Editing is the only art that is specific to filmmaking, says Kevin Hickman

Geeta Malik’s India Sweets And Spices features Sophia Ali as Alia, a young woman who returns home after her first year at college. Soon, she begins to rebel against her parents’ lifestyle and what they expect out of her, uncovering a few secrets along the way. The film is being showcased in the Spotlight section at the Tribeca Festival and will be screened both physically and virtually at the New York festival.

Cinestaan.com spoke to the film’s editor, Kevin Hickman, about the world premiere, working on the feature during a lockdown, and his career. Over a Zoom call, the seasoned editor spoke about his work process and how he was drawn to the profession in the first place.  

Hickman, who will be catching the virtual premiere, joined the project after another editor, Hugh Ross, had to leave because of another work commitment.

“[Hugh Ross] did a great job on the film and deserves recognition for leaving me a really great edit to work from,” Hickman said. “I had just finished editing the film Triumph (2021) and was looking for my next gig. Philip Dawe, a producer on Triumph who was also working on India Sweets And Spices, recommended me for the job.

“The highlight for me was a chance to work with Geeta,” Hickman continued, saying he was excited to be a part of the film and that it was accepted by Tribeca. “She’s a great collaborator. She was always open to trying new ideas and open to opinions, but she never lost sight of what she wanted the film to be. She poured her soul into the film and it comes across on the screen.

"Geeta wrote some really great characters and some characters are delightfully quirky — the gossiping aunties and [drunk uncles] are really fun to watch. It was also great to work with Manisha [Koirala] and Adil [Hussain], who are fantastic as the parents of the lead character.”

Hickman went on to say that it was a challenge to finish India Sweets And Spices during the pandemic. He credited the producers, Naomi Despres, Mark O'Connor, Kilian Kerwin and Marisa Clayton at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, for making sure the film was completed on time and that they had all the resources necessary to get the job done.

“Before the pandemic, I worked with Geeta on a daily basis in our LA [Los Angeles] cutting room,” he recalled. “We were still addressing her notes and some studio notes and I was sure of my work and she would give feedback and it was a typical collaborative process. But this dynamic changed once we went into lockdown.

“When you are in the room with someone, you get to try an idea in 10 or 15 minutes and know if it’s going to work or not,” Hickman continued. “But working remotely, you discuss the idea on Zoom and then you work it in Avid and export it, upload it, wait for it to be viewed, you receive notes and repeat. You go through the whole process. At times it would take several hours to do what normally would take 20 or 30 minutes. Obviously, we weren’t the only film that struggled with this new work [format]. Eventually, it became more efficient, but in the early weeks of the lockdown, it was a major adjustment on how we worked.”

Because of the lockdown, Hickman worked on his dining room table while his children helped keep him company, doing their schoolwork in the background. The editor referred to the set-up as both “a blessing and a curse”.

Like many in the past 14 months who have had to turn their homes into offices, there were times when it was hard to focus, due to the many distractions at home, but it also meant that one was expected to be available any time of the day. “There was a little bit of a crossover where you would have flexibility at home, but then you also make yourself more available,” Hickman said. He also missed out on the direct feedback of the director-editor relationship, which he felt was hard to replicate from home.

“But there were some advantages to it,” he continued. “Sometimes I would get an idea in the middle of the night, and I could just go downstairs, turn the computer on and try something while it was still fresh in my mind. I really enjoyed that aspect of it. You can tinker with things when you have the desire to and that’s something that I’m probably going to keep on doing, even when we get back into a normal work environment," he said.

Hickman, who has been part of the industry for nearly two decades, said he knew he wanted to make films ever since he saw Star Wars (1977) as a child.

“As I got older, I started becoming more exposed to arthouse and independent films,” he said. “I always wanted to direct, and when I got into film school, I realized that I needed to make a living. Being a director, it’s feast or famine. I was fascinated with editing, because it is a unique art form. It’s the only art that is specific to filmmaking. Acting is derived from theatre, cinematography from photography, but editing was unique.

“I was fascinated with how you can manipulate people’s emotions just by editing. Cut into a close-up at the right moment or put in a certain music cue and something can really change the emotion of how you feel. So I really fell in love with editing early on, before I even finished film school.”

His path to becoming an editor was a long one, however, and while he was an assistant editor, he absorbed all that he could on the job. When he made the decision to become a full-time editor, he noted that it was a difficult transition as there was greater pressure on him to deliver.

“As an editor, the filmmakers trust you with their vision and expect you to have ideas on restructuring, or finding solutions when something isn’t working,” Hickman said.

He credited the late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick with helping him become a better storyteller. “He was just a master filmmaker who attempted every genre — comedy, science fiction, horror — and in each one of those films he made are considered masterpieces," he said. "So someone who makes such prolific work was deeply inspiring to me.”

Hickman’s previous projects include Into The Storm (2014), Nightcrawler (2014), Suicide Squad (2016), Star Wars: Rogue One (2016) and Justice League (2017). Recently, he was the previz editor on the Netflix fantasy series Shadow And Bone. He is currently finishing up a horror film called The Windigo, which is due to be released on Halloween.