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August 2014

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www.postmagazine.com 17 POST AUGUST 2014 wrapped every day, as we spent most nights rehearsing and rewriting scenes. So the real edit happened later back in LA." Do you like the post process? "I love it, but I'm not like some directors in that I love all parts of my job — from writing and casting to shooting and ed- iting. And post is where you really make your film." Where did you do the post? "It was all done in LA. at Technicolor on the Paramount lot, and I'm doing the final mix right now, which is so exciting." How many VFX were there and what was involved? "They're mainly corrections and clean- ups. We did a few at Mr. X Inc., like a Lear jet composite we had to do for a 1964 model we needed, which seemed to be in short supply (laughs). My films don't really need a lot of VFX, but they are amazingly useful for stuff like that." Tell us about the audio and music; obvi- ously getting all that right was crucial? "Absolutely, and I had a great team of music supervisors, and of course Mick Jagger was very involved, as it was very important to him to get it all right. So what we decided to do was to first make sure which existing original recordings of James were in good enough condi- tion and quality to then sweeten and enhance. Once we had that list down — and he was so prolific, there was just so much music — I then determined exactly which songs I'd feature in the film. Then we did this combination approach, with Chad actually singing every single song out loud, along with James in the original recordings. So we have this mix of the two, so it looks completely authentic, because Chad's not lip-syncing — he is actually singing. There was just no way I was going to represent James' iconic and very specific voice by having someone else imitate him. So the vocal you hear is mostly James, and sometimes Chad, and we've spent a lot of time in post mixing all that and getting it all as good as we possibly can." How tough was it getting all the rights to his music? "Luckily it was all done before I got in- volved. Peter Afterman, one of our music supervisors, is in charge of the James Brown estate in music licensing, and Brian Grazer had been working closely with the family for 15 years, trying to get this film made, even while James himself was still alive. But when he passed, all the rights reverted back to the family, and that's when Mick Jagger and Peter secured them again and came back to Imagine Entertainment and partnered up." Did you do a DI? Are you a big DI fan? "Technicolor at the Sunset-Gower lot did all our color timing and helped with the visual effects shots, and Stephen Goldblatt was in New York on a shoot, so we did a lot of it remotely, with him in the New York office and me in LA, working online together, and it was pretty great." Did the film turn out the way you first envisioned? "Even more so, which goes back to my point about enjoying and loving every part of the whole process. The casting of Chadwick and the amazing job he's done elevated the whole film to a place where new creative ideas were coming to me ev- ery day on-set and then at night. So I had a great script, but it changed daily, and so the movie morphed into something else as we went. And that's the magic of making a movie and the magic of editing and doing post. The movie changes, and you'd be a fool not to be open to all the new ideas that bubble up all the time. I'm the director who literally cooks for my cast and crew every night, when we break bread and start tossing around ideas for the next day's shoot, and I love that pro- cess and collaboration." How do you look back on the huge suc- cess of The Help? What did you learn? "I learned — and it's true of any business — if you stick to your instinct and don't let anyone try and make you waiver from what your gut tells you, whether it's cast- ing, dialogue, location and so on, then the result will be great. And that's what I brought to this film. And I look back on the joyous time the cast and crew all had making it in the Delta, and recreating that sense of family, like a big summer camp. And I tried to recreate that in Natchez for this. That's my model now, to handcraft a studio film in the middle of nowhere. You really get magic that way." As someone based a long way from Hollywood, what's your view of the industry right now? "I think it's more than ever greatly affect- ed by consumer habits, and the fears of predicting what they are." What's next? "I've got a lot of different projects cook- ing, but I don't know which'll happen first. There's Peace Like A River, which I adapted from the best-seller three years ago, which I'm trying to get into produc- tion; I just signed on to do In the Event of a Moon Disaster, and I'm developing a film called Tupperware, which is basically about the woman who started the Tup- perware party, but who in reality began the feminist movement. It's a fascinating tale and she was way ahead of her time. So I've got a lot happening right now." Performances incorporate James Brown's legendary vocals, and on occassion, actor Boseman's too. DIRECTOR'S CHAIR

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