The editing team for Season 2 of FX's Welcome To Wrexham are Emmy nominated for their work on the “Up The Town?” episode. Editors Michael Brown, Josh Drisko, Michael Oliver, Bryan Rowland and Steve Welch are in consideration in the "Outstanding Picture Editing For An Unstructured Reality Program" category.
In Season 2, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds navigate running the third oldest professional football club in the world. The docuseries tracks the dreams and worries of Wrexham, a working-class town in North Wales, UK, as the two Hollywood stars guide the future of the town’s historic club.
Editors Brown (pictured) and Oliver recently took some time to share their insight into how the show comes together.
Can you both discuss how your different backgrounds prepared you to edit a show like Welcome to Wrexham?
Michael Brown: “I’ve always been interested in people’s individual life stories. I think that my curiosity about the journey that each person takes in life is perfectly suited to the kinds of sequences we built in Welcome to Wrexham, where so much of what we were aiming to do was to paint a picture of the collective spirit of Wrexham and to communicate the beating heart of a town so in love with their storied football club.
“I have been a fan of sports since I was a kid, playing in the backyard, pretending I was my favorite athlete I was hearing on the radio, acting out the ‘moments’ that I heard. I think for Wrexham, that spirit of fandom is something that really resonates with each and every member of the community – the belief that they are all in the game together.”
Michael Oliver (pictured, above): “I started playing and falling in love with the sport of football/soccer when I was just six years old, playing on multiple traveling teams throughout my life, and even had the lucky opportunity to play in Europe for a summer. With that experience and knowledge of the sport, it was an easy transition for me to get into the television-side of soccer. My television career has been mainly around sports broadcasts/shows. I’ve worked for many sport-based networks like HBO, NBC, CBS, ESPN and Fox Sports. It was the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Fox Sports where I really started working more with the sport I grew up playing. I became one of the main editors for Fox Sports for all their Men’s and Women’s World Cup broadcasts. From that, more and more football/soccer shows started reaching out to me for my knowledge and craft of editing the sport, and when Welcome To Wrexham reached out to me, it was like a dream come true – working on a show that I absolutely loved watching in Season 1, about the sport I grew up playing.”
What strategies did you use to ensure that the editing kept viewers emotionally invested in the story of Wrexham AFC and the broader community?
Michael Brown: “I think the strength in our series was that as editors, we were always encouraged to try new things. For example, making sure that the opening two games didn’t feel repetitive, even though there are so many ritualistic parts to matches; the fans arrive, the players get the pre-game spiel, walk out, kickoff, etc. We tried to craft the sequences that focused on different character perspectives, which may highlight why this particular match is important to one character or another depending on what was happening in their lives, which also would elicit different music choices, cutting styles, and pacing.”
Michael Oliver: “For me it was all about pacing and the use of the right music to really help sell the emotion of the story we were trying to tell. When you have a really emotional story, I always agree with the ‘less is more’ theory. You don't want to use a music track that is too busy with beats and fast tempo. The minimal beat songs are what I always find works the best. For the game sequences, the dramatic, [fast-paced] music always works the best. I always say editing a match is like editing a car chase in a movie – fast editing to ramp it up and then the exciting slow-mo shots to really sell the anticipation of what is about to happen. The one major thing I always had to tell myself is not to get too inside soccer with my storytelling, meaning that we knew we had a lot of viewers that never played the sport or knew anything about the sport of football/soccer, so even though I knew a lot of the tactics that the manager and the team were pushing during games, I knew that most of our viewers wouldn’t understand, so I would just try to be as basic but keep the storytelling as exciting as I could so I could keep the interest of both the viewers that knew the game of football/soccer, and the ones that didn’t.”
Are there any particular scenes or moments in the series that were especially memorable for you during the editing process?
Michael Brown: “When I started work on the S2 Finale ‘Up the Town?,’ in screening the footage, there was a whole afternoon prior to the match that could clinch the title and end their 15-year drought, where the whole town was abuzz. Children singing in schools holding the Welsh flag, pubs rife with song, a parade through the streets and a moment with a man who breaks down on-camera, and his voice trembling with desperation, desire and hope. As soon as I discovered that moment, I recognized that it was everything this series had been trying to illustrate, and wanted to put together a piece that could potentially work as the cold open.
