Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/47583
director's chair are so much tighter. For me, it's always about the content. I'd do TV in a shot if the right thing comes along." POST: Do you plan to keep shooting com- mercials? GILLESPIE: "Yes. It's a nice luxury to have because it's something you can just jump into for a short project and you get to work with some of the greatest DPs in the whole business and try out different gear. Like TV, it's going more and more digital now, and a lot are shot using the Alexa or Red or the Canon 5D, or a mix. "When I finished Fright Night I did a com- mercial for Verizon, shooting film, and to be honest, the whole crew was really surprised I wasn't shooting digital. It's all changing." POST: Is film dead? GILLESPIE: "I hope not, but it seems like Third Floor did the previz and a variety of studios provided the VFX, but Luma was the main house. POST: What were the most difficult shots to do? GILLESPIE: (Laughs) "The problem is, everything is more complicated in 3D.The sleight of hand you can do in 2D just doesn't work well in 3D.The effects have to be to- tally perfect because of the depth. So it was a very laborious, slow process." POST: Do you like working with visual ef- fects? GILLESPIE: "Yes, I do enjoy it, but the time factor is a killer. Sometimes it can take months to get a shot the way you want it. It's like watching paint dry. But I love the whole creative process and then getting the end result." POST: How important are sound and music to you? GILLESPIE: "Very, especially in a horror film.We'd throw all kinds of temp music at this, and gradually realized that traditional horror music was just too heavy for it, and too one-dimensional — it wasn't balancing the genres. So we knew the film just wasn't going to work until we had the right score, so we met with [composer] Ramin Djawadi, who scored Iron Man. He brought exactly the right tone and blend of gothic orchestral and contemporary electronic sounds to it, and designed specific melodies to go with Jerry and the other characters." [Todd-AO Hollywood provided the film's 7.1 mix.) POST: Did you do a DI? GILLESPIE: "Yes, Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 did it.We've collaborated for 12 years on commercials so we go way back, and I'm just so used to dealing with DIs. For Lars we just did a chemical, but doing a DI 12 Post • September 2011 was really important for this film. Obviously you get all the Power Windows you need to do all the anal detail work in a scene, like pulling something down a bit so your eye's not drawn to it. I just love the efficiency of the process.With the chemical, you have to come back, while this takes just seconds for the same result. On this we wanted to deal with very soft lights, and the DI gives you enormous range to get the contrast exactly where we wanted, and the whites as soft as we wanted." [Sonnenfeld used a DaVinci Re- solve in Company 3's stereo DI suite, where the colorist can wear glasses while grading the two streams. Company 3 also did the on-location stereoscopic dailies.] POST: Hollywood's gone 3D crazy it seems. Any interest in doing another 3D film? GILLESPIE: "I really loved shooting this 3D, although there's a certain way you have to shoot.You can't be as kinetic with the camera, you can't do handheld, but the way you're creeping along and building sus- pense really lends itself to the format. So as much as you gain from 3D, it also limits your exe- cution in other ways.Yes, I'd do another if it was the right project.You can't do The Bourne Ultimatum in 3D." POST: What did you learn from produc- it's on the way out. It's not even a cost factor but more of an efficiency thing.The big rea- son is post — so much of post is now all digital, so it just makes life simpler to go digi- tal the whole way through a project. It does- n't actually cost that much less, surprisingly, unless you're shooting a lot of film. But for all those reasons, it's definitely the future." POST: What's next? GILLESPIE: "I'm working on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is exactly what it sounds like — another wild mash-up of genres. It's a period piece and pretty wild in that all the sisters and Darcy are really well- trained in martial arts, so we'll have some big martial arts sequences. "(Laughs) I wasn't looking to cross over to zombies after vampires. It was just irre- sistible. It was a great book, David O. Russell Scary: Tatiana Riegel cut the film on an Avid system. ing and directing the Showtime series United States of Tara? GILLESPIE: "I think doing TV and com- mercials really hones your skills and overall approach to movies, because the schedules www.postmagazine.com wrote a great script, and I just loved the challenge of pulling off this mix of tones. It's the classic Pride and Prejudice story and it stays very true to a lot of the story points and dialogue, but it also has zombies, and I want them to be really scary. Right now we're starting to cast, so I'm hoping to start shooting by early next year."