With so many important conversations taking place around representation in media and how we, as a community of post professionals, engage in our own dialogue, watching Never Have I Ever was both a hopeful and often ‘laughter through tears’ binge watch for many. Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher (writers and producers on The Mindy Project), the story follows Devi, a first-generation Indian American teenager whose story is loosely based on Kaling’s own childhood experiences growing up in Boston.

Applying his experience – including that in the editor’s chair– Kabir Akhtar, ACE, served as guest director on two pivotal episodes of the comedy series. In these episodes, he brought forward the juxtaposed tone of two very different narratives in which Devi (played by newcomer Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her archnemesis, Ben (Jaren Lewison) live out the same critical day of their high school experience, but through very different contexts.

“I love editing,” says Akhtar, whose editing credits include Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. “I always say that it’s the most important part of the whole process, though obviously I’m biased after 20 years in post. Even now as I’m directing primarily, I still feel the same way. Becoming an ACE member was a big honor, and with it I feel an even greater responsibility to advocate for editors than I already did. The more that producers and directors understand other departments’ priorities and struggles, the more they can empower them to be creative leaders. That’s what editors are (or should be): creative leaders.”

Joining Akhtar to work on his Never Have I Ever episodes were editors Jonathan Pledger and Christian Kinnard, who cut season 1 with Mat Greenleaf. All three editors previously teamed with Kaling and Fisher on episodes of The Mindy Project.

Akhtar, along with his collaborators Pledger and Kinnard, have all sat in multiple seats (including producer, director, cinematographer and writer) across sitcoms, documentaries, unscripted and competition shows. “I think editors should be involved early on, especially when I’m a guest director on an episodic series,” says Akhtar. “I know that it’s not my show, it’s their show. When I was editing a series, directors would come and go every week, but post would be there the whole season.

So I always want to get to know the editors when I show up to direct a show, partly because they know what the showrunner likes and dislikes, partly because it’s important for us to be on the same page as soon as possible, and partly because I think editors are not as visible in our industry as they deserve to be, given the massive impact they have on the finished product.”

Akhtar also urged the editors to come to set at some point “because again, it was their world, I was just living in it for a few weeks. I do try to send some editorial thoughts to post during the shoot, ideally trying to save them some time. As an editor, I spent a lot of time looking at dailies going ‘what is this shot for?’or ‘what happened to this dialogue after take 2?’ It used to save me a lot of heartache when I’d hear from set that the showrunner hated a certain thing that had happened in a scene, instead of me struggling to make a take work only to have it taken out later. Now, do editors appreciate hearing so much from a director who’s also an editor? I hope so!”

“There’s a lot of similarities in the approach to the shows [of Kaling and Fisher],” Kinnard relates, adding that he was in contact with Akhtar during production. “Mindy’s voice really comes across in both The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever. There’s a pacing that surrounds the characters in both shows where  problems come quickly at the main characters. I find there’s an innocence to how the main characters deal with those scenarios which is the fun of it and really relatable for the viewer.”

Adds Pledger, “I was an assistant editor on season 4 of The Mindy Project, working with the very talented David Rogers, ACE. He let me cut quite a bit and I would be in the room when he worked with Mindy so I got a pretty good feel for her tastes. The fast pacing, especially for jokes, was applied to Never Have I Ever in both cutting and performance. Fun and peppy music really helped set the tone for [the series], which is something brought from both Mindy and Lang.” He adds that editor Mat Greenleaf was also instrumental in setting the series’ tone. “He cut the pilot and has worked with  Mindy the longest so he really knows her style.

One of the nice things about working on a streaming project is you generally have more time to work on each episode which means you can actually watch all the dailies and play around with scenes.” Kinnard and Pledger also commend Akhtar’s collaborative approach, with Pledger saying, “Kabir is really good about letting you have your own ideas about which takes work best and how a scene should be put together.”

In helming the back-to-back episodes, Akhtar was able to offer a look into the similar isolation and pressures two kids with remarkably different family lives face while trying to impress their parents, peers and potential universities.

