Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/21561
director’s chair were harder than I expected, too, as it takes so long to do them. One problem is that there’s no real discernible rhythm to it. It starts very slowly and then as you get nearer and nearer to the end, it gets almost hysterical, which is where we are now.” POST: Where are you doing the post? APTED:“We’re based in offices in Soho, London, and it’s fantastic.We have five visual effects houses on it — MPC, who are doing most of the shots, FrameStore, Cinesite,The APTED: “Crucial. I’d never really worked with a visual effects supervisor before. Even on Bond it was pretty simple effects stuff com- pared with this. I’d done a few quite tricky vi- sual effects on Amazing Grace, and a bit on Enigma, but this was a trial by fire for me. Luckily, Angus is very experienced, and it’s a very close, important relationship as there’s so much money involved, and it’s a massive logis- tical exercise as much as anything. “We have nearly 1,400 visual effects shots, which is a huge amount.The biggest shock was just how long it all takes, and although I was way ahead of schedule all through the shoot, we still couldn’t seem to get ahead on the visual ef- fects.They take so long to get going. The first few months are very slow, then suddenly it goes crazy. I’d seen the last- minute panic on Caspian and I wanted to avoid it, but it seems endemic to the process. Maybe places only hire more animation labor and so on at the Five different London- based houses provided the almost 1,400 effects shots for the film. Angus Bickerton was the film’s VFX supe. Mill and The Senate — and four of them are within a five-minute walk, and so are the dubbing stages. It’s fantastic.This is the best post set-up anywhere. No wonder X-Men are moving in right after us.” POST: The film reunites you with editor Rick Shaine, who previously collaborated with you on several projects, including Amazing Grace, Enigma and Extreme Measures. Tell us about that relationship and how it works. APTED: “He doesn’t come on the set much, but he’s with me from just before we start shooting, and then he starts cutting while we're shooting. He was based at the studio in Queensland and we cut on Avid [Media Composer Nitris DX], and he cuts very quickly so I can see if we need to do any reshoots or get extra coverage while we're still on the locations. “I’ve worked with him for ages,we get on well and I like his sensibility. I set out to make this film as emotional as possible, which I felt was lacking from the other two, especially the last one, and Rick responds to that and cuts that sort of material very, very well. So we’re on the same page without having to discuss it too much.” POST: Angus Bickerton, whose credits in- clude The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, was your visual effects supervisor, and obviously plays a key role. 18 Post • December 2010 end — I don’t know. But here we are, in a big rush.” POST: What was the most difficult effects shot to do and why? APTED: “There’s a very tricky sequence of the sea battle at the end, which has been the last thing to arrive. It’s very heavily com- puter-driven, with all the water and the ser- pent and Reepicheep with the dragon and so on. It was tough to shoot, and we spent a lot of time — over 18 months — doing pre- vis on it, as it had to be so precise, as there was a lot of 2nd unit work too and we were all doing bits and pieces of it and needed to keep it all in order. “We had this massive real boat, but we did all the battle stuff in the studio, so we were in this sort of blue box with our big set, and slightly flying by the seat of our pants, as you didn’t really know what you were get- ting. All the stuff I shot and the 2nd unit was pretty minimal, and the real story was in all the visual effects. MPC did most of it.They did the serpent, the dragon and Reepicheep. Then other places worked on the water. Ba- sically we mixed plates of the real sea with CG water using programs like Flowline. But it’s tricky when different vendors do different parts of the same shot.” POST: Who did the 3D conversion? APTED: “We’re doing it at Prime Focus www.postmagazine.com here in Soho.We had 10 months to do it but you can’t get going until they see the ex- panse of the whole film with all the visual ef- fects. So the first three months were just plotting it and them getting their crew to- gether and deciding who would do what, as a lot of the legwork’s done in India, where Prime Focus runs a big visual effects opera- tion in Mumbai and other places. So they only really started making shots around June/July. Again, they’re basically prisoners to the visual effects’ schedule.” POST: Can you talk about the importance of music and sound to you as a filmmaker? APTED:“It’s so important, and composer David Arnold, who I work with a lot, came aboard at the start, even though then he had to wait two years to get going. Again, I don’t have to say much to him as we’re on the same page. Sound and all the sound ef- fects are very important on this as I’m creat- ing these surreal worlds. “The children visit different islands and I wanted each one to have a different look and a different sound, and in this fantasy stuff you have to create your worlds from the ground up.We’re doing all that here at De Lane Lea. I also want to avoid that trap with big films where they get so noisy and it be- comes tiring for the audience. I wanted with the music and effects to give it some variety and not just blast the audience out of their seats the whole time.” POST: You do a DI for 2D and 3D? APTED: “Right, and we built our own DI suite in the cutting rooms, along with a 3D screening room and a 2D one. It’s not that complicated doing both, except that for the 3D one you have to compensate for the loss of light when projecting.” POST: This is so different from your usual films. Did you like doing a huge fantasy piece? APTED: “We’ll see. Hopefully, I pulled it off. It was a big challenge and a chance I wanted to take as I’d never done anything like it before. So I thought, at my age it’s great to try something new. I learned so much about areas I knew nothing about, like all the visual effects, let alone 3D, which was a bit of an afterthought. Even though it was a bit chaotic, I do find these big films quite seductive. It’s thrilling to know there’s an au- dience out there waiting for it.” POST: What’s next? APTED: “I think I’ll do something much smaller.” POST: Will you keep making docs? APTED: “Yes. I do 56 Up next year. I re- ally love making documentaries, and I’ll al- ways keep doing them.”