, it’s what he or she does with that analysis. How they ship it. And I consider he or she must be tapped into their emotions to try this correctly. An editor, to me, has many hats to put on. One of many greater, extra ceremonial ones is that of the viewers consultant. An editor is tasked with being a primary viewer. That’s an enormous duty. It’s why you’re within the chair (or at your cool standing desk when you’re accountable about your posture… I’m not.) You could have to have the ability to watch your movie as a viewer would, a viewer who has no historical past along with your material. That is really easy to lose a grip on. For me, I maintain these jotted notes from earlier than out and about, or I’ve little traces or explicit photos that recommend my frame of mind when confronting this or that part. And because the analysis goes on, protecting that contemporary thoughts can get increasingly difficult. Fortunately, I’ve a eager skill to overlook nearly every thing: keys, assembly occasions, instructions to mainly all over the place, library books, why I’m at House Depot, you identify it. However, engaged on a movie for generally years at a time, can check even essentially the most absent-minded of us. So, I maintain these reminders hooked up to index playing cards, similar to I do little tidbits of content material or interviews, for me to maneuver round as I’m structuring, and re-structuring, and re-structuring once more, advert infinitum. Man, that’s loads of reply in your query. At this fee, we’re going to be right here for years. I’m sorry. I can do higher. You requested, “How do I analysis?” I learn. Whereas carrying teal.NFS: How does your strategy to the edit change when coping with a uniquely delicate undertaking like Surviving Ohio State?CO: Positive. Yeah, that’s an ideal query. I feel there are a number of concerns in impact right here. There are the varied concerns of the various survivors, ensuring that their tales are informed as greatest as we are able to, and what meaning, and there are the concerns towards all the varied events concerned from the college and from Congress that we maintain to account. Past ethically desirous to be simply, we’re additionally probably going through litigation threats from the various completely different athletic and administrative personnel from the Ohio State College whom we name out, and from the College itself. From about midway into the edit, ramping up and up and as much as the tip, legal professionals from the manufacturing corporations, 101 and Smokehouse, and legal professionals from HBO would comb the edit for factual accuracy and our skill to triply supply our assertions. I imply, it was loads of notes in pink and loads of Zoom calls. That’s the primary time I’ve ever been so scrutinized by so many legal professionals for therefore lengthy. All of them had been very nice, and all of them had been completely professional. So, they’d actually properly say “nope” to one thing you labored onerous on as a result of it intimated an excessive amount of in a single route or one other. What’s on the display screen is so totally vetted, there’s zero fats. And since that is all actively within the courts, we have to examine and cross-check ourselves that we’re not messing something up there as nicely.And whereas all of that is occurring, director Eva Orner and I stored coming again to our guys. We stored asking ourselves, “Are we telling their story the way in which they want it informed?” I imply, we’d kvetch, me particularly, about having to return and redo one thing, however after that, we’d deliver it again to what was actually necessary.  ‘Surviving Ohio State’ Credit score: HBO NFS: Did you depend on any explicit strategies or methods in crafting such a posh narrative for the movie?CO: Eva had developed such unimaginable relationships with each survivor on this film. And the interviews she performed had been unimaginable throughout the board. They had been highly effective and intense. These are large athletes who grew up as Huge 10 collegiate wrestlers, gladiators, and all that that suggests, they usually had been systematically betrayed by nearly everybody they trusted. And Eva gained these guys’ belief to inform tales that they hadn’t informed anybody earlier than. So, their interviews had been the highly effective basis on which every thing was constructed. As I used to be constructing the film, I needed to let their voices drive the movie.Like loads of editors, I come from a musical background, along with narrative. However music is my base, and it’s the best lens personally by means of which I view and craft movie or TV. So, by way of strategies, or frames, I’ll typically consider movies extra in musical composition varieties. I play completely different devices and like all types of music: blues, R&B, pop, and many others. However for composition, and for what you and I are speaking about by way of structuring a documentary, I’m a classical-head. This has nothing in any respect to do with the precise rating and has to do with the structural strategy. I’ll think about how the biggies of classical composition, just like the Viennese guys Haydn or Beethoven or the Romantics like Tchaikovsky or Dvořåk or many who’re fashionable – an enormous one I like is Shostakovich – sought to steer listeners by means of explicit emotional journeys over an extended time period. I understand that most likely sounds pretentious, and don’t assume I’ve any deeper understanding of what’s occurring with classical music than anybody, however I simply discover the hyperlink of music to movie is so aligned. Whether or not you want classical music or would simply assume cross, I can’t advocate placing in a while learning symphonies sufficient. Each music and movie are buildings in time. And