Matthew Barbato worked as an editor on Season 4 of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. In Season 4, Charles, Oliver and Mabel wrestle with the events at the end of Season 3 surrounding Charles’ stunt double & friend, Sazz Pataki. Questioning whether Sazz or Charles was the intended victim, the trio’s investigation leads them to Los Angeles, where a Hollywood studio is readying a film about the Only Murders podcast. Here, Barbato shares insight into his work.
Matthew, has your approach changed since returning from Season 1?
“My approach is always the same, whether comedy, drama or a hybrid like Only Murders, and it
all comes down to instinct and what feels true to the characters and the world we're in. We're
lucky on Only Murders that our showrunner, John Hoffman, has somehow created a large
canvas that allows many tones to coexist. But we do have to calibrate that as we go. After
leaving after Season 1, I saw the show get tonally more ambitious in ways I didn't think it could
sustain - but it did! In Season 4, it really felt like we were pushing the limits of the comedy and
drama in a way that needed a little more attention.
“For instance, there's a scene in 403 when Oliver is trying to gain Zach Galafanakis' attention and respect, so he's taking Zach through a day in his life, but Zach is completely uninterested and condescending to Oliver. Oliver is trying really hard to get his respect, but Zach ultimately says something that is really hurtful to Oliver.
“This is a moment that we worried went too far and took us out of the world of the show, where
Oliver can brush off any criticism. Marty and Zach gave us a nice range of performances so that
we could land a strong emotional moment for Oliver and see a rare, vulnerable side, but also
switch gears and get back to a lighter tone.
“There's another scene in 409 where the friendship between Charles and Oliver becomes really
strained because Oliver has found new love with Loretta, and Charles feels left behind. Of
course, in Only Murders style, the dramatic scene all takes place while they are wearing
ridiculous-looking motion capture suits, which already undercuts the emotion a bit, but Charles
is actually really upset.
“In the original version of the scene, Charles gets angry and hurt, but as he's leaving the scene, Oliver delivers a handful of funny lines. Ultimately, we had to take those out so that we leave the scene feeling Charles' anger going into the next scene because he's about to explode at Oliver, and we couldn't let the anger dissipate just for a few jokes.
“Ultimately, the challenge of this show is making almost every scene move the plot, reveal
character development and be funny as much as possible, without it ever feeling false or
forced.”
What were some challenges of editing your episodes in Season 4?
“One of the biggest challenges last season was balancing the murder mystery, comedy and
character beats in Episode 409. As the penultimate episode of the season, we are usually
gearing up to reveal the killer, so the main goal of the episode would typically be the
investigative plot. The episode was written with a strong emphasis on the strained friendship
between Charles and Oliver, which required a much different pacing than a murder
investigation.
“For a while, it felt like the friendship story was getting in the way of the plot, but we
eventually realized the friendship story was actually the heart of the episode, and we embraced
it. There was a point, however, after Charles and Oliver had their resolution and cemented their
bond, that we really needed to focus on the murderer and build suspense leading up to the
climactic reveal. As part of the investigation, Charles and Oliver are trying to get a key piece of
information from Ron Howard. During this scene, the script had a ton of very funny jokes
packed in with the investigative stuff.
“For instance, Ron has a photo of someone that they need to see, and as Ron's looking for it on his phone, we see a bunch of other things in his photo library, like photos of him at the Oscars next to photos of Oscar Isaacson, etc., but all of the little jokes that were in there were distracting the audience from putting the pieces together of who the suspect might be so that by the time we reveal the killer, it wasn't clear what we had been building to. So in order to pick up momentum and build suspense, my co-editor Jack Cunningham and I just started taking out a joke at a time until the story was focused on the search for the identity of the suspect. And by the time we reveal the identity, it had the desired effect of a surprising and satisfying reveal.”
What is your editing set up for this show?
“We edit remotely on Avid (last season was 2023.12.2) using Jump. The show was shot in NYC,
and the entire post crew was in LA. We only ever see each other in person during the mix (and
social events)! Season 1 was during COVID, and the workflow just seems to work for everyone.
PacPost is our vendor and they do a great job keeping us up and running. I used to do all of my
own effects and have used the Mocha plug-in in the past. I like to do all of my VFX work right in
the Avid, if possible. On Only Murders we have a great in-house VFX team that helps us with
temp effects when we need it.”
