Editing the Oakland-Inspired Freaky Tales with Robert Komatsu

Today we’ll be speaking with Robert Komatsu, ACE about his most recent film – Freaky Tales. Robert has edited a wide variety of projects including series such as Mrs. America, American Horror Story, and Halt and Catch Fire along with films like Jobs and A Dog’s Journey.

Here he’ll be covering his time on Freaky Tales, delving into many of the unique technical and creative elements which makes the film a fun and interesting watch!

What is Freaky Tales? Tell us a little about the plot…

Freaky Tales is comprised of four interconnected stories that take place in 1987 Oakland, California. It has a lot of different elements, such as teen punks vs. Nazis, rap battles, film noir, the Golden State Warriors, martial arts, and 80’s sci-fi film influences. The unifying theme is underdogs.

The writers and directors of the film, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden grew up in Oakland during that time and mashed up these ideas to create this world. The film stars Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Dominique Thorne, Normani, Ji-Young Yoo, Jack Champion, Keir Gilchrist, Angus Cloud, and Tom Hanks.

How did you get hired to edit Freaky Tales?

Anna and Ryan hired me as one of their editors for the limited series, Mrs. America starring Cate Blanchett, and we kept in touch afterwards. I was in the middle of editing another show when Ryan texted me, “Do you have an end date? Asking for a friend.”

I found out that they were planning Freaky Tales as their next film, and after hearing about it, I was very interested in editing it. However, it was early days, and we discussed keeping each other up to date on the progress of the film and on my availability, if something else should come up.

As I was finishing my latest show, I received an offer for a project that was high-profile and had a lot of potential. So, I contacted Ryan and Anna for the latest news. While they said that Freaky Tales was looking more and more promising, they couldn’t guarantee it quite yet and they understood if I felt I needed to take the bird in the hand. I agonized about it and ended up turning down the other project, on the faith that Freaky Tales, which is what I really wanted to do, would go. And thankfully it did!

How did you prepare for the process of editing this film?

In the months leading up to principal photography, I kept busy.

I spent a lot of time researching scores that could be used for the film, including scores from 80’s films. We’re talking about a lot of John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream. I also researched a lot of 80’s recording artists that influenced 1987 Oakland, including Operation Ivy, Dead Kennedys, MDC, and of course, Too $hort, since our film got its title from his 1987 hit, Freaky Tales.

I probably went overboard in the research, entering every track into a massive database that sorted the cues into categories for different types of scenes, also specifying timecodes for anything noteworthy. But the work paid off during shooting, as it saved so much time in finding that right track for any given scene.

I started experimenting with different looks for the chapter titles as well, since our film had four distinct stories, playing with fonts and sizes.

Anna and Ryan asked me to cut together a few auditions so they could get a feel of the chemistry between two actors. This included pairing Normani and Dominque Thorne together, and you could tell there was something special there.

How would you describe the visual language of Freaky Tales?

Because our film has three different aspect ratios (1.33:1, 1.85:1, and 2:39:1), we had to commit to one specific “container” for all of them. Ultimately, the final DCP would have to be one aspect ratio, with all our creative aspect ratios fitting inside of it. We chose a 1.85:1 container, where the 1.33:1 aspect ratio would fit inside of it, pillar boxed with black on the left and right. The 2:39:1 aspect ratio would be letterboxed with black on the top and bottom. And of course the 1.85:1 aspect ratio would fit exactly inside the 1.85:1 container.

The chapter cards became a seed that developed much of our visual language. Originally, after each chapter ended, we would cut to the next chapter’s title card with a black background. This would then cut to the first scene of that next chapter, revealing the new aspect ratio. During our directors’ cut, we changed the chapter title cards to have colored backgrounds. We would cut to a full screen of green, purple, blue, or orange, which could then expand from 1.33:1 to 1.85:1, etc. We did this with the end of Chapter 1, expanding the 1.33:1 to 1.85:1 and then also at the end of Chapter 3, squeezing down the 1.85:1 to 2.39:1.

Once we came up with that, we had the idea of bringing back the animated characters of Lucid and Tina. When we finish Chapter 1, we iris out from the 1.33:1 live action to a 1.33:1 purple frame. Then, animated Tina and Lucid pop out of the iris, dance around, and push the 1.33:1 purple sides of the screen out to create the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. And naturally, they flip the audience the bird before diving back into the black iris. Because that worked so well as a chapter ending device, we decided to start the chapter that way too, with the animated characters on the screen as the chapter title fades on. They even add some graffiti to the chapter title.

