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Chris Nolan’s Inception.The director still believes in shooting film. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN Director Inception,The Dark Knight,The Prestige, Batman Returns,Memento STRENGTHS: “Time’s the big one. On the set, it’s always you against the massive financial clock ticking away, but in post you’re able to work with a much smaller team and you have the time to focus on actually making the film.” WEAKNESSES: “It’s always the limitations of the material you’ve shot.You somehow have to make it work. Can you still salvage the film in post if you don’t have the material? No.There’s no way.” OPPORTUNITIES: “I think 3D films are a huge opportunity. Technically it’s very interesting, but as a viewer I’m not sold on it yet. I think the dimness of the image is a big problem. As far as shooting goes, I think the post conversion process has a lot of potential. Right now, shooting 3D means basically shooting video with relatively low image quality, so I’m not interested in that. Film is still by far the best originating medium. But I do think the post conversion process has promise, if that’s what audiences want.” THREATS: “The biggest threat I see in post is the abandonment of film for inferior video formats. It’s a problem in production, choosing to shoot digital, but it’s an even bigger problem in post if you’re not printing from the negative to see what you actually pho- tographed. People keep saying film is dead, but I don’t agree. It still gives you the highest possible image quality.” OUTLOOK ON 2011:“I know it’s a cliché, but the only constant is change. People are always surprised by what audiences respond to and don’t respond to. Hollywood’s both ailing and healthy — as it always it. I just think it’s very exciting place to be working.” TERRY GILLIAM Director The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Brazil,The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Brothers Grimm,The Fisher King,Twelve Monkeys STRENGTHS: “You can fix all your screw-ups! (laughs). Post to me is the moment when I really get down to making the movie, as you’re dealing with image, sound, effects — the whole thing.The big one for me is the DI. It’s the only way.Why would anyone want to do anything else? I don’t want to see film projection anymore. I want digital projection, and DI is great! I don’t know how we even managed before.The great thing about DI for me is that you can fix your mistakes. Invariably when you’re shooting fast, you make little errors.‘Oh no, that’s a little bit darker than it ought to be.’ Now you can just bring it up.We did all the grading for Imaginar- ium at Technicolor in London with Paul Ensby, and he’s brilliant. He even saved some of the effects shots at the end since we’d run out of time, and we even did effects shots within the effects shots in the DI.” WEAKNESSES:“Having said all that, about being able to fix stuff, I never want to shoot — like so many people do — with the atti- tude of ‘We’ll fix it in post.’That’s a very bad attitude. But when you do stumble, you can fix it in post.The weakness is that, with cutting, for instance, you can cut a million versions and now a producer can get in and get their hands on it much more easily when you’re on an Avid than when it was a Moviola.The trick with the DI is to be a guy who’s been working on film, as I get bored with the process and I just want to get through it — because you can play around with it forever, if you want, and that’s bad too.You can get lost in the ability to do anything and everything.That’s the danger, and you really need discipline, or you just lose your way. For me, it’s always about trying www.postmagazine.com December 2010 • Post 23 directors