How do you edit a movie that takes place inside a whale? Academy Award winning editor Pietro Scalia takes us inside Whalefall, from the squid fight to that final note.
On this episode of the Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, I sit down with Academy Award winning film editor Pietro Scalia to talk about his work on Whalefall, the survival thriller directed by Brian Duffield and starring Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin and Elisabeth Shue. Pietro walks us through the transitions that bridge the real and the imagined, why some shots need to simply let the audience breathe, and how he told so much of the story with almost no dialogue. We also get into his own life underwater, what he learned working with Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott, why JFK and Black Hawk Down were the hardest films he has ever cut, and the Black Hawk Down scene Jerry Bruckheimer kept asking him to trim.
KEY TAKEAWAYS • How matching shot angles and breathing sounds bridge the real world and the imagined one • Why the long take after the squid fight lets the audience breathe with the character • Telling a story visually when your lead can barely say a word • What Pietro learned from Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott and the masters around them • Why JFK and Black Hawk Down were his toughest edits, and why he loves holding on a face
CHAPTERS 0:00 Teaser 1:43 Welcome and Why the Editing Stood Out 4:43 Balancing Survival With Father and Son 8:30 Bridging the Real and the Imagined 15:19 Fathers and Sons 18:19 Isolation in The Martian vs Whalefall 23:56 The Most Emotional Scene to Edit 26:30 Pietro's Life Underwater 31:03 Lessons From Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott 38:43 JFK and Black Hawk Down, the Hardest Films 45:30 The Black Hawk Down Water Scene 49:32 Visual Effects, Music and That Final Note
ABOUT THE GUEST Pietro Scalia is a Sicilian born film editor who has won two Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, for Oliver Stone's JFK and Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, with further nominations for Good Will Hunting and Gladiator. After earning his MFA at UCLA, he started out as an assistant editor on Oliver Stone's Wall Street and Talk Radio. His long collaboration with Ridley Scott includes G.I. Jane, Gladiator, Hannibal, American Gangster and The Martian, and his other credits include Stealing Beauty, Little Buddha, Memoirs of a Geisha, Ferrari and The Gray Man. Most recently, he edited Whalefall (2026) for director Brian Duffield.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G69IfZ7oQdU
Watch the feature films I have directed Citizen of Moria (Amazon & other platforms): https://linktr.ee/citizenofmoriafilm In Search of My Sister (Amazon & other platforms): https://linktr.ee/insearchofmysisterfilm Official website: https://jawadmir.com
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