each of these buildings are constructed out of feelings. Symphonies are the 45-minute to an hour-and-a-half variations (until you’re German) of these buildings. Anyway, when you pay attention to those symphonies, when you get intimate with the construct of melodies and themes, you monitor how they’re telling their tales, how they’re unfolding that story’s colours and feelings. And people tales are very completely different and aren’t within the least damaged right into a basic 3-act construction. The factor with documentary is that whereas it might be a characteristic or a collection, similar to Syd Discipline-type fictional creations, it is rather a lot its personal creature. The buildings, by the use of manufacturing actuality or strategy, dictate as a lot. Docs are assembled from what you will have entry to, who’s keen to speak, what archival, if any, is concerned, revelations captured, what you will want to clarify, and many others., and many others. And it may be – as in IS – everywhere. And that you must discover a automobile wherein to construction that, and construction that with emotional resonance (and teal). Musical varieties I maintain discovering match the invoice the perfect. Swap out our listener with a viewer and the sport is identical. A primary motion in a symphony is often energetic. It may be quick, however greater than something, it’s about being arresting. And so I like to consider what I discover arresting on this explicit story, or what greatest units up the emotional telling of this journey. Usually, I discover I wish to create presence and immediacy. With Surviving Ohio State, the story was, for me, people versus buildings. You understand it was about these large establishments, and their seemingly regal neoclassical buildings, however these locations are so impersonal and in the end chilly, as confronted by us. And so, I needed peak and air and an absence of, name it, soul, a extra palpable rhythm. We come into the movie with a type of chook’s eye of the architectural purity and sample of OSU. I discovered that actually arresting. It simply appeared like a visit. All of it feels so designed, and much away. A symphony’s second motion is about digging and creating depth. So, right here we’re going into the folks. We’re anchoring in our two important protagonists, Dan and Mike, however we’re additionally assembly the varied folks contained in the buildings. These are the elements of your film which are slower and extra lyrical. Third is lighter and sooner since you want the viewer to reengage. The fourth motion is arresting once more. You’re seeking to stick the touchdown. Now, all of those actions have their very own inner buildings, and we are able to speak about these in musical varieties too, however the important thing takeaway is that as a documentary editor, it’s good to concentrate on other ways of sculpting emotion in time. Music, and particularly, symphonies, are a wonderful factor to grasp.Now, all of that mentioned, we’re not doing music. And so, that you must know your narrative chops. One of many largest developments in my lifetime of documentary telling is the brand new documentary motion that got here out of the ‘90s with Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky or Steve James andTerry Zwigoff. Administrators and editors started freely and unapologetically making use of narrative chops to documentaries. So that you had the reliance on engines of setups and payoffs to drive a movie ahead, you will have foreshadowing, you will have a aware resolution on perspective, proxemics, and many others.. I take advantage of all those self same components after I’m constructing scenes and sequences. I’ll typically consider narrative movies and their units after I’m constructing out a documentary. For Surviving Ohio State, I keep in mind watching Highlight and desirous to anchor the story in related methods, in a single character, which is Dan, after which have him meet our different protagonist, Mike, and have their friendship be a backbone of growth by means of the story’s telling. After all, on prime of that will come the various different survivors’ tales, however these two and their relationship drove the turns. In Highlight, the journalists and their coming to grips with what they’re studying drives the construction. On this doc, it’s the boys and their very own resistance to accepting that they had been abused due to male indoctrination, after which their not being believed by their very own caretakers, or being vilified for calling into query this college, or somebody like Jim Jordan, or anybody else that seemingly was a ”pillar of society.” There are very particular spots alongside the journey. Lastly, like in Highlight, these guys should make the choice to show apostate from the college. So all of that, for me, outlined the primary two actions of the movie. The again two start with them, now on the skin of their communities, holding everybody to account.NFS: How did you’re employed to stability up to date interviews with archival footage within the movie?CO: There’s all the time an fascinating dance between up to date footage, on this case, sit-down interviews, largely, and archival. Archival on this movie, as in different movies I’ve accomplished, is both a method of illustrating what’s being mentioned within the up to date interview, or the archival itself begins to construct an concept that can then pull in voices from the current to corroborate or reply to it. So within the first case, up to date interviews are guiding us by means of their remembrances, and people remembrances are being skilled by the viewers with archival footage, so it’s very 1:1. However then a seed of a theme will probably be planted and that theme is informed by archival, till up to date voices