Sundance 2025: How Editor Lev Lewis Crafted Cinematic Fever Dream “Dead Lover” on Premiere Pro

Sundance 2025: How Editor Lev Lewis Crafted Cinematic Fever Dream "Dead Lover" on Premiere Pro

Image Source: Sundance Institute, Photo by Sheridan Smith

Premiering on January 24th at Sundance, "Dead Lover" is a Midnight comedy and cinematic fever dream from director, co-writer and actor Grace Glowicki.

The film follows a lonely gravedigger (played by Glowicki) who finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

Editor Lev Lewis worked closely with Glowicki to create the film's colorful spectrum of creative influences - from disco to German Expressionism to sketch comedy to Bugs Bunny. Because the film was shot in only 16 days and almost entirely on a black soundstage with minimal backgrounds to differentiate scenes, Lewis relied on the fluidity of Premiere Pro to organize takes, streamline his workflow and bring this genre-bending, "cinematic fever dream" to the big screen.

How did you first get involved with this project?

I've known one of the producers, Yona Strauss, for a number of years and she contacted me to manage their dailies and put together an assembly-a small job, as Grace, the director, initially wanted to edit the film herself. Being a fan of Grace and Ben and the whole team, I accepted and quickly found myself quite taken with the footage. After the assembly was completed, I handed the project over and went off to do another film, but after a couple of months, Grace and Yona recontacted me to see if I would be interested in taking over the edit and I happily accepted.

Where were you when you found out you got into Sundance? How did you feel?

Finishing a Shabbat dinner with family/friends. It was wonderful news to receive, although I wasn't completely surprised because I knew the film was good and that Grace has a history with the festival. I think I was mostly glad that this project, which my intuition had been telling me was very good for almost two years, was also being received that way by others and was finding success.

How do you begin a project/set up your workspace?

Varies slightly from project to project, but generally I create broad folders/bins for Media, Scenes, SFX, Music, VFX, Graphics etc. In the past I would select my clips mostly from a Scenes bin, where I would have each take laid out in Thumbnail view and each clip marked up heavily with action, reset, cut and then additional markers for any moments that stand out to me. However, on "Dead Lover," the markers weren't especially important as they shot 16mm and therefore would immediately roll action and cut-unlike most digital productions which tend to start recording ages before they actually call action and will often do rolling takes. In the last year and a half, I've migrated over to selecting my clips from different timeline sequences demarcated by scene. In addition, I will get an assistant to create relatively thorough string-outs for the majority of beats.

Tell us about a favorite scene or moment from this project and why it stands out to you.

I'm partial to Ben Petrie's portrayal of a German man named Swimmer. If you've seen the film, you'll know what I'm referring to. There's also a moment early on where the two lead characters' hands grasp one another and Grace filmed it in a lovely tight shot. It's just very good and effective, and I always enjoy that. But there are lots of moments. I'm extremely fond of this film.

What were some specific post-production challenges you faced that were unique to your project? How did you go about solving them?

During production, the biggest technical challenge was scene organization. Because this was a micro-budget film with 16 days to shoot, takes weren't always slated perfectly. This is not atypical and is usually not that hard to sort, but adding extra confusion in this instance is that the film is shot almost entirely on a black soundstage with minimal backgrounds to differentiate scenes-plus production would consistently deviate from the shooting script. Making sense of an errant unmarked take or inconsistently marked take was quite the task and, occasionally I would use a clip that was meant for scene x in scene y. And, hey, every now and then I think that "incorrect" placement worked.

What Adobe tools did you use on this project and why did you originally choose them?

We kept things pretty simple and just used Premiere Pro. Within the program, we were able to manipulate our limited footage pretty aggressively. We also used some, admittedly, lo-fi effects like pulsating electricity from the video effects panel, which was helpful in just temping out what would be done more artfully down the line.

If you could share one tip about Premiere Pro, what would it be?

Set up your own quick keys. Do some digging through the keyboard shortcuts and just Google something quickly if it's not immediately obvious what it does, because there are many tools that are a little buried that I've found quite helpful. Also, don't be afraid to set up your tracks for precise patching. Other editing platforms force you into knowing which channel you're adding a clip to at all times, but Premiere Pro can also function like this, it just takes a minute to set it up and get used to it. Especially helpful if, like me, you use many audio tracks and don't just take the production audio mixdown.

Who is your creative inspiration and why?

In a micro sense, this varies from moment to moment. Broadly, it's the memory of all the times in my life that art has moved me-a feeling I can remember experiencing as long as I have memories and which I'm always chasing.

What's something tough you've had to face in your career, and how did you overcome it? What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers or content creators?

As an editor with strong opinions, control is an eternal problem for me. I get very invested in my work and, while I ultimately believe this investment is an asset, it's also something that I have to consistently step back from-and acknowledge that I am not the final decision-maker and that the glory or the shame won't fall on my head. I can't say I've fully overcome this, nor do I want to. I would say balance is the goal I'm trying to move towards.

As for advice for filmmakers, I would say vacuum up as much art as you can, live as fully as you can and try to make something that keeps you up at night. And, when you're editing, don't skimp on the sound work.

What's your favorite thing about your workspace and why?

This is my home office, but I also sometimes work out of a post facility or another production-related office. As for my favourite thing in my workspace, it's this long desk that my wife got custom-made for this strangely-sized room. I also like my La Marquise d'O poster and my framed Sideways ticket stub.

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