Making Hollywood Funny Is Serious Business

Guest: Brent White, Movie Editor Have you ever watched an old comedy – and by old, anything made before 1990 – and found yourself a little disappointed? We’re spoiled, really, with how uproariously funny films are today. The laughs come faster and they seem engineered, somehow, to maximize the humor so that, at least in my case, leaving the theater with sore cheeks from laughing so hard is pretty common.  Well, the laughs are in fact engineered to be bigger. And that is Brent White’s job. He’s a Hollywood film editor and the guy directors turn to when they’ve got actors who do a lot of improvising on set. As the New York Times Magazine once said, Brent White is “the man who makes the world’s funniest people even funnier.” White is a graduate of BYU, and his film credits include Anchorman, Talladega Nights and the Ghostbusters reboot.