‘Shōgun’ editors Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake on ‘a great collaboration and friendship’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Aika Miyake seemed almost destined to become an editor on FX’s “Shōgun.” After all, as a child Miyake grew up only minutes from the part of Japan where the acclaimed television adaptation of James Clavell‘s historical novel takes place. So perhaps it was only natural that Miyake’s invitation to work on “Shōgun” came via an unlikely source — a direct message on Instagram. “I really didn’t know how big this production was,” she says in a recent interview with Gold Derby. “I remember feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome. But actually this type of feeling actually pushes me to do a better job.” Watch more of our exclusive video chat with Miyake and fellow editor Maria Gonzales above.

Originally, Miyake and Gonzales were assigned different episodes to edit. It was only during the process that deadlines created the need for them to work together. Both agree that there was a unified sense that oversized spectacle would always take a back seat to the very human characters at the center of the drama. “It is grand and a big production,” explains Miyake. “But it’s really about the characters and each character’s journey.” Gonzales adds, “There were obviously going to be big visual effects components to the show, but they also spent the time on the really small details, the literal small details from the food to cutting fish or the more mundane things that people busy themselves with throughout the time.”

Part of that attention detail involved the language of the series. Many of the characters in “Shōgun” speak a more traditional, old-fashioned form of the language. “We would always say it’s like a Shakespearean form of Japanese,” says Gonzales. “People understand it but definitely don’t use it in everyday life.” Great care was taken to match the subtitles to each line, resulting in the choice of never having too many words on the screen. “It had to be concise but also in the spirit of the language,” explains Gonzales. “It was a lot of work and I think it probably is what added to the success of the show because hopefully it made it more accessible.”

Both Miyake and Gonzales are credited for their work on season’s final episode, “A Dream of a Dream,” which has been submitted for Emmy consideration in the Drama Picture Editing category. Gonzales calls the episode “a culmination” of the pair’s work. A highlight for Gonzales is the climatic final scene between Toronaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and the duplicitous Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano). “Our styles blended seamlessly in that scene and it was really something,” she says. “Honestly, at that point I couldn’t even tell what was hers and what was mine. It was really a great end point to a great collaboration and friendship that we developed on this show.”

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