start coming in to touch upon it. For this final one, I’m pondering of after we get into views of male athletes and the sense that they will’t be victims. That story will get informed largely in archival, however then somebody just like the journalist Jon Wertheim will are available in and take up the reins to information it instantly again to our OSU guys. Or when Jim Jordan later is denying, denying, denying, that archival of stories footage actually tells a lot of that story. Since he’s such a recognized determine as a distinguished congressman, there’s no scarcity of stories protection of him. Due to that, it might be formed by itself with different journalists of the period to form these sections, with our interviewees then coming in to remark and reply. NFS: What was your collaboration like with government producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov?CO: The best way that I normally have labored with producers, particularly kind of well-known producers, is that there are loads of conferences in the beginning. It could possibly all really feel type of Flashdance. You stroll into an echo-y room, announce your self, and do your dance. In the present day, that panel of faces observing you is extra throughout a collection of Zooms, however you continue to initially have to audition and pitch your tackle the footage you’ve seen or your strategy to the concept you’ve examine in a method that lands with them. And actually, you’re seeing when you all resonate collectively. When you’re even the appropriate individual for the movie that they wish to inform. And you then sometimes do this Flashdance panel once more. And once more, 101 Studios with David Glasser and Eliot Goldberg, together with Smokehouse, George Clooney’s and Grant Heslov’s manufacturing group, and their producer Rebecca Arzoian, had been additionally very concerned all through these preliminary conferences and discussions. And naturally, the director, Eva Orner. All of us talked so much about what we every thought we had, and the place it may go. Then, if they convey you on, it’s like everybody leaves the room. All of it will get quiet because the editor and director work alone for some time. As soon as cuts begin going out, then people like Grant and George, and the others would ship notes. It was all very clear. I obtained the impression that what all the time resonated most for Grant was story. “Is that this monitoring?” “Is that paying of?” And for George, it was about emotional arcing. “Is that this second peak sufficient?” “Might that be delivered by somebody roughly assertively?” That type of factor. Presence and immediacy had been the main focus.  ‘Surviving Ohio State’ Credit score: HBO NFS: You’re maybe most well-known in your work on the enduring HBO documentary The Jinx. How did your inventive strategy to that undertaking put together you for a movie like Surviving Ohio State?CO: Yeah, these are very completely different tasks. I suppose from a inventive strategy, for starters, you’re two a lot otherwise sized canvases. The Jinx is a collection, so the construction is episodic and can play throughout many extra actions than a single characteristic like SOS. If you’re laying out a collection, particularly one thing with as many transferring elements as The Jinx, sections are transferring across the present so much. Or possibly transferring better distances in time is a greater method of claiming it. And also you’ve obtained to take into account that a viewer goes to see the collection over a timeframe of weeks, so transferring a bit from episode 6 to episode 2 is transferring it a month. So, yeah, there’s that and what meaning for context and all the remaining. With a characteristic, you’re speaking minutes. Perhaps it may be as a lot as an hour in an enormous change, however you already know, it’s nonetheless all primarily one sitting. You’ve obtained way more of a unity of time and tone in a characteristic.The opposite large distinction is that on The Jinx, there was a staff of a number of editors, and we collaborated, gave loads of suggestions. With Surviving Ohio State that was a solo edit, so, whereas I used to be in fact working with Eva and we had been sharing cuts, these cuts going out had been extra official cuts on which to obtain notes, slightly than “Are you able to check out this part when you will have a sec and inform me if it’s sucky or not?” That’s a distinct working surroundings. One’s not higher than the opposite. There are pluses and minuses to each. It’s fantastic to share and have a neighborhood, particularly for the hermit who’s an editor. And on the flip aspect, for me, it’s additionally actually rewarding to enter a movie as a solo editor and map out the course and march and scale unaccompanied. I do assume the solo one most likely comes with extra highs and lows emotionally, simply that I’ll (typically) get misplaced and assume I can’t determine one thing out, after which will lastly get it to work (or so I inform myself). And that solitary puzzle facet is admittedly trippy. I prefer it ultimately, but it surely undoubtedly requires staring out into the center distance so much, as my brother would say. You are taking some walks to clear your head and reframe much more.By way of tone, each are darkish to make sure, but additionally have comedic components. What I’m speaking about is human comedy. An absurdist facet. The Jinx has many extra notes of comedy than SOS undoubtedly, however nonetheless, there’s comedy in each. I feel one in all my qualities, or say my voice, is that I typically search to weave within the comedy, the absurdity surrounding a narrative. Durst is a killer, and his associates know he’s a killer, and when confronted with the truth that yeah, they kind of suspected their buddy Bobby was