Evan Wise, ACE, On Crafting the Explosive Narrative of Chimp Crazy: HBO’s Most-Watched Documentary Series Since 2020

Evan Wise: To me, they are all very much intertwined. I think any good doc editor operating at the higher levels of the business is doing some form of all three of these things all the time, it’s just a matter of whether you get credit for it or not. Documentary editing is writing and I’m really glad to see more and more editors getting credit for that on their projects. I’ve asked for a writing credit many times in my career and have often been denied, so I’m very grateful that Goode Films recognized that all members of our post team were contributing to the writing of the wild story that is Chimp Crazy. If you are a documentary editor, ask for a writing credit. You deserve it.

Producing-wise, I think it’s also very connected with editing. When I’m putting together a scene, I’m always asking myself, “How can I make this better?” Sometimes a great answer to that question isn’t in the footage that you have, so then the question becomes, “What else can we get to make this better?”. From there it’s, “How can we get that?” and then “What shots/questions/moments/etc. do we need from that?”–now you are producing. They’re all just extensions of one another, so I don’t see challenges in balancing the different roles, except when I have to respond to too many emails.

PH: Chimp Crazy became HBO’s most-watched documentary series since 2020. What do you think resonated so deeply with audiences, and how did your editorial approach contribute to capturing that explosive narrative?

Evan Wise: First of all, we had an amazing story. If I just made a list on paper of what happened, that alone is really interesting. So when your story is this good, you kind of already know that the audience will like it, but in the edit we were always conscious of shifts in momentum and tone to help keep people engaged.
There’s a lot of dark material in this show and we didn’t want to overload the audience, so just when we felt there was too much heaviness, we’d move on to something else that was funny or weird or both. That could be just for a moment, or a full scene, or three scenes. This worked the other way too, if things were getting too weird or silly, we’d want to bring the audience back to a more serious place to remind them of the gravity of the story.

We were also very fortunate that we didn’t have to overstretch the material. For the first year of the edit it was pretty clear that we had three solid episodes, but only when we were completely confident in the story did we add a fourth.  So many docuseries these days are too long and lose focus, but we never had any pressure to drag things out or hit a specific number of episodes and I think this really helps keep audiences interested and fatigue levels low. 

PH: Your editing style often juxtaposes quiet, contemplative moments with intense, high-energy sequences. How did you apply this technique to Chimp Crazy, and how do you believe this contrast enhances the storytelling?

Evan Wise: I think this type of contrast enhances just about anything in life. If you took your favorite song and looked at the audio waveforms, chances are you will see sections with varying levels of amplitude. Zoom out from that example and look at your favorite album, some of the songs will be louder, or faster or heavier and others will be quiet, or slower. I try to mirror these ideas when structuring an episode (or even a scene) because I think this variation helps keep the viewer engaged and can help you accentuate emotions and feelings within the show…a sunny afternoon feels even better after a few days of rain.

When putting together Chimp Crazy, we had so many opportunities to change gears, so we tried to take advantage of that in the edit as much as we could. This was particularly helpful given our often dark material. You don’t want to bum out your audience for an entire episode, so you have to find places to take a break from that tone and mix things up a bit.

PH: You’ve had a long-standing relationship with HBO, working on acclaimed projects like Q: Into The Storm and The Anarchists. How does your approach to editing change when working on a politically charged series compared to something like Chimp Crazy?

Evan Wise: There are a lot of tonal differences in these shows, but my general approach is always the same: Tell the best story you can, as cinematically as possible. To me that means a few things: show, rather than tell; if you can say the same thing with less words, that is usually the way to go; have scenes build off of one another and always be escalating; look for ways to have scenes flow into one another, rather than start/stop/start/stop every time. 

PH: What was your process like in developing the narrative structure for Chimp Crazy? How did you and your team decide which moments to focus on and how to balance emotional depth with shocking revelations?

Evan Wise: Right away we knew Tonia’s story was going to be the driving A-story of the series. It had so many natural twists and turns and was constantly escalating on its own, so that would be the tent pole. Once we laid that out on paper, we started to notice themes arising: episode one was about love, episode two was danger/mystery, episode three was pressure and episode four was loss.

Now we could view scenes and stories through these lenses and try to bring everything back to these important themes, including weaving in our B-story lines to augment this. The horrific attack from Travis went to episode two, the building tension of Buck’s confinement went to episode three and then we were able to revisit both the aftermath of Travis’s story after he was killed and Pam’s quest for a new chimp after Newton suddenly died in episode four.

PH: Your work on Showtime’s The Circus garnered several award nominations. How does working on political docu-series like The Circus compare to editing and producing a wildlife-focused series like Chimp Crazy?

Evan Wise: Well, the practical difference between these two series is the schedule. On The Circus, we would cut an episode in five days (which is insane) and with Chimp Crazy, I worked for a little over two years from the first time I opened the project, all the way through color and mix of the last episode. So it was really nice to have time to breathe!

Creatively, I learned a lot from Circus that applied to Chimp Crazy (and really any project). Circus was my first time in the Supervising Editor role, and it taught me how to work efficiently with a team and also lots of tricks to really push a scene or episode to be that final 10% better than it was before, which I think makes a big difference. It’s often small stuff, like recutting the end of one scene and the beginnings of the next so that they flow seamlessly into one another, or removing a few pieces of extraneous dialog so the point is more clear. There's so much Circus DNA in everything I’ve cut since working on that series.

PH: What advice would you give to editors looking to move into producing and writing, especially on complex documentary series like Chimp Crazy?

Evan Wise: Chances are, you are already doing those things, you just need to be recognized, so my advice would be: ask for what you want. Of course you need to have the skills to back up a request like that and a good relationship with the person you are asking, but I’ve never gotten a credit bump or a raise that I didn’t ask for, so you really need to put it out there and be your own advocate. Prepare to be denied, but don’t let that stop you from asking again on the next project.

PH: Having received Emmy nominations and an ACE Eddie Award nomination, how do you personally measure success in your work, and what keeps you motivated to take on new and challenging projects?