“I’ve always admired the film Magnolia and the scene at the end of the picture where every character is singing ‘Wise Up’ by Amee Mann in their individual perspectives, and I wanted to portray a similar feeling of the town collectively in song but with a more overt sense of optimism. I found a beautiful track in the Extreme Music Library featuring the vocalist Romy Florin, which I think captures the feeling of hope and togetherness during the opening sequence of the town singing and chanting in MOS, ending with the moment of the man in his state of desperation saying, ‘Come on Wrexham!’ wiping away a tear before the opening title.”
Michael Oliver: “For me it was S2 Episode 7 ‘Giant Killers,’ AKA the FA Cup episode. Before this episode, the matches were really never that long, but my producer gave me the Sheffield United game and just told me to do what I do. Basically, he gave me creative freedom to do whatever I wanted, which was amazing. The hard part was, I had Rob McElhenney in Philadelphia watching the game in the parking lot of where the Philadelphia Eagles play; I had Ryan Reynolds in Wrexham watching the game in the owners’ box with multiple big-name friends; and I had one of the most exciting games Wrexham has ever played. How was I supposed to get all this into the show in so little time? I love a challenge, and this was a big challenge for me, but I feel I got all the emotion and all the different locations in the correct manner to keep everyone on the edge of their seats, but also keep that emotion you need for a show like Welcome To Wrexham. My favorite part of the episode that I edited though would have to be Ryan Reynolds' speech at the end of the game to the players. You couldn’t help but tear up listening to his full speech. It was one of those moments in life where someone is pouring out their true self to people in the most emotionally impactful of ways, and it just made me feel so good and proud that I got to share/edit that moment with the rest of the world.”
On the technical side, can you talk about some of your editing tools?
Michael Brown: “While we were using Media Composer’s excellent collaborative interface, we also all worked from home on the edit side and we relied on Jump Desktop for this. Even the producers who would travel to Wales were able to screen cuts anytime, anywhere, which was super helpful, even if the time difference sometimes got in the way.”
Michael Oliver: “We edit the show on Avid, which is one of the best editing softwares out there. With a project this big, and with the amount of editors working on the series, only Avid could handle our workflow. From there the show is colored using Davinci Resolve, which is the best video coloring software out there.”
Who were some of your key collaborators?
Michael Brown: “Obviously, we have two of entertainment’s masters at the helm in Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. Over these two seasons, I have been in awe of the kind of creativity that springs from their minds and it has been a real privilege to work for them on W2W. I also have to shout out to Miloš Balać, our field producer lead, who established such amazing connections with the characters that we worked with. I have never worked with such amazing footage and that relied on the openness and trust of each and everyone who agreed to open their lives on camera.”
Michael Oliver: “I would say the entire W2W team was phenomenal to work with. We all worked together to come up with some of the best creative story/editing ideas. We are truly a creative family.”
Did you have any other creative/technical influences while putting the show together?
Michael Brown: “Honestly, I am in awe of our composer Giosuè Greco. The original score that he built to represent the story of Wrexham, with all of its layered textures and instrumentation was a well that I often would go back to, even just to put on in the ambience of my edit room while I would screen footage. It was a perfect backdrop to so many of the sequences, and I think one of the undersung collaborators on this series!”
Michael Oliver: “I always love watching sports movies that are based on true stories, like the movies Rudy, Miracle or Remember The Titans, just to name a few – movies that, even though you already know the outcome, it still leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat. The use of music in the action sequences, the edits and the emotional storytelling they all bring is impactful. I always look to emulate those styles of storytelling to bring the viewers in. The stories no one will ever forget.”
Is there anything else you’d like to share about your work on the series?
Michael Brown: “The beauty of a show like Welcome to Wrexham is that it sort of breaks the mold when it comes to unscripted storytelling. Being able to surprise audiences with an entirely different format of storytelling from one episode to another in service of the larger story as it plays out is something that I hope catches on more. Sitting in that creatively is a whole lot of fun and I think the audiences appreciate that about the series!”
Michael Oliver: “I have never been on a show/series where they gave us so much creative freedom. Telling us to take chances and bring any ideas to the table to help make the show that much better as a whole. It was so refreshing and it just brought everyone closer together to make the best series possible. It is really such a joy and honor to work on Welcome To Wrexham, I wish I could work on it every day.”