By Jason Clark

Because of the intense nature of a drama series that unfolds over 15 hours in as many episodes, you might assume that Max’s “The Pitt” is made with that same frenetic energy. But editor Mark Strand (who is credited with more than a third
of those episodes, including the tone-setting opener) insisted the team was never beholden to time in the same way Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle), charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) and the rest of the staff of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center are.

“We paid a lot of attention to the fluidity and continuity of the time space,” Strand said. “But we didn’t pay a lot of attention to the accuracy of how the minutes fall within the hour. So if a character says a time of death is at 11:37 or something like that, I don’t know that it landed at the 37th minute of the hour. When I was cutting the pilot, there was an idea of, ‘How much of the traveling through space [in real time] do we want to spend with them? Do I really need to see them take the steps? Could it be four steps? Two steps?’ But I found that when you travel with people, certainly when the stories are continuing, that travel time added to the tension.”