By Jennifer Walden
There’s a seemingly endless stream of TV series, so how does one capture viewers’ attention? With style. HBO Max’s hit series “The Pitt” has a signature storytelling aesthetic centered on movement, so the energy feels as restless as the emergency room in which it’s set. One episode typically picks up right where the previous one left off, so there’s a flow between episodes that runs through the whole season. It’s so smooth that it seems impossible that three editors work on one season. So CineMontage asked “The Pitt” Season 2 editors Mark Strand, Joey Reinisch, and Tammie Luciano to discuss their collaborative approach, how they match each other’s cuts from episode to episode, even as they work from different locations, to create a cohesive storytelling style.
Both seasons of HBO Max’s hospital drama, from creator/showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, follow emergency room staffers for one 15-hour shift, with each episode approximating one hour on the clock. The action unfolds in near-real time using long takes and minimal cuts, putting viewers in the trenches alongside healthcare workers in this chaotic, demanding environment.
Season 1 editors Mark Strand (recently nominated for the 2026 ACE Eddie Awards for editing “The Pitt” S1, E12: “6:00 P.M.”) and Joey Reinisch added editor Tammie Luciano for Season 2. Luciano and Strand had previously worked for executive producer John Wells, but “The Pitt” was the first show they cut together. Jumping into “The Pitt,” which Strand described as a well-oiled machine built from past collaborations, could be an intimidating experience, but Luciano said, “Joining the show was a welcoming transition, and I felt really supported whenever I had questions or asked for feedback on scenes. Since ‘The Pitt’ has a very specific style, I wanted to make sure my episodes aligned with what Joey and Mark already established.”
“The Pitt” editors begin reviewing the dailies during production, and have four days after the last day of shooting to complete their editor’s cut. Next, they spend four days reviewing with the director and another four days with the producers before the studio sees the episode.
Reinisch said, “It’s been 30 episodes in about a year and a half now, which is crazy. It’s like the old days of TV.”
Strand agreed, “It feels like we’re in Season 15, yet we’re in Season 2.”
The show’s editing schedule mirrors the fast pace of the ER in “The Pitt,” but also its feeling of synergy. Strand said, “Everyone is pulling the oars in the same direction. Showrunner R. Scott Gemmel ran ‘ER’ for eight seasons, starting on Season 6. All the writers, actors, directors, and DPs — everybody down the line is so good at their job that our editing time is used incredibly well. They know what they want and what they’re doing. It’s very efficient, so we’re not scrubbing through unnecessary shots.”
All three editors cut on Avid Media Composer 2025.12, yet they use different tactics to familiarize themselves with the footage. Luciano likes to watch the dailies and then organize her cuts by Act. When she’s done with a scene, it gets copied to an Act bin, and her assistant editor, Sarah E. Williams, then performs preliminary dialogue cleanup and adds sound effects to the guide track. Luciano said: “Sarah and I have been a team for about 7 years. We’ve built a strong working relationship and friendship. Having that connection gives us a shorthand that keeps things moving. We use markers to communicate specific notes or thoughts as we’re assembling our editor’s cut. After dailies are complete, we’ll watch down the cut together, take notes, and tackle the second pass — and repeat if there’s time. Our teamwork is what makes our workflow run smoothly.”
Reinisch, on the other hand, prefers the couch-potato method: Watching footage from the sofa. He explained, “I don’t want to lock myself into a train of thought before I’ve seen all the pieces because the initial temp bias is ‘this is what I thought of first, so this is obviously how I want it to be.’” To prevent that, Reinisch has assistant editor Ross Wooldridge put together a “viewer sequence” that has side-by-side cameras for all the takes. “Then I force myself to sit on the couch and watch the footage so I physically do not have the ability to get sidetracked and start cutting a scene before I’ve internalized how the scene is being constructed. This way I can’t assemble something before I know all the information,” he said.
For Strand, Avid’s ScriptSync tool provides the most efficient way to sort through shots. ScriptSync indexes all audible dialogue and syncs each source clip to its corresponding line in the script. Strand’s assistant editor Emily Merriman will group set all the bins and then use ScriptSync to organize the clips. “I like to have all that set up to really lock it in and call it done. It’s a lot of front-loaded work by Emily to get those scripts synced — all done very meticulously. So when I start my edit, I can click on a word and jump right to it in all the takes. I can see how the camera moves and the fluidity, and decide whether to use this take or that one. I find that essential,” said Strand.
“The Pitt” aesthetic is all about flow. Continuous takes keep the action moving, and dialogue happening off-camera motivates a pan or a switch to a new character. This creates a very fluid feel within the episode, and there’s a fluid feel between episodes as one hour rolls into the next during the ER shift. Luciano said, “Much of that fluidity comes from us thinking beyond our individual episodes. We all watch each other’s cuts since the last scene of one episode is literally the start of the next. Also, as we go through the notes process, a line lift or shift in performance in one episode could affect the tone of something in the next, so staying in close communication is important in maintaining that fluidity — not just stylistically, but for our characters, as well.”
Strand noted that the editors spend most of their days talking to each other about how to get that continuous feel. “How can my episode feel like Joey’s episode that feels like Tammie’s episode? I’ll watch Joey’s episode, and he’s doing something differently than I would. I get excited about it, and I might borrow that in my next episode,” he said.
