Post Magazine

D I R E C T O R ' S C H A I R H OLLYWOOD — Although he may not yet be a household name, di- rector/producer Shawn Levy is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films, including What Happens in Vegas, The Pink Panther, Cheaper By the Dozen and the blockbuster hit Night at the Museum, have grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. Now Levy is back with Night at the Mu- seum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, which he both directed and produced for Fox. It stars Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Ger vais and Steve Coogan. Here, in an exclusive in- ter view with Post, Levy, who was still "ver y much in post" at the time of our chat, dis- cusses the challenges of following up the first film and his love of post and visual effects. POST: Successful sequels are notoriously tricky to pull off. So how did you approach this project? SHAWN LEVY: "First, we didn't agree to do the sequel until we knew we had a story that promised an even better film than the first. A lot of sequels announce their release dates before anyone even has a good idea. We knew we wanted to expand the scope of the franchise and deepen its themes, and when we got that right in the script, Ben and I committed to it." POST: What were the biggest challenges facing you? LEVY: "The big one was to always be vig- ilant in keeping the right balance between the technology and the content, between the spectacle and the story. So it was always about centralizing comedy and character, and letting all the technology and visual ef- fects serve that — not, as is often the case in sequels, the other way around. "This is also the most improvisational vi- sual effects franchise ever, to my knowledge, in that I storyboard for six months knowing that we'll likely throw out half our plans for a better, funnier idea that'll occur on set." POST: That can't have made it easy for your visual effects team at Rhythm & Hues? LEVY: "No, but I had the advantage that they'd done the first one and knew it was an improvisational culture on my set, and this time they freaked out a lot less when they saw us changing the plan mid-stream." POST: Where did you shoot? LEVY: "In DC, at the Smithsonian — the first film to do so — and New York, but the lion's share was done on sets in Vancouver." POST: Where did you do the post? How long was the process? LEVY: "We're doing it all on the Fox lot where we also edited, and it's been about 10 months so far, so it's pretty long." POST: Do you like post? LEVY: "I do, although I'm actually happi- est on set with my actors. But I love pulling it all together in post and editing, and I have a great father-and-son editing team — Don and Dean Zimmerman — who I love being around. They cut the first film. On this one they really split the labor 50/50 and they're both exceptional editors who bring different skill sets to bear, which I find very useful." POST: Tell us about the editing process. LEVY: "They were in Vancouver and managed to stay almost up to camera throughout the shoot. That meant that within days of wrapping I had a pretty pre- sentable assembly. I'd sneak up to the editing room on many a night while shooting, and give notes. So our very first assembly had a shape and quality that I've not had the lux- ury of before. It was a very polished assem- bly cut ver y early in the process, which meant I was really able to use the bulk of my 10-week director's cut to finesse and exper- iment and tweak the film. "I'm in the room with them ever y day, and on ever y movie I do is this: within the first six weeks of the director's cut I hold a secret, informal friends and family screening, people who can be trusted with both dis- cretion and candor. We learn from that screening and tweak the cut. At about eight weeks, I do a second friends and family, we tweak more. All of this means that by the end of the director's cut when I present it to the studio and a preview audience, it's not so much a learning tool as a presentation of a cut that's already been significantly vetted." POST: How important are the visual effects in this movie? LEVY: "Extremely, and again, they give the film its depth and spectacle. One big differ- ence is that there are many, many fully-di- mensional CG characters this time. They're not just creatures running around. They speak, they interact with the actors and play meaningful roles in the narrative. Therefore their expressiveness and photoreal-quality needed to be really superior." POST: How many visual effects shots are there, and how far did you push them? LEVY: "Our show has about 770 visual effects shots, and most of them were done by Rhythm & Hues. Cafe FX, Moving Pic- ture Company, Digiscope, New Deal Stu- dios, Digital Domain, Illusion Ar ts, A CG Company, Wildfire Visual Effects and Pixel Playground all did some additional visual ef- fects. But while all these shots give the film its spectacular backdrop, they still had to serve story and character. "We had early screenings with only 20 Shawn Levy: Night at the Museum 2 By IAIN BLAIR This sequel has 770 VFX shots, most supplied by Rhythm & Hues. While Shawn Levy is happiest on set, he "loves pulling it together in post and editing." 16 Post • May 2009 www.postmagazine.com Bringing the Lincoln Memorial to life was a chal- lenge for R&H, says Levy... "to create elasticity in the animation, but stone in the material and texture."

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