Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1030364
www.postmagazine.com 17 POST SEPTEMBER 2018 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR with Cate's availability, so we had to race to design and build a lot of our big effects bits, like the vomiting pumpkins. So that was tricky. Some of the stuff we knew we'd do CGI, and we also had this sequence with some 20 automatons attacking, and I really wanted to design all that and have them look old and real and not just use green screen. So the art department and production design and so on did an amazing job given the short schedule." So you must have started integrating post and all the VFX immediately? "Exactly. Our VFX supervisor Louis Morin, who did Arrival, Sicario, The Aviator and Brokeback Mountain, is so experienced and creative, and he did a flawless job considering we didn't have a big VFX budget. We shot plates for everything, so if we had to do plate reconstruction it wasn't a big issue. We didn't do a lot of previs and animatics, as we just didn't have the money. We did previs on one sequence, which really helped, and I just storyboarded stuff like the pumpkins. But then, later in editing, we got a bit of money to do postvis for the pumpkins, as the studio loved it, so we were able to do more to the sequence and enhance it. The clock was the hardest thing to get right, and we really built the whole room where the floor falls out and there are all the gears, and I've never had to do anything like it before, with so many moving pieces. We had our lead, Owen, right there, with all these real teeth on the gears, and he's on a harness, and it was so complicated to build and shoot." How tough was the shoot? "It was tough because of the schedule, and the very first week we had to shoot two stunt scenes on two sets at once in this huge mansion. We had the lab and the solarium, and the only way to get from one to the other was down this very long corridor, so we'd light one and then race over to the other set. It got easier after that, thankfully, and our DP, Rogier Stoffers, did a brilliant job and it looks awesome. And we came in on schedule and budget in the end." Where did you post? "At Amblin, on the Universal lot, and we got to edit right across from where Spielberg edits, which was very cool, as we also had access to the screening room where I could watch the movie on a big screen every week, instead of just on the Avid. Then we did all the VFX in Montreal, because of the tax breaks, and then the VFX companies we used, like Mavericks, Rodeo, Alchemy and Hybride, are just amazing, and Louis's there and he's a perfectionist and so great to work with. Sometimes we'd do a little previs, and other times he'd go, 'Let's just rock 'n' roll and go for it.'" Do you like the post process? "I love it. Nothing's more fun than shoot- ing, especially when you have a bunch of hilarious kids running around, and we had such great energy on set and good vibes. Then you have the whole different pace of post, and I really loved working The automatons were practical effects. VFX were created by Montreal studios. Post took place on the Universal lot.