The hit coming-of-age series Overcompensating brings a raw, riotous energy, pairing humor with deep emotional truths. Created by Scott King and Benito “Benny” Skinner, the series follows Benny, a closeted college student, and his friends as they navigate identity, friendship, and the many ways we all try to prove ourselves.

As part of our Well Versed series, we chatted with editors Todd Downing, ACE and Amelia Allwarden, ACE about keeping the creative flow, celebrating wins, and the moment they knew they had something special on their hands.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Was there a moment while working on Overcompensating that everything just clicked in the edit and you thought, this is the show, or this is going to be a hit? 

Todd Downing, ACE: I knew from the pilot. Once I got the pilot all together with every scene and all the music, I showed it to [Daniel Gray Longino], the director, and we were both like, “Oh, this is it.” We just knew we had something special on our hands right away. And you rarely get a show where you're like, “Oh, this is happening.” I think [Benito Skinner] saw that too. I sent it to him, and he too was like, “Okay. we've got a hit.” He just knew. 

Amelia Allwarden, ACE: Yeah, I realized that Overcompensating was really special when I got the dailies for the scene in episode two where Carmen and Benny are sitting outside of Domino's eating pizza. It's really funny and also connective and emotional, and I think their performances are both really good in it. And it weaves so nicely with the nuance of friendship and college and identity. I was watching those dailies and feeling so emotional and connected to those two characters. I still feel really proud of that scene. I was like, “Oh, I’m really working on something special that I am so proud of.”

What do you do to keep the creative energy flowing when you feel like you're hitting a wall?

Amelia: When I feel like I'm hitting a wall creatively, I always like to go on a walk, listen to music, maybe take a shower if I'm working from home—I feel like that always resets my mind. But just doing something away from the computer or having a conversation with my assistant editor and talking out a problem. You need to do something different than look at the same dailies or read the scene over and over again, at least for me. Something like walking around really kind of resets my brain in a way that allows me to restart the creative flow. 

Have you ever taken a big creative risk in the edit that you weren't sure would work, and what happened? 

Todd: When it comes to taking creative risks, I don't think there's one in particular I could talk about because I think that's just what you should be doing all day long. Some of them are a disaster, and some of them are like, “Oh my God, where did that come from?” But I feel like if you're not taking risks, then you're just painting by numbers. 

Do you have any funny or interesting behind-the-scenes stories from working on Overcompensating? 

Todd: We did our wrap party at Benihana, and everybody came. We were going, “You’re BennyDramaHana” because Benny's online name is BennyDrama, so that was a whole thing. There's a picture of him on his Instagram, I think, with his hat on. And then, didn't we have dinner once at, like, a Marriott Hotel in Burbank or something? We went to, like, the most random, weird places.

Amelia: On Valentine's Day.

Todd: On Valentine's Day! Like, Scott and Benny just picked the weirdest places, the least glamorous things we could do. And I think we went to a Marriott Hotel near the Burbank Airport on Valentine's Day, the four of us, to have Valentine's Day dinner. 

Amelia: And we all got the salmon special. 

Todd: Yeah!

Amelia: Also, when we were on the mix, I remember Benny would sometimes fill in some ADR. Benny's really good at impressions and different voices, so he would just go up to the mic and fill in so that we could fill out the mix. And one little kernel is that in the pilot, Todd's episode, when it's flashing back to Benny as the homecoming king, you hear a voice go, “Fuck yeah, Benny!” That's actually [Benito Skinner] just doing a different voice. So little things like that, we just had fun.

Todd: Yeah, definitely some Easter eggs in the background voices and stuff.

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