The show’s consistency across the seasons stems from sticking to the style established in the pilot. But the show evolves just as the characters do. Strand said, “It becomes this amoeba of three editors working in conjunction with each other to create one storytelling style, which ends up being ‘The Pitt.’ It’s not that we’re all following one rule, but rather we’re trying to create rules in the same world.”
The show is set up on a shared Avid Unity system, so the editors can easily jump into each other’s episodes. They use a hybrid-work approach, giving them the freedom to work from home or in the editing suites at Warner Bros. Post Production facilities in Burbank. When editing remotely, they use Jump Desktop to connect to their Avid system on site. Luciano, who mainly edits at home in Long Beach, said, “Using Jump for working remotely is key for me because it saves me commute time, and I find that I’m more productive working from home.”
Conversely, Reinisch tends to work more often in the editing facility. “I can get second opinions from other people in the hallway, like Mark. The show moves so fast, we’re cutting so fast, that it’s nice to have someone else to bounce scenes off of or help me decide what to do for a scene,” he said.
Strand also finds that on-site editing has irreplaceable benefits. He said, “Fundamentally, being able to just open Joey’s door, or walk by, or go get a coffee and then pop in helps the camaraderie, the companionship and team building of it all — even just having our assistants in the same room. Plus, you can get your questions answered right away and collaborate on the show. We can go into each other’s rooms and actually look at the cut.”
For remote review sessions or spotting sessions, the team uses Evercast to collaborate with the directors and producers. Strand said, “I have even sometimes worked from Maine. Using Jump Desktop, I can drive my Avid system at Warner Bros. with everyone in the room there. I can use Evercast to talk to the producers while I’m running the Avid. It’s just as seamless for them.”
Producer Wells typically prefers to hold review/editing sessions in his office rather than in the edit bays. “John [Wells] likes to edit in person, so we bring drives to his office that run locally. We make sure we always have an updated drive for every single episode, so that when it’s time to do notes, we can just plug in. So while we can work anywhere via Jump Desktop, we also have to get really local when we work with John,” Strand said.
Reinisch added that they had a few work/review sessions while Wells was in New York — all without any technical issues, such as lag or dropout, thanks to Evercast’s NDI (network device interface) support. NDI functions as a camera source, so users can “Stream NDI” directly from Avid into the Evercast environment for high-quality, low-latency remote collaboration. Luciano attested, “The NDI support for streaming to Evercast has been useful.”
Shots for “The Pitt” are so complicated, the show has two script supervisors, Susan Youngman Hoen and Kelly Akers. One supervisor details what’s happening in the shots and how they evolve, while the other checks continuity and discusses coverage with the episode’s director. Strand said, “Our line pages are pretty standard: the scripted lines, and the opposing pages with notes for the scene. Theoretically, the scripted lines are represented when you do a ScriptSync. But I wish Avid would find a way to improve that translation because there’s information on the script supervisors’ opposing pages that can’t be put into the Avid script notes. So, let’s say there’s a line flub on line number 16. There’s no place to put in those line numbers in ScriptSync. For me, the optimal setup would be to look only at the script in Avid.”
As a workaround, Strand removes all the line pages from his script binder, leaving only the opposing pages. He explained, “I have my assistant put in some of the occasional line numbers, as reference. It’s more work for her, but I’m sure AI will take a lot of that off our plates eventually. And that may, unfortunately, be to the detriment of our assistant’s employment. But the goal is to translate all of the different film processes into the digital realm. The line script pages are the final frontier.”
The sound of the show is equally complex, with numerous characters mic’d up on set, dense dialogue laden with medical terminology, off-camera line deliveries, and dialogue leading a cut. Strand, who works with 16 audio tracks in his guide track, said, “There are so many characters, and if we were to unfurl the recordings, it could get pretty deep. Our production sound mixer, Von Varga, is very good at making a mix track, so I generally work with two dialogue tracks. But oftentimes, I will be replacing dialogue (as everyone does) with better dialogue from other takes as we move through the space to maintain some of those continuous shots, just to keep it visually consistent even though I’m modulating performance.”
The key to doing the best work on a tight schedule is making the tools work for the editor, rather than having the editor adapt to the tools. When Avid releases a new version of Media Composer, these editors find ways to make it fit their workflow. For Luciano, that means mapping commands to her six-button mouse to quickly navigate the Avid timeline, and using Avid keyboard shortcuts, such as Replace Edit, to improve efficiency. Since muscle memory makes for more fruitful work, Reinisch will spend his first editing day setting up the latest Avid environment to match the Avid system he learned on. He said, “I like to have the bins separate and floating, not all stacked up. I’m not opposed to learning the new ‘stuff,’ but given how fast we have to go, there isn’t much time. And while I couldn’t use another editing software at this point, I do wish Avid’s special effects offerings were more modern, more like how After Effects handles embedded sequences.”
Strand agreed, “We are all creatures of habit. Avid is so good at allowing us to have our own personal approaches to accessing our material. Its flexibility to allow me to cut my old way is really laudable. However, I do wish they’d improve their Title tool. I can’t make it work even though I’ve watched some videos. And I have to keep cutting the show, so that’s my priority. Maybe later on, we should get an Avid rep to come by the bay and walk us through the new features.”
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