Early in editing, we froze on Clint at the end of Chapter 3, as a punctuation mark for his last line of dialogue. As we continued working, we thought a nice nod to 1987 would be to make the frozen image transform into a frozen VHS image, including the glitches that would happen when you re-record another program over the last recording. Once we had that, we book-ended the chapter by starting the first shot frozen, with a VHS look, and then the image would start to play forward, the glitches would smooth out, and eventually the VHS look would become our normal film look as the camera slowly pushed in on Pedro Pascal. Now that we had the VHS theme, we put that look on our opening logos and the prologue as well.

Besides animated Lucid and Tina, we had animation sequences of Sleepy Floyd during his record-breaking performance against the Los Angeles Lakers on May 10, 1987. We would map out the action by editing with stock footage from the actual game and have meetings with our animation house, Crooked City, to discuss and brainstorm the camera angles to replicate that action.

As we started shooting, I had an idea I wanted to try, which was to show changeover marks at the ends of our reels, since our film was influenced by the 80’s. For those of you who might not know, film had these marks, two sets of white circles on four frames each, at the end of each reel, to indicate to the projectionist when to start the other projector, and when to change over from one projector to the other.  This was something I mocked up for my editor’s cut, and I didn’t alert Anna nor Ryan I was doing it. I wanted to surprise them.

After the screening, Ryan told me he noticed them and that he actually had the same idea, but had always forgotten to tell me about it (a director/editor mind meld). A side note about the reels is that instead of the traditional 2000 foot reels, for which a standard two hour movie would have around six, I broke up the film into eight shorter reels, which allowed me to have two reels per chapter. It seemed nicer to me to not have to mix the different chapters in a reel, such as Reel 2 having the last portion of Chapter 1 and the beginning of Chapter 2.

Tell us a little more about how the big Nazis vs. Punks fight scene came together…

Although this was a storyboarded sequence, we experimented a lot and evolved the fight throughout editing. The actual editing of the fight didn’t really change much and I originally put in the stylistic speed ramps in my editor’s cut that we kept throughout our editing process. However, we started to play a lot with the visual style. At the very start of the directors’ cut, Ryan and Anna wanted to try adding strategic freeze frames on impacts, with the actor frozen, but the blood continuing to spurt and fly. We did this three times, when an Asian punk gets hit in the mouth, when Nick slices a Nazi’s stomach with his bladed crutch, and when the lead Nazi, Troy, gets hit in the neck by Tina with her spiked bracelet.

While working in person in New York, Anna brought up the idea of “action lines,” graphically representing a hard hit or impact. I had an idea for that while we were working together in New York. I drew my version of an impact on a piece of paper, and Ryan and Anna liked it. I sent it to our VFX editor, Matt Steeves, who recreated it and made it vibrate on the shots we wanted.

For our first preview screening, we added a large graphic “BOOM” when the Asian punk gets hit, letting that grow even though we froze the frame, and we added a large “AAAAAAARGH!” from a Nazi. Rian Johnson, our VFX supervisor, hand-wrote those words. For both of these words, we let the words break the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. We also let Troy’s neck blood break the aspect ratio.

What’s going on with the unique visual theme of “Psytopics”?

Throughout the film, we experimented where we should see hints of Psytopics, the sort of “energy force” of Oakland, and how often we should use it.

For the Punk story, we added green glows on Tina’s spiked bracelet and also green energy hits as she uses the bracelet against the Nazis. We also added two green lightning strikes during this fight. We created a cheesy Psytopics company version of a green glow around the guru during the meditation video and also cheesy green eyes from the woman in the Psytopics commercial before Chapter 1.

For Danger Zone, we added a green lightning strike as they cross the street towards Sweet Jimmie’s where they had the rap battle, and we enhanced the microphone with a green glow, as Entice gathers her courage to start rapping. It was always scripted for the bus to fly away into the night with a green glow, reminiscent of Repo Man.

Clint’s chapter always had the least Psytopics, but we added a green tear fall from Young Antonio’s eye, which cuts to the green tear falling from older Antonio. It was always planned that Antonio would have a slight green glow in his eyes when he attempts Psytopics on Clint, and fails.

