Behind The Irishman

Thelma Schoonmaker is the legendary, now eight-time Oscar-nominated, three-time Oscar-winning editor of pretty much all of director Martin Scorsese’s portfolio. She’s as integral to the success of his films as the maestro himself. Their latest work together is “The Irishman,” the Netflix original film that recently racked up 10 Oscar nominations, Schoonmaker’s work among them. At three-and-a-half hours, the film is a contemporary American epic, and yet it moves like lightning. Each sequence propels the vast narrative forward. On this episode of “The Call Sheet,” Schoonmaker details the work that went into assembling the film, discusses Robert De Niro’s brilliant performance (after having observed his trajectory from the editing suite for decades) and much more. Also, in a bonus interview, sound mixer Tom Fleischman and sound editor Eugene Gearty explain how the power of the film lies in its subtlety and quiet moments.

Rodrigo Prieto is the Oscar-nominated cinematographer behind films such as “25th Hour,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Argo.” In recent years he has worked with filmmaker Martin Scorsese on projects like “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Silence.” This year they have “The Irishman,” which, on a technical level, was an absolute beast to tackle. On this episode of “The Call Sheet” you’ll learn about the R&D that went into developing a proprietary camera rig to allow visual effects artists to “de-age” the film’s stars to play through a series of decades. Prieto also discusses his game plan for visually representing the three distinct time periods of this mammoth 3-and-a-half hour opus.

The cast and crew recount the decade-long process of adapting of Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran’s story from best-selling book to big budget film. While Robert De Niro secures funding and Martin Scorsese assembles his cast—even luring Joe Pesci out of retirement—Industrial Light and Magic’s Pablo Helman turns back the clock with a technological proof-of-concept.

Hear Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci describe making The Irishman. Plus, get the real Frank Sheeran’s story from “I Heard You Paint Houses” author Charlie Brandt, and meet the digital effects wizards at Industrial Light and Magic who brought this story to life. Coming 12/2!