Episode 6 is a “found footage" episode. Can you talk a little bit about that one?
“I was very lucky to get to edit Episode 6 last season because, as a found-footage documentary,
it offered a lot more opportunity than usual to contribute to the storytelling through editing since
the editing itself was a representation of the characters of the Brother Sisters, and the unique
coverage gave us a chance to experiment with how we tell an Only Murders story.
“This episode was written and shot differently than usual in that not everything was designed in
the production phase. Instead, our fantastic director, Jessica Yu, and DP Kyle Wullschleger shot
a lot of great footage, but relied on editing to help stylize the look of the episode. The challenge
was to make it look and feel avant-garde while somehow also telling a full Only Murders episode
with limited coverage. Many scenes are shot as 'oners,’ which typically ties our hands in editing
in terms of picking different takes, performances and pacing. But I did everything I could to
create the best oners we could get by using different takes and hiding edits. I'm pretty sure each
and every scene has hidden edits in it, making them look like one shot, but actually being made
up of different shots.
“In fact, there are a couple of static shots scenes where I also used edits to change the pace of performance where necessary. For instance, we see a shot of Oliver on a hidden camera calling Loretta to propose to her. Marty's performance was really fantastic in this scene, but there were a handful of pauses that didn't quite fit the pace of the episode, so I did at least six to eight tiny jump cuts in the shot, where I could get away with it, to slightly speed up the scene. Another pacing trick we used was off-camera dialogue. Originally, Howard just videotaped the trio, but I realized it would be fun for him to make little comments throughout for comedy and drama, but also to fill in small pauses that we would normally cut out with multi-camera coverage. We did a whole pass adding lines, grunts, sighs and responses for Howard, and they take every scene up a notch. There's one that cracks me up every time, but it's not really a joke, and I don't think anyone else finds it funny. It's when Howard bumps into a guy during Molly Shannon's speech. He just says,
'Excuse me' or 'Sorry.' I don't know why, but I think it's hilarious.
“I'm also really proud of a line we added for Uma when the drone drops into the
courtyard. It just felt like someone had to witness the drop, and it had to be Uma, and she had to
be startled and profane.
“The most challenging scene of the episode was the confrontation that the trio has with their
suspects, The Brothers Sisters. At this point in the episode, we kept adding in additional
cameras that are capturing the action to a ridiculous and unnecessary degree. There's Howard's
camera, the Super 8 film and the hidden cameras, and in this scene, Oliver brings an old VHS
camera, which immediately starts to malfunction. So it's a very complicated scene where the
dialogue is going very fast and delivering important information, but we are trying to utilize all of
the cameras to make it as chaotic as possible. We even have to see Oliver's footage break up
while he puts the camera down while still tracking what's happening in the scene. Additionally,
the suspects learn that their mentor is dead, and they have an emotional beat which is telling
the audience they are actually innocent, all while cutting from video to Super 8 and hoping the
audience is seeing what is happening with our characters.
“There are so many fun things we got to play with in post, it really was a treat to work on.”
What other scenes would you point to as highlights from Season 4?
“One of my favorite scenes to cut was in Episode 403 between Charles (Steve Martin), Eugene
(Eugene Levy), and Vince (Richard Kind). Charles and Eugene are badly improvising a story in
order to convince Vince to remove his eye patch so they can find out if he is the killer. It's just
maybe the funniest scene I've gotten to cut on the series. The performances were outstanding,
and I wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible, but of course, there are always bits
that are a little better than others, so I tried to use all my favorite parts and match the pace.
“Steve did something a little different in each take, which was just incredibly funny, and I had a
difficult time with a couple of edits I wanted to do because it was messing up the timing of his
comedy. But I kept adjusting it, especially around the moment when Eugene offers him a glass
of water and he turns and tells him, 'You drink it, you drink it, you drink it,' while he's trying to rush out his joke so he doesn't have to be the one to spit water in Vince's face.
“Sometimes, you have to give up when things don't quite cut right and settle on a take that is good, but you know there's something better. Luckily, I was able to get all my favorite parts into the scene, and I think it's a classic.”