killing people, they’d say he was additionally charming: “You understand, he all the time had a zinger throughout a cocktail party, and he gave me that automobile…” “However, um, that killing factor didn’t weigh on you generally?” “…the killing factor?” “Bobby’s?” “Positive, yeah, that most likely wasn’t nice…what was the query once more?” With Surviving Ohio State, the comedy for me was this college’s straight-up defiance of going through the truth that their physician was systematically abusing and destroying these boys. These college officers simply shuffled previous the crime scene again and again and over. Or worse, they’d actively promote this predator, or give him awards, in order to faux that every thing was okay. And that went on and on. So, as actually mind-bendingly horrific because it was, the “transfer alongside, nothing to see right here” take of those coaches and clowns was a circus of terror. And I seemed to construct round that. Once more, I’d say music is an effective lens by which to speak about this concept of tragedy and comedy. There are particular composers who I feel can stroll that razor-thin line between tragedy and comedy, they usually can actually assist form a narrative’s telling. John Kusiak, who really scored a few of The Jinx, and Cornel Wilczek, who scored Ohio State, can create scores that transfer out and in of all these completely different colours. After I’m working, I’ll additionally use scratch cues from composers who I feel are nice on this enviornment too: Mychael Danna, to me, is a face chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of tone variations. For tragicomedy, he’s unimaginable. For each The Jinx and Surviving Ohio State, I’d use scratch cues from Danna’s The Ice Storm. Hearken to it, you simply get this nearly operatic unfolding towards a fatalistic, horrific finish, however accomplished with a grasp’s gentle, nearly playful contact. It’s like an ideal rating to me. BUT, within the large comparability, the 2, whereas ostensibly being crime kind docs, aren’t the identical. With The Jinx, you’re monitoring Robert Durst, who’s actively sitting, unbelievably, for an interview. And also you’re additionally shifting outdoors to the lens of Andrew, Marc, and Zac as they decipher what precisely is occurring, and, in fact, what they uncover and document. The ability of that collection is available in issues mentioned and proof found. There’s some “lightning in a bottle” that occurs, really, a number of occasions. With Season 2, that’s not as on show, and it’s way more a construct across the village of complicity that surrounded Durst and let him get away along with his crimes, however nonetheless you’re driving the revelations of his associates’ data, and even the complicity of the girl he killed. So, that’s all very fast. With Surviving Ohio State, there’s not that smoking gun. It’s a weaving of a tapestry. Dr. Richard Strauss, the person who abused these males for all these years, has been useless for a while, so there was by no means going to be a relationship with him aside from as remembered. Sure, for positive, when directors are deposed and say heinously callous shit that’s fast in its influence to your intestine, however you already type of knew they had been unhealthy information and wildly heartless getting in.  ‘Surviving Ohio State’Credit score: HBONFS: Is there anything you wish to share about Surviving Ohio State and its highly effective unveiling of the college’s sexual abuse scandal?CO: I imply, I ought to simply congratulate anybody who has learn this interview this far. Past simply being chatty, I like speaking about these items. So, mazel tov to you marathoners. By way of Surviving Ohio State, the very last thing to share is my private take, not with the constructing of the film as an editor or any formal facet of its telling, however with the story itself and the braveness of those guys to climate this horrible, terrible journey to deliver this tragedy to gentle. As a person, I grew up very a lot within the heart of a Man Code. I went to an all-boys college in Texas, performed soccer, and many others., and many others. All this similtaneously these on this movie had been at Ohio State as wrestlers. I’m steeped in that “Be a Man” indoctrination. And I’m steeped in its subsequent hateful disgrace. There have been so many occasions as I labored on this movie that I’d simply lean again and damage. These guys carried the crimes of this physician, however greater than that, the crimes of betrayal by their coaches and college directors, folks they seemed to as parental figures all of their lives. And it almost broke them… however what I take from this film is that these guys helped one another to search out the braveness, the true sense of energy, to step into the highlight and inform their tales.There may be this Japanese artwork kind wherein damaged objects, plates and cups and such, are put again along with lacquer and gold. The locations the place the items had been damaged, and all the varied cracks, aren’t hidden; they’re put into reduction with gold. It’s this artwork and philosophical kind that doesn’t attempt to disguise the harm, however as a substitute finds a stunningly and ferociously stunning new life. We’re all of us, women and men, so typically informed explicitly or implicitly, to cover our damage, to “be robust.” Athletes are on a type of X1000 degree with that. This film and these males shatter that for me. I’m a Dad to 2 little boys. When the time is true, I’m going to point out them this film, not due to me in any method, however due to these guys, and what they found energy and bravado and love to essentially and actually imply. I’m so very happy with the survivors on this movie and so grateful to have been allowed to take part of their story.