)
No Sushi signs editor Isaac Hagy
)
The longtime Hiro Murai collaborator brings an instinct-led approach to story, tone and world-building, with credits including Atlanta, Widow’s Bay, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Station Eleven and Chef’s Table.
No Sushi, the filmmaker-first post house built around acclaimed film and television editorial talent, has signed editor Isaac Hagy to its roster for commercial representation.
Hagy’s work spans some of the most distinctive film and television storytelling of recent years, including Atlanta, Widow’s Bay, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Station Eleven, American Vandal and Chef’s Table, alongside features including Waves and The Friend. His career has also encompassed music videos and collaborations with artists including Childish Gambino, Frank Ocean, Bon Iver and Bruno Mars.
Most recently, Hagy edited four episodes of Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, the genre-defying series that went on to win a record-breaking 14 Emmys. The project reunited him with longtime collaborator Hiro Murai, with whom Hagy has worked for more than two decades across music videos, television and film.
For No Sushi, Hagy’s signing reflects the company’s belief that the best advertising is entertainment, and that the storytelling instincts developed across film, television, documentary and music can help brands make work audiences genuinely want to watch.
“Isaac has an incredible instinct for tone,” says Alexander Jamieson, founder and managing director of No Sushi. “His work can be funny, strange, unsettling, emotional and cinematic, sometimes all at once, but it always feels coherent. That ability to build a world and guide an audience through it is enormously valuable in advertising, particularly as brands look for work with a stronger voice and a more genuine emotional connection.”
Hagy describes himself, somewhat jokingly, as a “footage whisperer,” someone tasked with discovering what the material wants to become once it reaches the edit. Once production is complete, he rarely feels beholden to the script or storyboards. Instead, he focuses on the footage in front of him and searches for the strongest version of the story hidden inside it.
“I think the most misinformed idea is that you take footage, chop out all the bad stuff and put it together according to the script,” says Hagy. “Editing is so much more about world-building for me. Once a project has been shot, it’s all about how to tell the best story with both the footage and all the tools I bring to it.”
Hagy believes audiences have become increasingly sophisticated at recognising when they are being marketed to and increasingly willing to tune out conventional advertising. For brands, the answer is not necessarily louder messaging, but better storytelling: character, emotion, pathos and an original point of view.
“The most important skill is gaining the audience’s attention,” says Hagy. “There are so many forms of media competing for awareness now. Pieces that have an original voice and an honest message are the most valuable.”
It is an idea that aligns directly with No Sushi’s belief that film and television craft has an increasingly important role to play in advertising. Whether the material is a television series, music video, documentary or commercial, Hagy sees the job as finding the emotional truth of the footage and using every available filmmaking tool to communicate it clearly.
He is particularly drawn to human stories that can be funny, heartbreaking, cinematic, strange or even deliberately ordinary, provided they approach those emotions honestly.
“Brands have the challenge of operating in a media landscape where viewers are very savvy and very critical of anything that feels too much like it is selling something,” says Hagy. “The trick is creating content whose value extends beyond marketing, making something that makes the viewer think, gets them excited and ultimately makes them feel.”
Hagy joins a No Sushi roster that includes editors behind The Bear, Severance, Shōgun, The Studio, Past Lives, The White Lotus, The Last Dance, Hacks and Industry.
His signing follows No Sushi’s recent announcements of Keith Fraase and Eric Kissack as the company continues to spotlight not simply the credits behind its editorial roster, but the individual craft, philosophy and experience each editor can bring to commercial storytelling.