“I loved the opportunity to craft these two interwoven stories,” relates Akhtar. “We followed Devi in episode 5 and Ben in episode 6 through the same period of time [during their] Model UN field trip. There are a few moments that play in both episodes, but they had to unfold differently depending on who the focus of the episode was on. It was on their shared bus ride home, and in the school hallway as she talks with Paxton (Devi’s crush) that, as editors, we know even the slight changes we make in framing, pacing and reactions can have a large impact on a viewer’s emotional experience. I went into filming these episodes with that in mind.”

He cites as an example a scene during which they are on the school bus when an ambulance passes. “In her episode, it triggers a flashback to her father dying, then she snaps out of it and she ignores a notification on her phone that is relevant to what’s happened to her in the episode. But in his episode, the ambulance passes by, and it has no significance to him. He sees her ignore her phone, which also has no significance to him, so I designed the scene to play out in her episode with closer coverage on her and room for an onscreen graphic of the text message she gets.

And the same moment his episode plays from his point of view, showing her in profile instead of in her single. So even though we filmed them as one scene, certain angles were meant for use in only one episode or the other. I love how small details like that can make an audience empathize with different characters.”

Pledger expounds, “Kabir smartly shot with two cameras on both characters, one angle being straight on and the other being from each character’s perspective; that way both Christian and I would be using the same takes in each episode, although from the other perspective. By doing this I think the audience betteridentifies and understands the motives of Devi and Ben and how they’re experiencing things differently.”

Adds Kinnard, “I was able to see parts of what Jonathan had edited for episode 5. The episodes were block shot and we were cutting them at the same time. It really helped to see how the Model UN and the bus ride home played out from Devi’s experience. Kabir did a great job filming the crossover moments from Ben’s perspective.

You really feel Ben’s POV in the various moments and get a sense of who Ben is and what he’s going through.” Adds Akhtar, “But in episode 6 (the one about Ben), there was a different main character, a different narrator, and a different tone, so I tried to shoot it slightly differently while making sure it still looked like an episode of the series.

“Never Have I Ever is a very bright, colorful-looking show with a lot of long Steadicam moves, especially in the school scenes. [So in Episode 6] we experimented with some more static wide frames and a starker color palette, to show the lonely life of this sad kid. Ben does all these activities around the house by himself, and instead of letting each one play out in order as the script intended, Christian made a great call turning it into a montage and really making it more fun to watch, which made it even more sad that this character had to play these games at his house all alone.”

Never Have I Ever is a profoundly-inclusive representation of what we actually look like as a people. While the show can serve as a conversation starter, it’s certainly applicable to a broader audience looking for a solid comedy, as well as younger viewers who may find the material immediately relatable.

“This is one of the most diverse shows I’ve worked on,” says Pledger. “Both in front of and behind the camera. Having those perspectives in creative positions brings an authenticity and sensitivity to telling any story and especially this one. Thinking of episode 8, where Devi is riding home with [love interest] Paxton, I think Lang and the director, Anu Valia, had a much better intuition on how that scene should be put together, amping up the tension and excitement. They had those experiences to make that scene specific – that specificity shows itself across the entire series, which adds authenticity and truth, making the show that much more relatable.”

Adds Kinnard, “There were perspectives I haven’t had the chance to see portrayed on screen very often, like Devi struggling with her identity as a young American girl and reconciling that with her Indian-American family. I think everyone can identify with being that age, and embarrassed by being different, only later to realize how special and rich your background and tradition can be.

On top of that, we see Nalini, her mom, trying to straddle her identity in the Indian-American community while trying to raise a modern young woman.” “It was very special for me to be part of a project telling  a first-generation South-Asian-American kid’s story, because I was one too,” sums up Akhtar. “It was great to be able to finesse the authenticity of the storytelling, based on my own life experiences; I hope I and others get more of these opportunities as we move forward with increasingly-inclusive stories like Never Have I Ever.”