Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1416119
Super 16mm on Arri, which I'd decided to do very early on when we hooked up with Macro, our production company." When everyone's trying to cut costs, wasn't that more expensive? "Yes, as there's barely any labs left dealing with it, so we had to ship all the dailies to FotoKem in LA, which wasn't convenient, but I really felt that the grain you get with 16mm and how it reacts to natural daylight was very important in making the film feel very visceral and real. So I just stuck to my guns." Tell us about post. Where did you do it? Was it remote because of COVID? "COVID very much affected it. I edited it mostly in LA with my longtime editor Reynolds Barney, and we also spent a few months in Hawaii cutting it, and we'd pretty much finished and were about to lock picture when COVID hit. Then, most of the rest of post was all remote, in- cluding the DI with colorist Tom Poole at Company 3, where me and the two DPs were in their LA offices and Tom was in their New York [office]. I did all the sound in New Orleans at Apex Post and spent a few weeks there working in a mask with all the COVID protocols in place. " Do you like post? "I love post, as you finally get to sit down and have time to think. Production is so intense and high-stress, and we only had a 30-day shoot to get everything we needed, but then post is where you can re-evaluate all the material and start actually finding and making your film. And stuff you thought was so important when you were writing it may suddenly seem redundant, and other stuff becomes more important as you dive deeper into it. Post is so fascinating, and we did post for about seven months. Obviously it's not ideal when you have to do it remotely, but we all adapted fairly quickly." How did you and Reynolds Barney work together, and what were the main editing challenges? "He was with us for the shoot in New Orleans, and I do a rolling edit so he's cutting as the footage comes in, and then we get together [on] the weekends and look at what we've got so far. We have a very close relationship and we're great friends, so we have long philosoph- ical conversations about stuff while we work — not necessarily about the work, but it all feeds into the work, as it gives us the latitude to think about the films in different ways. And I love working with him because it matters to him — it's not just a job where he clocks in and out. It takes time to find the film, and you need a partner who's willing to push and go there, and find the right balance of tone and pace and so on." Talk about the importance of music and sound to you. "I talked about the score with another longtime collaborator, composer Roger Suen, for years while I was writing the script, and he sent me tons of examples, and I also teamed up with someone in China to get the traditional instruments and sounds, so we all worked together. I wanted to capture the authentic sounds of New Orleans without it sounding like the stereotypical jazz. It needed its own identity, and a melancholy feel to it, and we did the sound and final sound mix at Apex in New Orleans, and we made sure that Foley captured the real sounds of the bayous. I didn't want it coming from a sound library. And we used local 'loop groups' to make sure it was all authentic — even the background chatter." There are a few VFX, like in the underwater sequences. Who did them and what was entailed? "Tunnel Post did them and they're all pretty subtle. I wanted them to be all un- noticed, so they didn't interfere with the naturalism, but obviously the underwater sequences had to feel a bit dream-like without going too far, so there was work there, and also the scene with the boat, where we added some water VFX. But most of it was the normal clean up of reflections and booms and so on." What about the DI? What was entailed? "We wanted to enhance the colors a little bit, but to also keep it all very naturalistic. Ante, Matt and me used a lot of natural light when we shot, so we wanted to make sure we kept the integ- rity of that approach and the docu-style look. We didn't want to heighten it too much in the DI. For instance, the scene at the bridge with the pink skies — that's pretty much what we actually shot. There was no need to super-enhance it, and Tom is such a master of his craft and so experienced, you don't really need to give him many notes. It turned out great." What's next? "I just finished posting the upcoming [Apple TV+] series Pachinko, and I just started production on my next film, about an Indonesian father and his rapper son. It's been pretty hectic." DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 13 POST SEPT/OCT 2021 The DI took place at Company 3. The feature was shot on Super 16mm.