In The Blink of An Eye is a new feature that follows three storylines spanning thousands of years - intersecting, making connections and highlighting the circle of life.
The project was directed by Andrew Stanton and comes from the 2017 “Black List” script by Colby Day (Spaceman). In one storyline, a Neanderthal family is displaced from their home and struggles to survive. In the present day, Claire (Rashida Jones), is an anthropologist studying ancient proto-human remains, and begins a relationship with a fellow student, Greg (Daveed Diggs). Two centuries later, on a spaceship bound for a distant planet, Coakley (Kate McKinnon) and an onboard computer confront a disease afflicting the ship’s oxygen-producing plants.
The film was shot by director of photography Ole Bratt Birkeland and edited by Mollie Goldstein. Thomas Newman created its original music.
"In the Blink of an Eye came to me through my agent, and Andrew Stanton, and I just really hit it off in the interview," recalls Goldstein (pictured). "We connected about the script, but also about how we like to work. We’re both big believers in creating a safe and welcoming environment in the cutting room. I’ve also edited for the Criterion Collection before, and they had just released Wall-E, so Andrew asked the team there for a reference."
Goldstein shares that In The Blink of An Eye followed a traditional Avid workflow.
"I had two great team members with me in the edit, AE Mike Colao and ERA Nick Shaw. When the dailies came in, Mike would go through them, group any multi-camera clips - they often shot with two cameras - and pass the bin off to Nick, who would script sync them. While they worked, I would be watching the dailies and letting the general shape of the scene form in the back of my head. Once the script was ready, I would start building a cut. Script sync lets me compare all the tiny moments really easily while also following the flow I envisioned while watching the footage."
For Goldstein, finding sync points between the storylines and making them echo each other across time was a huge part of the edit.
"One of my biggest breakthroughs came on the day I decided to un-weave the stories," she reveals. "I watched them each individually, and suddenly I had a new perspective on how to solve each storyline’s wrinkles and how I could tie them back together. Colby Day’s script was a beautiful foundation, but there were whole new possibilities once there were actors and music and visuals. The story is also very spare. The film is about being human, love, loss and time. We built the drive of the final product in the edit room, and I’m really proud of it."