The Fabelmans editors Michael Kahn and Sarah Broshar on the merger of Spielberg’s tribute to his parents – production value

“When I first interviewed Steven [Spielberg] for the post of editor Close encounters of the third kindwe found out we were both boy scouts, eagle scouts, and now 45 years later we’re making a film about a boy scout who loves movies,” says editor Michael Kahn.

The Fables takes a fictionalized look at director Steven Spielberg’s upbringing and inspires himself. In post-World War II Arizona, a young man named Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) falls in love with films that help put the world around him into context. Sammy’s parents, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano), both played key roles in the young filmmaker’s development.

In addition to editing the film, Broshar and Kahn were also responsible for editing Sammy’s films. It’s “one of those interesting challenges that we don’t usually have,” says editor Sarah Broshar. “They shot these films and within a few days we were supposed to cut them, bring them back to the lab for color timing and they had to have [be ready] to project on set and reshoot.”

The most important thing for Broshar and Kahn was to make sure they honored Steven’s story. “It was important for Steven to make this film for himself,” says Kahn. “He was in all kinds of films and he wanted to make this film as a tribute to his parents and both of them had a lot to do with him becoming the great director that he is.”

“It was really about how he wanted to portray himself and his story,” says Broshar, “and that’s always his choice, but for this one we wanted to support him with whatever story he wanted to tell.”

“He wanted to make sure he had all the right ideas, he didn’t want to misrepresent his life to anyone,” says Kahn. “Everything there is a pretty true sense of what it was. I mean, his mother actually bought a monkey.”

Click on the video above to watch the full interview.