In the final chapter, we added green lightning striking the Oakland Coliseum Annex, which then glows green and we put in lightning for when Sleepy rides past on his motorcycle. We made animated Sleepy’s eyes glow green as he plays the Lakers. And it was always scripted that we would see the full green glowing eyes and rays coming out of Sleepy’s eyes for the finale.

Needless to say, there were other areas where we experimented with green glows and it was an evolution of which ones stayed in the film.

How did the end title sequence come together?

As we were editing, we would have friends and family screenings and eventually recruited audience previews. We didn’t have credits yet, but I wanted to try something (in my free time). I mocked up an end title sequence using the rough storyboards from the Punks vs. the Nazis fight, and also from Sleepy’s big fight in the finale. I color tinted the storyboards and used them for the main crew positions, starting with the directors and ending with casting.

Anna and Ryan liked it and we used it for our screenings. Eventually, they hired an artist who created fleshed out illustrations of our original storyboards and this artist of course, created new images based on Anna’s and Ryan’s direction.

For the main actors, I did a quick montage of selected shots featuring them, and then froze on an iconic image with their names.

Did you find yourself referencing anything from your time working on Mrs. America? 

Since Anna, Ryan, and I worked on Mrs. America, it was on my mind as I edited Freaky Tales. For the big punks meeting, to discuss the problem of the Nazis, Ryan and Anna shot a ton of footage since it was a long dialogue scene with a lot of characters. There were cameras that stayed glued on certain characters, in different sizes, and others that were handheld and would pan from one character to another.

In Mrs. America, the visual language of shooting the conservatives were classical camera moves or static shots. They employed a handheld look for the feminists. I felt the punks would be well served by using as many of the handheld panning camera moves as possible, to emphasize punk rock. It didn’t matter to me if half a character’s line was off-screen before the camera found him or her. It gave the scene a documentary feel to it, which was also emphasized by our use of a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and grainy 16mm look.

I helped create a signature style for the pilot episode of Mrs. America, in the use of split screens, which was then continued to be used during the rest of the limited series. We use two split screens in Freaky Tales. The first is when Travis is giving The Guy the background intel of the different Golden State Warriors players, while we also show Sleepy Floyd practicing free throws.

The second is during what we call the North Carolina montage. Sleepy’s mother had tried to become a vegetarian in North Carolina, which was difficult during that time. I created a split screen sequence of overlapping images of various foods that were readily available in North Carolina, all meat based. You can see the influence of Mrs. America in both of these split screen sequences.

What was the process like of working on the film?

We edited using a combination of working in person and working remotely. During dailies and for the start of the directors’ cut, we edited remotely, connecting through Jump Desktop and working in our virtual cutting room through Evercast. About a month in, Ryan and I flew to New York, where we joined Anna in person. Later, Anna flew to Los Angeles, where she joined Ryan and myself in Hollywood. After we locked picture, we all flew to Toronto for the mix and for the DI.

Technically, editing the film wasn’t very different from other projects I’ve done but it’s worth noting how we dealt with the rap battle and the musical number.

For the rap battle, we music coded the dailies with an additional timecode that matched the song’s timecode. That way, wherever I wanted to be in the song, I could easily zip down the dailies to that timecode to cut the shot in sync to the music. In addition, my assistant, Keven Pelon, made a rap super sequence with one audio channel for the song and 46 video channels where we cut in every shot in sync to the music.

Often when working with Anna and Ryan, I could easily go to any given point in the song and flip between all the video channels to show every shot choice for that section. We used the same strategy for the music video at the end, although we didn’t have to have as many video channels for that super sequence!

It must have been exciting to premiere Freaky Tales at Sundance, how was the reception?

We were chosen to be the opening night film and screened at the 1200 seat Eccles Theatre. The response surpassed my greatest expectations. Every time the crowd cheered, it was so thunderous that you’d miss the next lines of dialogue. As the lights came up, Anna and Ryan brought each and every one of us onto the stage to a huge applause.

This film is special for me. I also grew up in the Bay Area. Ben Mendelsohn’s character’s house where the finale takes place is literally minutes from my grandparents’ house. You can see it from the set. Not only was it a fun one to make, and a fun one to watch, but it reunited me with Ryan and Anna for a fantastic collaboration.

And now I’m excited that we’re releasing Freaky Tales to the world at large.

Wrap Up

Freaky Tales was released in theatres on April 4, 2025 and is currently streaming on major platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube and more.

Thank you very much to Robert for taking the time to provide some insights into his thoughts and processes during the production of this film!